The Hidden Turnover Cost of Treating Office Space as Overhead ft. Morgan Mosher | Workspace Design Lab Ep. 17

Intentional workspace design may be the most overlooked retention strategy in business.

In this episode, Syl Vanderpark sits down with Morgan Mosher, Director of Workplace at Furngully, to explore how organizations can use workplace design to reduce friction, improve employee experience, and make better real estate decisions.

Morgan explains why planning around headcount often leads to overspending, how worker personas reveal actual workspace requirements, and why activity-based working frequently fails when organizations skip the foundational research required to make it successful.

The conversation covers workplace utilization data, employee surveys, mentorship-focused environments, hybrid work challenges, and the hidden connection between workspace friction and employee burnout.

If you're responsible for designing, managing, or investing in workplace environments, this episode provides a practical roadmap for creating spaces that people genuinely want to use.

Connect with Morgan Mosher:
LinkedIn
Furngully LinkedIn

🔗 Explore NovaLink’s product and process for effortless workspace design.

Workspace Design Lab | Healthy Spaces, Lasting Impact

📅 New episodes release every 2nd Thursday at 6 AM ET / GMT-4.

Join host Syl VanderPark as we explore ergonomic office design, modern interiors, and sustainable workspace solutions with architects, designers, and industry leaders.

Watch and subscribe on YouTube.

💡 If this conversation helped you reimagine what a workspace can be, share it with a colleague or client. Together we can design offices that support wellbeing, productivity, and lasting impact.

Produced by APodcastGeek

Transcript

Coming up...

Morgan Mosher 0:00

If your space is designed with intention for what you're doing, it's helping you rather than fighting with you.

Syl VanderPark 0:06

That's Morgan Mosher, Director of Workplace at Fernbelly, a New England-based commercial furniture and workplace design firm focused on sustainable utilization-driven solutions. Morgan has more than a decade of experience across commercial real estate advisory, people operations, and C-suite consulting. And she works with companies across the Boston market to design environments that genuinely perform for the people inside them. She is also the host of The Squeaky Wheel, a web series on workplace effectiveness, and the co-founder of the KETA Center, a southern Maine nonprofit.

Morgan Mosher 0:41

If you are supposed to be coming into your office every day and your docking station doesn't work, all of these things create friction in your day that eat away at just wanting to do your job. I'm here, I want to get it done, I want to have as good of a time as I can do because I'm here. I'm choosing to take time away from my family, whatever. I'm here, so it better be good. I better be doing good work, I better be enjoying my time there.

Syl VanderPark 1:03

In this episode, you will learn why headcount-based planning leads designers and facility managers to over-specify space and furniture and what to use instead. How even basic utilization data transforms specification decisions and can save clients significant money on both lease and furniture costs over a project life cycle. How to translate a data-driven, right-size workspace brief into an environment that is more ergonomic, more sustainable, and more genuinely human-centered. I'm Syl Vanderpark and this is Workspace Design Lab.

How real attendance data revealed a 55 person company needed only 35 workstations

Syl VanderPark 1:38

You've written about a 55-person company that only needed 35 workstations once you looked at real attendance data. Can you walk us through how that discovery happened and what it changed about the project?

Morgan Mosher 1:51

Yeah, sure. A big part of my job and what I do is people come to contact me and they're like, Morgan, I need some furniture. I need some desks. And they just start immediately talking about if they want a six-foot desk or a five-foot desk or if they want sit stand or you know, dividers or anything along those lines. And oftentimes I'm the first person in the room that says, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like back up. Back up, please. And I think, I mean, I came to furniture sort of organically. I'm not a furniture salesperson. I am not someone that uh represents a specific brand or anything like that. I'm really, I came to it as a means to an end to have the opportunity to talk to people about workplace. Um, I felt like especially after COVID, the industry was narrowing. It was thinning because it, you know, there's not as as much work out there as we would like. And so I I still have these great ideas. I still have these point of view. And I was like, well, how am I going to get in front of people? And then I saw the world of furniture still very much alive and well and hopefully doing better sooner than later. Um, and so I was like, okay, this seems like an opportunity that I can get in into in front of the people to actually talk about their workplaces. And furniture is just like the cherry on top, the means to how we get there. And so for this 55 person client that you were referring to, and it was exactly that. They came to us, I need a quote for these desks, and how do we get there? I come in and I say, Well, how did we get to this number? And let's really talk about that. And who's in the room when I'm talking to them? The first decision maker is probably not going to be the person I'm going to keep talking to throughout this project. I immediately asked to talk to someone at Human Resources to really understand what the goal is for the office, not just what are we doing, what is the function of our office, but also are we meeting here? What are the job functions of the people that are coming into the office? How often are they here? Um, and really dissect the individual user and start to build out worker personas about, okay, so you have 10 people in the office that are doing this type of work, and you have 20 people doing this type of work, and and and only 10% of those are coming into the office on any given day. So let's actually build a headcount analysis based on not just the titles of folks, but what they're actually doing. So then we can really take a deeper dive into the function and what that looks like from a furniture perspective, but also from a square footage perspective. If this person is sitting at their desk 90% of the day, their desk probably looks a lot different than the worker persona that's just popping down for emails in between meetings and spending most of their time in another space. It's funny when I talk to folks about that specific type of setup, they're like, well, then I need a lot less square footage. I always think that's an interesting assumption that they make from that, from that. Uh it's like, yes, you might need less desk surface for that person, but that person's butt is now in three to four different spaces throughout the office. And so you really need to account for them here, and then you need to account for them over there, and then over there, and a place over there. And so it might be more square footage, it might be the same square footage, but it just will look different than how you're actually designing it. Um, and that's in that example that you're talking about, that's sort of how it shook out. We weren't using less square footage, we were just using the same square footage differently for what they ended up needing.

