The Leader - March/April 2009 - (Page 34) REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT FINALIST Saving Money through Real Estate: iWork at Motorola BY GILLIAN LUNN, TIM TOURVILLE, DEBRA MORITZ AND SUSAN WASMUND otorola Corporate Real Estate (CRE), IT and HR collaborated on iWork, a program to position its workplace as a benefit in terms of CRE money savings, flexibility and space utilization; employee productivity, satisfaction and talent retention; and imageenhancing by virtue of "living" its leading-edge products. Innovation is evident in the enterprise-wide collaboration built on culture, physical space and technology. iWork is enabled by Jones Lang LaSalle's innovative iPlan software tool that turns occupancy data into RE solutions by generating automated work profiles for individuals and business units. iPlan reduces cycle time, enables clear decision making, aligns job requirements with space solutions, freeing planners' time for higher value tasks. M iWork Motorola conceived of iWork as a crossfunctional collaboration that would provide strategic benefits to CRE, HR and IT. CRE goals included enhanced space utilization, the ability to grow the business without increasing the space footprint, and decreased churn and restack costs. HR goals included enhanced ability to collaborate within the office, greater employee flexibility to work in a variety of settings, increased employee satisfaction and talent retention. IT goals included participation in furthering Motorola's image as a leadingedge high-tech company and enabling employees to experience the company's products. A baseline analysis suggested areas where Motorola was strong and where it could benefit from improvement. On the plus side, Motorola already had a highly mobile, globally distributed work force and employees had access to a range of mobile technology. But the team also realized that technology tools and policies were not structured to match different levels of mobility, business unit leaders rarely gave up space regardless of utilization, and neither managers nor employees were trained to perform in a dynamic work environment. A key element of success was the recognition from the start that iWork must have enterprise-wide support. Prior to iWork, Motorola occupancy planners determined space requirements by interviewing business unit managers. This approach was compromised by individual managers’ expectations regarding function, entitlement and demand, which varied widely. Planners lacked control over information to counter managers’ claims. As a result, the process was drawn-out and produced inconsistent results. The iWork team aims to correct the problems by providing planners with accurate data for confident and efficient decision-making. Two factors enable this goal: 1) a thorough, multi-dimensional data collection process; and 2) the iPlan tool, which synthesizes data into automatically generated profiles of workers and business units. Information gathering takes several forms, including: ‡ Population Forecast Form (PFF) – HR and business units supplied data on current and projected headcount. ‡ Space Utilization Study – Planners directly observed and documented workstation utilization over a 2-week period. ‡ Work Style Study – Online surveys determined current employee work patterns and their preferences going forward. iPlan In the past, data collection would have been followed by weeks of analysis and organization of information into usable forms. iPlan enhances this process by automatically analyzing the raw data collected by the planners to create a consistent worker profile. iPlan creates recommendations for planners and 2 0 0 9 T HE LE ADE R 34 MARCH / APRIL
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.