Jones Lang LaSalle took employees’ concerns about design into consideration when relocating to its new space at One Post Office Square in Boston.

When the managers of the Boston office of Jones Lang LaSalle – then Spaulding & Slye – decided the company had grown too large for their former space on State Street, they also decided that its needs had changed enough that a drastically different design was needed to keep the company up-to-date.

JLL hired architecture firm Gensler, which has an office in Boston. Gensler, true to its philosophy, did a lot of analysis of the firm’s State Street office, conducted interviews and sent out a Web survey that garnered responses from 80 percent of JLL’s employees.

That was in the summer of 2005, and JLL moved into its new digs at One Post Office Square about two weeks ago. But since that process began, Gensler’s 2006 U.S. Workplace Survey, which was released last month, has shown the architecture firm’s concept of engaging employees could be an important one for businesses seeking to design an office.

Despite results that show 90 percent of senior executives feel that a better physical environment would have a positive impact on their company’s bottom line, 46 percent of workers do not believe that creating a productive workplace is a priority at their companies. Forty percent of the workers who responded said they do believe that minimizing costs is the main reason behind their workplace’s layout.

One in five respondents rated their current physical workplace environment as being “fair to poor.”

But many executives do value workplace design as a way to recruit and retain talented employees, according to Kyle Warwick, New England regional director of JLL. In many industries – including commercial real estate – there is something of a shortage of talented employees, so many businesses look at design as an important factor.

According to the survey, more than 90 percent of respondents said the quality of their working environment affects their mood and attitude about their work, and 89 percent believe the quality of their working environment is very important to their sense of job satisfaction.

“In the coming years, companies will succeed or fail depending on their ability to recruit and retain top skilled workers,” said Diane Hoskins, an executive director at Gensler, in a prepared statement. “Therefore, the office environment is taking on an increased responsibility to connect people and support strong corporate cultures that engage workers hearts and minds.”

JLL executives found that the design of their new office was very important to employees after Gensler sent out the Web survey.

“It came through loud and clear that design does count for employees,” Warwick said.

One of the most important design aspects to the employees was that the office got a great deal of natural light. Innovation, flexibility and collaboration areas also were important.

The final product has been well received. The old office on State Street was designed more traditionally, with management offices around the perimeter of the building, and cubicles in the middle.

“We really did turn the design inside-out,” Warwick said.

The new offices – two-and-a-half floors in the Post Office Square facility – have low-walled cubicles around the perimeter and glass-walled offices for executives in the center of the building. The result is lots of natural light for everyone inside.

Freshening Up
According to Jeanne Nutt, a principal at the Boston office of Gensler, modernly designed offices tend to be more egalitarian in nature, rather than segregating the front and back offices.

Design started to change a lot in the 1990s when technology changed the way offices functioned. Now there is increased efficiency, and the ability for employees to be more mobile.

The design of JLL’s new offices also focuses on continuity. The company has five divisions, and interconnecting stairs join together different parts of the office. Informal meeting rooms also help people from the divisions work together. The rooms are in the corners of each floor, and employees are not required to sign up as they would have to for the use of a formal conference room.

The office also has new technology, like video conferencing, and infrastructure that would allow employees to go completely wireless in the future.

Gensler used colors that are brighter and more contemporary than those in the old office, he said.

“It really freshens up the space,” Warwick said.

Technology has become more important in the design, Nutt said. Although some employees do not need to do much more than e-mail an employee in the same building, they may have colleagues working on a project with someone in India. It also is important in modern workplace design to determine how many people will actually be working from the office. With more people traveling much of the time or telecommuting, that number is no longer always static, Nutt said.

Nutt was most surprised by the survey findings that pointed to the disconnect between the importance employers believe they place on design versus employees’ opinion on the same matter.

The survey estimates that companies would be able to perform an average of 22 percent more work if their companies had better designed physical working environments.

Office workers who responded believe they would be 21 percent more productive if given a better working environment, and almost half said they would log an extra hour per day under such improved circumstances.

“Businesses are waking up to the fact that the workplace is much more than just real estate and a means to house their people,” said Hoskins in a prepared statement.

Topping the list of employee grievances about physical environment were lack of space, too few quiet areas, uncomfortable workstations and bad layout and design. More than one-third of respondents said their current workplace design does not promote health and well-being, but healthy and secure working conditions are reported as the most important factors in an efficient working environment. Of the workers who responded, 62 percent said they have great respect for leaders who work in an open-plan environment with their teams rather than in private offices.