Syl VanderPark 5:36

Just thinking, like, you know, we talk about carbon footprint and we're saying, okay, let's scale down. This is like worker footprint. Some people have a smaller worker per footprint compared to others, in a way, right? Because they they the way that they function, they they need different space and different stimulation and stuff like that.

Morgan Mosher 5:54

Yeah, and in in so many ways, in in light, in sound, what technology they need. Uh and for me, the one I need a completely different setup based on what I'm doing. So if I'm I'm not the best with numbers, if it's an Excel day for me, I need a completely different setup than if I'm doing a creative task or a collaborative task with my peers. And so thinking that the one size fit, I mean, we all everybody knows one size does not fit all, but it's so much bigger than that. And you really have to look at what folks are doing uh and what you want them to be doing, uh, because we also don't want to reward behaviors that you don't want them to be doing by giving them the tools to be successful in that skill. You don't want them wasting their time on administrative tasks, but then that's how they're spending their time. And you set up the set them up for success for those administrative tasks, then you're rewarding that behavior. And so uh we anyway, so yeah, that's a really big Yeah, there's a lot, lot, a lot to consider there.

Syl VanderPark 6:58

And I'm just thinking, you know, uh like in your house, you have different rooms for different tasks. Like, you know, the kitchen is very different from the bedroom, different from bathroom to, you know, all these places and stuff like that. Recently spoke with somebody who said it's more like a hotel now, you know, kind of feel rather than a home. But it is kind of kind of an extension of home and an acknowledgement that we we we do different work in different places and stuff like that for the most part. So it's interesting.

Morgan Mosher 7:24

It's that that third that third place mentality of that that's what your work should be. And I mean, your home metaphor is so great because you think about the HGTV is the reason why they say open concept homes became popular because they were better for filming. And that's why everybody was knocking down walls and all of this, is because HGTV started filming homes and they needed a place to put cameras. So they created the open concept home and then the pendulum swung too far. And if and now people are like, oh, I actually don't want to see my mud room when uh from my kitchen, because then I'm like trying to clean my kitchen and I'm looking at my kids' dirty hockey equipment or some, and so walls are slowly coming back in. And it's the same thing for the office, uh, is when you took away the intentionality of spaces and created this myth of you can do everything all in one place, it means you're you can do nothing well in any of those spaces.

Syl VanderPark 8:25

Yeah, yeah, it's too, it's too confused in a way or something. Yeah, too, too blended. Um it's interesting.

The planning assumption designers must dismantle before any project can begin

Syl VanderPark 8:33

When you sit down with a new client, what is the single most common planning assumption they are holding that you might have to gently dismantle before the work can begin? I think that's the whole thing of footprint.

Morgan Mosher 8:44

It is, it is the footprint and how they're really using their spaces and also not just from the workstations themselves, but meeting rooms too. I I like to do a whole meeting or whole work session around how your teams meet and what types of meetings you're doing. Are you white, are you whiteboarding? Are they creative meetings? Are they touchdown meetings where you're just getting everyone aligned? Are you all in person? Are you remote? Do you want them to be shorter meetings? Because if you want them to be shorter meetings, let's do different furniture that makes it not, you know, these cushy leather lounge chairs that makes everybody want to stay forever. Now that I am in the furniture world within the workplace space, but from a furniture perspective, I'm finding myself getting a little bit more frustrated with the process because I used to be closer tied to the brokerage. So in the very beginning of the process. And now I'm closer to the end and I'm finding that I might be having those conversations for the first time and it's too late. And I get frustrated of like, oh, we should have been having this conversation before you signed the lease because now we're not looking at the right square footage, or the walls were already built and we're making something work in a space where we're square pegging round holing, whatever the whatever the thing is. So that seems to be something that I'm trying to preach more uh with all of my content that I'm putting out there with my broker friends and people in in the industry is get your furniture and workplace folks involved sooner. So even if we're not going to be placing the order for a long time, it makes sense through and thought out through the whole process. And so that way, if we're having a conversation about how your team is doing meetings and you just found a space that's, you know, one giant boardroom and a tiny phone booth, and that's not what you actually need. We should know that from the beginning of the process. Or if we have to solve for it in furniture ways, we can, but ideally, it's all it's all part of a really uniform team that's all out at out for the same goal for the client of really making space successful again. Because I love getting together with people and I want people to love getting together with people. And but I'm also a mom and I want to get home to my family. So when I'm in the office, I want it really good and I want it productive and I want it to be-you want to feel good at the end of the day. Exactly. I don't want to feel drained, I don't want to feel like the space was working against me the whole time. Um, and that you got something done.

