The consumer electronics major has experimented with a novel concept in office design at its new headquarters on the outskirts of Delhi.
There is something not quite conventional about the work stations. Smart, vibrantly coloured and youthful, they look new and spacious all right — but wait a minute, there are no drawers to stock files, documents and other office junk. For those who age at their work stations, a furniture nightmare worse than this cannot be imagined.
Actually, it is not a design deficiency and no, the carpenter did not forget to fix the drawers. This has been done on purpose so that no employee gets tied down to one spot in the office. He can move with his laptop to another corner or maybe another floor, plug in and get started. He enters a password on a handset and that becomes his extension. There are steel lockers in which he can stock his personal items. You could call it change of scene at will.
Philips Electronics India may have ceded the limelight in the consumer electronics market to nimble-footed Korean rivals, though it is strongly entrenched in the lighting and household appliances and has ambitious plans to grow its medical equipment business. Yet it has carried out interesting experiments in its new office in a Gurgaon high-rise — 92,500 sq ft spread over two floors (8th and 9th).
Called “hot-desking”, an increasingly popular concept in office design in the West, Philips' office is designed to give it the flexibility to expand its employee rolls without incurring huge additional costs in terms of office space.
Philips calls this experiment its global workplace innovation programme. Though a smaller pilot in a 50-seat office was carried out in Amsterdam, the Gurgaon office is the first full-fledged rollout anywhere in the world. Philips closed five offices in Delhi and its suburbs and two each in Mumbai and Pune to concentrate the work at the new office. The rent for the office space is Rs 70 per sq ft — the work was taken up in mid-October 2008 and completed in three months flat. The design was done by Adrianse, a Delhi-based firm.
There are about 500 employees on the rolls of Philips’ Gurgaon office, but fewer work stations, because almost 25 per cent of the employees on any day will be travelling to meet customers or other business associates. Employees work within “neighbourhoods” but do not have fixed seats. If they need to interact with another team is required, the entire set can move close to it.
An intranet is being put in place, through which any employee can book work stations or even one of the 35-odd conference rooms in the office. Clearly, Philips knows that in the days to come some employees would prefer to work from home and come to the office only when it is unavoidable. There are only 11 chambers in the entire office and even these can be used by all when the incumbent is out. Managing Director and CEO Murali Sivaraman’s room is raided whenever he travels.
There are also some 30 enclosed work stations in the office where anybody can work undisturbed. So that the employee gets full peace of mind, there are no telephone connections provided there, though the mobile phone works and so does the wi-fi network. There are about half-a-dozen “touch-down” points where employees can park themselves to work whenever they like.
Each floor also has break-out zones with a small cafeteria and beanbags thrown in for employees to relax or even hold meetings. The cafeteria on the 9th floor also doubles as a meeting place for a large gathering of up to 200 people. Screens fitted on the ceiling can be rolled down for presentations.
The building, 9B in DLF Cyber City, has used a lot of glass, enabling the company to opt for “light harvesting” and cut down energy consumption. It has put sensors in all the meeting rooms that switch the lights on when one enters and off when one exits. The savings, say Philips officials, are substantial.
Employee morale, ever since they moved to the new office in late January, is upbeat, says Vice-president (human resources) S Nagarajan. Some others mention that there was some initial resistance at flexible work stations, especially since some employees had put pictures of their families and deities on the tack board. Those initial hiccups, the company claims, have now been overcome. There is a dress code for weekdays (formals) but in keeping with the general spirit of the place, many employees can be seen in casuals.
The company had planned this move way back in 2006 and had sounded out its Mumbai and Pune employees. All future recruitment was done with the Gurgaon office in mind. At the end, over half of the 250-odd employees agreed to shift base. So that they don’t feel low in new surroundings, all employees have been given access to a gym across the road. Initially, some 50 of them signed up. Now, their number is down to 30. A fleet of 15 cabs ferry those employees who stay in Delhi and prefer not to do the long journey to work on their own. “A minor logistics company has come up here,” says Nagarajan.
