Space | Knowledge Capture 3

Jean:    From a business plan, there are related issues, on of those being the retention of people. Is there a relationship between space and retention?

 

Ian Fournie:    Within the insurance industry, which is very old and conservative, there is a direct relationship between space and retention. You work your way up, become an officer, and get an office. You become a VP and get a bigger office. The office is the perk. Yet we no longer have space to support this benefit. With the last configuration, we tore down 21 offices to make room for workstations to fit more people. This is a big issue for people who have been in private offices for a long time. I have Senior Vice President sitting in workstations, just like their support staff. There are morale and identity issues because the way they do work is tied to the private office. They once could make conference calls in their private offices, which they can't do in their open workstations. We are challenged to keep people form leaving and losing our human capital because we don't have the real estate.

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