Syl VanderPark 11:16

You know, I was, I, I, I was saying to somebody, I said, you know, I can relax because there's a comment, oh, just relax. You know, it's such anxious times, right? In general. And I said, you know, I love that feeling of being the end of the day, and I and I can think back to how many good things I got done that day, you know. And and that's what gives me the good sleep at night. It's not that I'm a workaholic, but it is just helping to make the most of the day. And I love the idea of having all of the considerations of how people work best, all the aspects of that, you know, at the forefront of a design or at the forefront of, you know, building something or looking to lease something. And and I think probably a lot of people think at existing, oh, we'll make do with this or something like that. But yeah, you it's funny, you do need to spend that time to analyze and say, how are we going to function? And you know, that can be flexed according to spaces, right? But more or less, you you kind of need this kind of space, this kind of space, that kind of space. And I think there's a lot of room to for people to enjoy it more in a way, you know, because I think sometimes you're like, oh God, what am I even looking at when I go to look for an office? What am I looking for? But all of this kind of work in advance, I think, can really help with that and really make for smart decisions.

Morgan Mosher 12:37

Oh, yeah. It's a tool that you can use to put your values in the forefront. It can to uh whatever it is that you're trying to achieve, whether it's uh you know, collaboration or uh maybe you have a transparency value or something, like you can start using your physical space as a tool to actually achieve those goals. And when people suffer through crappy furniture or a space that doesn't fit or this doesn't work, we'll make it do. This is such a big investment. Why are we wasting it? And it's like, so like it is is your human experience or your the one to give up like that that I'm like, there's so many things like, yeah, the this feels like a silly space to cheap out on. Like and there's creative ways to save money. And I think that that's something that of course everybody has a bottom dollar line. But I often get the argument of, like, oh, well, I could hire an engineer for that, or that's two people on payroll. Yeah, but you already have 20 on payroll that should also have an amazing experience. And maybe if you build it right, they'll do better work with the outcome that's for you longer. Exactly. And it's so much so expensive to hire new uh the turnover rate, not just not just money, but also lost work and and and and knowledge, knowledge retention, all that. Exactly. It's an investment worth spending, both in time and and and money for sure.

Syl VanderPark 14:08

Yeah, yeah. Treating your employees like gold, it's a really great thing. What kind of range, like what size range? Because I I know when you have um like these mega buildings that are going up, then they they do invest a lot of time into all this thought as much as possible. And this was just a reference to a 55 55-person company, but do you do you do a a a wide range of companies?

Morgan Mosher 14:31

I think that comes from my background. So when I first started in this space, I I was working for uh a tenant advisory shop that did early stage venture back tech and life science. That's where I cut my teeth, is working with companies and you never know which one's gonna be the unicorn. You never know which one's gonna be the one. So you invest the same amount of time and energy into the, you know, series A startup as you do. I mean, I personally get more out of it the earlier stage they are because uh you actually can see a lot of the impact. Whereas some of the more corporate processes, you know, death by committee, death by committee comes comes to mind, or or thing the process slows to a point where you actually don't get to see your ideas come to come to light. Um, and so I do like the the startup mentality. I love working with founders. Uh and I think the reason I love working with founders is because they truly believe in their vision. And when they can start seeing their vision reflected in their physical space, and uh it it it's it's it's motivating and it's exciting. And um, and we get to be creative in a way, like there's usually a challenge that I have to solve, whether it's timeline or budget. They're like, oh, you won't be able to solve this, we have no money, or we you won't be able to solve this, we need it in two weeks, or there's some sort of uh that scratches my my creativity brain a little bit more than I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah, we want to bet. Let's do it and see what we can get done. Um, and and that I really enjoy.

Syl VanderPark 16:08

Yeah, and you're getting the essence when you're dealing with the founders, you're getting the essence of what the company is all about. You understand it more, kind of thing. And yeah, that is exciting. That's cool.

Morgan Mosher 16:17

Or this or the team member that's wearing all of the hats. That tends to be somebody I interact with a lot. That's the office manager and also HR and marketing and you know, that that first employee that's sort of doing it all. Um, they're you they're usually highly involved and um representative of 15 future employees, right? They might only take one of those things and run with it in the future, but they represent a piece of something that will become company intellectual property of this person's marketing idea becomes the marketing department. And this person, so you get you get to interview one person and it represents 15 future employees, which I think is really cool.

Syl VanderPark 16:58

Yeah, you enjoy being a real team player, you know, with them and and and helping them to achieve what they're they're they're they didn't even know that they could achieve, right?

Morgan Mosher 17:06

Exactly. And and watching them get excited. Uh, I have one client in the past that he was kind of he was a finance guy, so not super excited about the space. I'm spending money, he's trying to save money, we're you know, we're we're often like this. Uh but once he started seeing some of the install and then the impact it was having on the team members, or hey, the intention we set for this space, although it was different than I initially thought we were going to use it for, it's working and they're excited about it. And like watching a finance guy get really excited about a soft seating nook, like something that he would have thought wouldn't have been something to get him excited about. It's like, yeah, you recognize that it's it's not about a table, it's a table height that it that turns into how this is now good for meetings when you originally just thought it was this, or you know, yada.

Syl VanderPark 18:01

Yeah. Oh, it's it's it's interesting, you know. I think that's what it is. It's real and it's interesting.

Why activity based working failed and what it actually takes to implement it

Syl VanderPark 18:07

You have argued that activity-based working failed not because the concept was wrong, but because the industry sold it like furniture. What does it actually take to implement it well? And who in the product team needs to own that process?

Morgan Mosher 18:21

So I'm gonna go back to my friends in human resources. Um, and I think this is where it differs a lot. I think activity-based working, I I wrote an article about it way back in like 2015, 2016. I don't think it's open office isn't necessarily wrong, but we're doing it wrong. And that was sort of introducing the topics of activity-based working. It then turned into selling sexy furniture. Uh, oh, yes, we're doing activity-based working because we put a phone booth over here and we put a quiet car over here, and we did this here. But the pre-work of what does your activity-based working actually look like versus here's cut and paste of activity-based working that we're putting into all of these spaces, your team might not need a quiet car. Your team might not need that soft seating nook. Your activity-based working does not look the same as my activity-based working. So that work wasn't done. It was just this really pretty sexy furniture that just turned into spaces that weren't being used because that pre-work wasn't done. And then it wasn't owned by the right people. It was owned by facilities, it was owned by uh an office manager without the authority to tell people they're using the space wrong, which I know sounds naggy and I know that sounds annoying, but there needs to be someone in the space that is setting the intention of the space and then enforcing it. If this is meant to be a wellness area or a quiet car and somebody's on their phone, do you have the authority to go over to them and say, hey, get off your phone? This isn't meant for that, or you're using this space, the whiteboard has stuff all over it. You got to erase it so somebody else can come in and use the space. If they don't have the authority to do that, the space is not gonna use it the way it's intended to be. And once the flow gets there and once people recognize it, uh, setting intention for spaces is hard and it takes work and it takes uh that that habit around using the space for what it's designed for, then people will use it for what it's designed for because it matches the activities your team actually needs. It might be a little crunchy at first, it might need some adjusting if it's led with authority and with the proper intention from the beginning. I think activity-based working can be very successful. And we've seen examples of that all over the world where there are beautiful activity-based working offices that are done well because they were set with intention.

Syl VanderPark 20:46

I love that. This is the first time I've actually spoken about activity-based stations like this.

Morgan Mosher 20:52

Yeah, it it oftentimes, like in the more recent years, it really was just do we have different types of spaces and not really tied to the activities folks are working. And that's where those personas or your user group personas are really helpful. And then understanding how much of each you have, and then when those people are coming in, that's how you should start breaking up your office. So if you have a bunch, 90% of people that don't leave their desk, then why are you wasting money on these beautiful areas? So make their desks better, invest in better desks for them. They don't need the other spaces. So, like that, that is still activity-based working. You're designing for their activities. So I think that's where there's a big issue is they thought activity-based working meant you had to have it every activity.

Syl VanderPark 21:40

And that doesn't make sense. Well, well, well, that was it. You know, I was even I even said uh to my management, I said, Well, you know, what do you think? You know, because now if you look at trends, you say, Oh, should we have that kind of room and that kind of room and that kind of room? And I think it can become overwhelming um that you think you need to have it, but actually you don't. It just depends on how everybody works. Yeah.

Morgan Mosher 22:00

Yeah. And it's hard too, because then you'll get a CEO that just read a really cool article in Harvard Business Review that said, oh, well, we need this. And it so that's where data comes in. And maybe, maybe you do. Maybe that's an activity that you want to start seeing in your space, but just building the space does not create the activity. So you have to also support it with programs. You also have to support it with change management. And that's why the HR and training and implementation is so critical for its success. And it's not just, oh, if we build this, they will come. That's not true. You have to build the program. It's actually sustained with somebody with the authority to set it up.

Syl VanderPark 22:41

That's so fascinating. I love this. Is there a Pandora's box that you say, don't go there? Because that's just it's just gonna go out of get out of hand.

Morgan Mosher 22:51

It's very easy to get out of hand. And that's when I think your advisors have to have the confidence in their ability to future see in the future a little bit of like, oh, I know where this conversation is going to leave, and we are not ready for this project. And it could be this is a really interesting tidbit. Let's take elements of this learning and put it here. But this is a five-year plan, what you just talked about, versus, you know, this move in 12 months or something. Uh, and and you maybe you can start elements of the change management and the program implementation now. And so when you're when your five-year lease is up, your next space will be set up and begging for the space for that activity. But if but if your team of advisors and designers and folks around the room don't have the experience to have had a lot of different types of these clients or seen a lot of these different projects, to know that you're probably going to go down this road if we scratch this, then it will be uh, uh-oh, uh-oh, how do we put this back in the canon? Everybody's upset. Exactly, exactly. And that's that confidence to be able to say no or let's let's just steer the ship in the right direction. We're still advisors, we're still representing our clients. And so we want to do what they want to do, but they are hiring us to be experts and not just to to um do what they want or do what they say because it might lead to a whole other can of worms. Yes, yes.

Syl VanderPark 24:22

That's awesome.

What minimum evidence designers should gather without access to sensor data

Syl VanderPark 24:23

For an architect or interior designer who does not have access to sophisticated sensor data, what is the minimum useful evidence they should be gathering before they start specifying?

Morgan Mosher 24:34

I oftentimes do not have the ability to have really nice sensor data. I've seen some programs, this Steven says as well, that I'm just like, oh, this, this is like where data dreams go to uh because it is fantasia. It is a wonderful stuff. But I mean, realistically, there's there's not, I don't often get it. Um, I think surveying is really important. I think focus groups are really important. And I think on-site observations um and those combinations of three things can usually get you some good information. Um, and also one thing that I've talked about with sensor data, it also is only showing you in some instances what you have available to you today. So if if it says Sally from Finance is never coming into the office, it doesn't say why Sally from Finance is not coming into the office or uh Sally from Finance needs something else, or she would be sitting in this space so much, and it could just be something as simple as there's no outlet over there or something. And so it it only tells you part of the story. Uh so I think it's so it there's some really good ones. And uh, I wish I had uh access to that element for all of my projects, but uh you can also get that with surveying. I think third party, third-party surveying is so important because if your internal human resources team is asking about it, you're not gonna get true answers. Uh, but Morgan from Ferngilly, like they don't know who I am. I'm not I'm not part of their their bonus package at the end of the quarter. So tell me, tell me what you need and I'll try to get it and we'll and we'll see what that looks like. And then I love to do on-site observations and really see what that looks like. And oh, okay, so this meeting room is checked out, it's empty. Oh yeah, it's a re it's a recurring meeting that so and so put in and it's never, you know, it's never used or you know, anything along those lines. So I think the combination of that, you can get some true information.

Syl VanderPark 26:30

Yeah. When you go in, is it like a day that you observe or do you observe over the course of a week?

Morgan Mosher 26:35

It it depends on the project. Um, and like the times that they say are the most. There's been projects that I've sat on site for two weeks or the first making sure I hit the first Wednesday of the month as well as well as what a typical Friday might look like. Um, so it really does depend um on the space. And I love to work those in with focus groups. And then I also love doing like tactile voting, which I know seems so cheesy, but whether it's here's your row of task chairs and here you put here's your token, you put in your favorite for your favorite task chair, or here's some renderings, uh, and just getting folks really excited about the space uh tends to then you might not get really good information your first time around. But then when they start to build that trust and they're like, oh, I've seen you here, it's not inviting the opinions of everybody. Because as soon as you invite the opinions of everybody for every little thing, you know, the project's never getting done. But if you build that trust and you start really understanding, like, no, I'm I'm really curious. Like when you're on the phone, what do you are you are you on the camera? How long are those meetings or you know, whatever it may be? And and people really start giving you true information back that you can translate into the space.

Syl VanderPark 27:47

You know, it's not just a a quick thing, it's it's a it's a very like it's a concerted effort to really understand it's thorough.

Morgan Mosher 27:54

It's very thorough. And I'm not saying uh every project looks like that. Like that's not realistic. And and there's clients that I like, you know, that early stage client that's like, hey, I have two weeks and I have no money. We're we're probably solving for a lot of this with used furniture that you know isn't isn't anything sexy. We're not doing the full, full, the full scale of the project. But I'm talking about those steps through it. I would say this is normally when I might do something like this, or we in in a longer process, we might invite this. And so they start to understand what this full scope looks like. So when they're ready for their full scale office, that will be in their back of their mind. The last time we did this, they mentioned that they should be doing focus groups or they should be doing on-site observations, or nobody uses this conference room because those chairs are crappy and they hurt everybody's butts. And uh it's you start to take that information and realize that they should use it um for the future.

Syl VanderPark 28:49

Yeah. And, you know, and it helps it helps the company to kind of um get to know their company a little bit, you know, their people a bit more as well, you know, coach them along and uh get them in that mindset as well. How does getting utilization right upstream change the sustainability story of a project?

How right sizing a specification changes the sustainability and future proofing story

Syl VanderPark 29:09

Is there a direct line between right sizing a specification and reducing the environmental footprint of a fit out?

Morgan Mosher 29:15

It kind of goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning. It doesn't necessarily change the square footage, but I think it does create better use of the square footage. It future proofs your space longer. Um, because I think if you were to have say done utilization, didn't do the whole kit and caboodle, and you just said, I need 55 desks, and you put 55 desks in, but really you needed 30 desks and more meeting space, or you you tend to outgrow your space much faster. And then they're like, How are we outgrowing our space? We haven't doubled our headcount or we haven't done all this. And it's it's not that the square footage was wrong, but it was designed wrong for your users. And I think it just future-proofs you a little bit more. And then when you really start to understand your utilization data and your headcount and human resources being so part of this process, you understand where you're going to grow as well. So when that lever pulls and you say, okay, our headcount projections have uh our commercial team growing more than anybody else. We right now we only have one person in commercial. But if all goes to plan, we're that's going to be our team that grows the most. If we were to just copy and paste what they were doing, we wouldn't have built ready for the commercial team to grow. And that could look completely different if we, you know, if they were all marketing people or something along those lines. So it really understanding that allows you to be like, great, here's our plan. Maybe it's a day two plan. So you're not doing all the investment up front, but you have that information. So your finance team and everybody involved at the whole project can go, okay, we're ready to go on day two, and we have a plan for what that looks like. Um, but hopefully your day one and your day two can even be the same. And it's it's just all part of that really well thought out plan.

Syl VanderPark 31:03

Nothing like a plan.

Morgan Mosher 31:05

I love a good plan.

Syl VanderPark 31:08

Acoustic

Acoustics as an underestimated factor and the most common mistakes designers make

Syl VanderPark 31:09

design keeps coming up in your work as an underestimated factor in workplace performance. Where does acoustics sit in the specification order? And what are the most common mistakes you see designers make with it?

Morgan Mosher 31:23

Most common mistakes is that they just ignore it completely. Um, I think from a very basic perspective, a lot of acoustics is not pretty. Like having the most basic acoustics of having ACT and carpet, right? Nobody wants carpet and ACT everywhere. So immediately we're starting ourselves off with having an acoustics problem. From your furniture layout perspective, if you're having a like a room full full of people on the phone and video calls all day, and this is how you designed their desks, that's an acoustic problem. Uh, if just so I think your initial layouts can impact the acoustics. And then if we're backfilling, making sure we're thinking about having as much things to absorb sound as possible. Um, and then really smart placement of you know sound machines and sound systems. But of course, that's out of a lot of folks' budgets. But I think you can solve a lot of acoustic challenges by thinking smartly about where people are sitting for what activities. It's all gonna go back to that. Unfortunately, I if you really understand what sounds people are making, um, and they always said, like you what, you fight sound with sound. So if you're not absorbed, if you're the only person on the phone in this one section, everybody can hear what you're saying. But if everybody's on the same sort of constant hum, it becomes white noise or brown noise or whatever color you want to call it in in the background. Um, and so thinking about your activities, where they should be, and then not not removing function of office for aesthetics only. Um, I think that you see that again in so many, it's the HGTV effect of uh open ceilings with K13 is sexy. Everybody loves how it looks, but we need to also think about the functionality of the space. And nobody loves carpet everywhere, uh, but it's there for a reason. It's it's like saying you don't want outlets or you don't want trash cans. Like, yes, we still need those things. Yeah. So I think that's the biggest problem there.

Syl VanderPark 33:24

When a workspace has been over-specified and over-furnished based on headcount,

The telltale signs a workspace has been over specified and over furnished

Syl VanderPark 33:29

what are the signs a designer or facility manager will see in day-to-day use that uh confirm the problem?

Morgan Mosher 33:36

I see it so often when I'm touring a space and it's it's usually workstations, is where you see this. And there might be some that, oh, IT has never gotten to put up those monitor arms. I think monitor arms are the biggest tell of you have over-engineered your office. Like uh kids that they they haven't even gotten to that floor. You have a you have a stack of monitor arms that haven't been installed. So nobody's using those workstations. There's no plans for those workstations being used. What else could that space but could have been? Like it's it's it's a sad, uh, it's a sad, sad tell for me, but monitor arms are the squeaky wheel, if you will, to me.

Syl VanderPark 34:16

Or empty monitor arms. Like they're they've got the monitor arms, and you're like, where's the monitors? Let me put them up for you. Yes, yeah, it's seriously. It could be painful.

Morgan Mosher 34:29

It's not being used correctly.

Syl VanderPark 34:31

You've also written about designing for connection and friendship at

Balancing data driven design with the human ambition of spaces people want to be in

Syl VanderPark 34:35

work. How do you balance the data-driven utilization first approach with the softer, more human ambition of creating spaces where people genuinely want to spend time?

Morgan Mosher 34:45

Yeah, funny. I'm actually writing an article today. I don't think it will be out today, but the importance of mentorship and that and what that is does to the office and and uh how millennials, it's our turn to sort of step up and be the mentors in this space and and and we're competing for it with AI, which I won't get into that whole uh debacle. But I think again, that's the importance of understanding what you want your space for. And if HR is part of the process and being a big voice in the decision process in the in the room, that should be one of the levers, right? It that is one of the activities we should be solving for is connection, is mentorship for me. My really big heads-down days, I want to be home for that because I am a big connection person. So I will go and find an excuse to walk by your desk and have coffee with you, or like that is me. So I will go do that and then I will forget that I had three things due. And so it's very important for me to have the flexibility of doing the heads-down. We're party girl off the floor. Exactly. So, but I think if as long as someone in the process, one of the major levers that they are looking at is connection, is mentorship, is that transfer of knowledge that I think is so important. Like in industrial knowledge does not get shared well. I mean, you and I are having a great conversation now, but there was a company I joined. My very first meeting was a Zoom meeting. I hadn't been to the office yet. Uh, I get on five minutes early, and everybody's muted, just waiting for the meeting to start. And then the meeting ends and everybody hangs up. And I was like, well, it's my first day. That was my first meeting. How am I supposed to make connection with these people? Um, and I am such an advocate for flexible work as well as in-person work in all of this space. I want, I want both. I want the best of both worlds. Uh, but that that's when I realized that was not a space for me because clearly connection, mentorship, and institutional knowledge, uh like you can't learn through osmosis through a 30 seconds on mute before a Zoom call. Like, how am I supposed to get cultural norms or anything along those lines if that's the way it was set up? Uh, so as long as somebody on the project team agrees with that and is on the project team, that will be one of the activities that should be identified. And so then the spaces are designed and it and there. Um, and in my article that I'm writing out right now about that, is thinking beyond, like for my mentor that I have in my head in my article, she had a real chair in her office so I could go sit. It wasn't a mobile ped with a cushion. So I could actually go and sit and have a conversation with her and have a cup of coffee with her and learn from her. If she had a rolling ped that also had her shoes on top and all of this, I wouldn't go sit there. I wouldn't have had those organic conversations. I wouldn't have had that. So thinking about the future of mentorship and the that connection, making sure you have that real chair uh around the people that you want to mentor, I think are is is is critical for the success of that program.

Syl VanderPark 37:54

When you're finished your article, I'd love to read it. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I'll go get in touch. So you can you can send it to me where it is. Because that's important to us with all the changes. Um we're, you know, we're trying to work through this Zoom world and and and we're trying to say, but wait a second, we still need to meet and have that space across from each other to sort through all the details. Because, you know, if you feel like, oh you've got another meeting in 15 minutes or 20 minutes or something, so we gotta shift through this. But I think when you have in-person meetings, usually um maybe there's more space, more time, um, more openness for things to come out, the organic conversation, like you say, or something.

Morgan Mosher 38:40

So yeah, there's a little bit more grace for the meeting to officially start in in-person, where there might be a the five minutes of people gathering their coffee, their notes or or or something along those lines to uh rather than okay. I mean, you there's so many studies on meetings and and whatnot, that's a whole different, but uh allowing for that to happen, I think, is really important from a cultural perspective. Right.

Syl VanderPark 39:05

You can't really ignore people right in front of you, right? Whereas like on the on the computer, you can't. You can just go click, done. You you go, actually, I'm not ready to join. You're like, nobody's gonna see me today. Yeah.

What a utilization informed furniture brief contains that a standard brief does not

Syl VanderPark 39:18

What does a great furniture specification brief look like when it has been informed by real utilization data? What is in it that a standard brief does not include?

Morgan Mosher 39:28

When I have the full and I get to do everything that I've wanted to do in the package, it's not a surprise. The client has been part of this process, but uh, there's a lot of this is what we heard, and this is how it's translating into your furniture. Um, and so it kind of starts with each section like that. So this is the whole project brief. This is what we heard, this is what we saw, this is what we're doing with that. And that's how it, that's how it translates into furniture. Rather than you need 50 desks, here's your 50 desks. It it looks like you are built, you are a young collaborative team, you are trying to attract talent, you are looking for a mentorship, the and all of these things that this is what we heard. There might be three or four pages on just the project brief. This is what we heard, this is what we saw, and then that translates into each section. So uh we're looking for, you know, our meeting spaces where there are decision-making meetings. So it does this is your decision-making meeting room, and that's what this looks like, and this is how it's built out, and this is why it supports decision-making meetings. This is your teleconference meeting room, or and this is how it supports those things. And so again, it's it's it's looking at setting the intention, showing them how your space is then proving that intention and giving them the tools to actually take that information and then see it through on the other side because they understand it. If I just knew what they needed, because I've done this for you know 15 years, I've I've seen it, this is what you need, but I didn't explain it to them, then they wouldn't, they wouldn't use the room the way it was intended for, or, or or have the program set up for its success, or have the change management in place. But because this isn't a surprise, we've we've done this process, we've asked these questions, they've been part of this focus group. This is how you're gonna do it, this is how you're gonna be successful with it, kind of giving them a little roadmap for success, not just a furniture brief. We're not just you're not getting grade C fabrics or whatever. We're we're going beyond that. We're not, we're it's this, and here's why, and here's how you're gonna do it, and then your program for success in the future. We also do a lot of day two activation. So once you're in the space and and using it, that's when we come back and we're like, great, how how are you finding these meetings to be working? Are you are you seeing them do this or whatever it was that with the the initial brief was? And so if we need to help them redirect or or help them with the change management process or um any of that, the that we're here for the whole, the whole workplace process.

Syl VanderPark 42:02

Yeah. One last question. You write and speak a lot about the physical environment as a direct contributor to employee burnout and retention, not just a backdrop. How do you translate that argument into language that resonates with a client focused on budget rather than well-being?

Morgan Mosher 42:19

I think that does go to some of the things that we've been talking about, is that if your space is designed with intention for what you're doing, it's it's helping you rather than fighting with you. If you are supposed to be coming into your office every day and your docking station doesn't work and you have to find a monitor that actually you have a Mac and you want to go into a two-monitor screen, but your docking station's for PCs and only can work on one monitor. All of these things create friction in your day that eat away at just wanting to do your job and just want I'm here, I want to get it done. I want to have as good of a time as I can do because I'm here. I'm choosing to take time away from my family and whatever, I'm here. So it better be good. I better be doing good work, I better be enjoying my time there. And so my the physical space should help that, not hurt it. So if I'm having a hard time getting the technology in the conference room working, that's eating away at my day, that's stressing me out before my meeting, that's causing it's eating away at that. It's causing all of that little things that can translate into burnout so easily. So I just think there's so many ways that we as the workplace advisory team can support people to do and enjoy their time at the office instead of hurt them, get them better ergonomics, get them all of the things that they need to do to have a good day.

Syl VanderPark 43:42

Yeah, I spoke with um is it Colin Bury, he's at at Gensler in London, and um and he was talking about the frictionless office, and that's exactly what he was saying, you know, like try and make it so that you're not fighting, fighting the spaces.

Morgan Mosher 43:55

So we're fighting enough. We do we're fighting enough. I just want to be able to like to know how to use my lumber support, get on my computer and and call my colleague. And then also if I am not fighting that, it gives you more time to be like, hey, you have time to grab coffee before my meeting because everything else is working. So you're giving yourself space to actually have those connections uh rather than fighting with your actual space.

Syl VanderPark 44:21

Yeah, I mean it sets it sets up a good vibe. Like, you know, we you logged in, I was here, we could hear each other, we weren't having technical difficulty. We thought, oh my gosh, is this actually working? And I said easy. And it just, you, yeah, we didn't, we didn't get tired over that point. And I think it made the conversation perhaps flow that much easier. It was just an easy start, easy conversation, easy all the way through.

Morgan Mosher 44:44

So you think about that, say it's a new employee who it's their first time giving a presentation in a in a meeting or something. The amount of stress that, like that's a that's a scary thing. I'm talking in front of leadership for the first time or or some, and then your PowerPoint's not working to get on the screen, nothing kills your like your momentum like that. And that, oh sweating and everything bad's happening. Uh it's terrible. So there's so many things we can do to help everybody have a successful day at work.

Syl VanderPark 45:14

Yeah, awesome. Hi there. I hope you've been enjoying the podcast so far. I have been myself. Um we'll be taking a short pause over the summer, but I'll still be sharing moments from the journey, developments in the Novalink parametric contract furniture world, experiments in workspace design research, and the human story behind everything I'm building along the way. Welcome to Workspace Diary. Continue to follow me here on YouTube and on Instagram handle at workspace diary, and I'll look forward to staying in touch that way. Take care. Enjoy the summer. Thanks for checking out Workspace Design Lab. If you're an architect, interior designer, or workplace professional looking to stay ahead in ergonomic office design and modern workspace interiors, make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast platform. For more resources on sustainable office furniture and human centered workspace design, visit us at Novalink.com. Until next time.