Discuss about the Apple Park ‘S Work Environment.
Technology utopias seem to be creating distractions for their employees in their work environments (Johnny 2017). This is put into perspective by John Gapper in his article on Apple’s five-billion-dollar campus known as Apple park that took at least seven to eight years to complete. It architectural ingenuity and designs makes it a marvel that other firms such as Amazon want to follow in its footsteps (Thomas 2017). The Apple park was designed to house over twelve thousand apple employees for the core purpose of improving innovation and productivity of those employees. The strategic design of the campus was not to house the traditional office setting where employees were separated by floor and small cubical within those floors ( Kim et al 2017). Apple viewed this setting as less productive and did not encourage maximum interaction of employees, therefore the solution to this problem was to come up with a futuristic open office building that will also showcase Apple’s objectives of being an innovation and technology trendsetter. However, it’s ironical that large firms such as Apple who can trace their origin from garage startups, want to reinvent employee activity and promptings professionals such as engineer to get up from their desk and intermingle for the purpose of idea exchange. Most firms view this, as a tool that will assist them in adapting to an ever-changing hostile business environment. Stefan Behling, the senior executive of Foster + Partners describes Apple park, as a building which is pushing social behavior in the way people work to new limits. This move has been heavily criticized by some of Apple employees, senior executives from other firms and john gapper where in his article, he terms it as a big mistake that is irreversible due to the heavy investment, artistic designs. time and money put into their aggressive most project so far. This brings the rise of four questions from the article that will be discussed in this paper in detail.
Apple park is now the headquarters of Apple Inc., it recently opened in late 2017 to its employees and the public while still under construction. This project is considered by many as the last ground-breaking project pioneered by Steve jobs who as the CEO of Apple Inc. before passing on. He is credited greatly through his input in many of its futuristic designs while still focusing on the going green initiative, moreover his last public appearance before the Cupertino committee where he convinced them to allow the ‘spaceship’ project to have a home in Cupertino rather than relocating to another area which would be expensive while they already had a presence there since the 70s .The apple park project was mainly designed to fit as many employees as possible where it currently houses twelve thousand employees in a highly sophisticated and innovated workspace. The building workspace was designed in a way that employee will have the ability to build a relationship with their colleagues and counterpart form different departments or teams for the core purpose of sharing ideas and identifying collaboration opportunities. The building is segmented into modular sections referred to as pods that will be used for office works, social activities and teamwork moreover it incorporated open spaces with long tables where employees sit next to each other and do their various duties. Every Apple employee regardless of the ranking positions will use these pods and open tables as their works building employee connections and improving mentorship opportunities, therefore, creating a conducive working environment. The main perspective of this setting differs from the traditional workspace where employees were separated by floors and cemented ranking authority in their business models, Steve Jobs saw this as a stumbling block in employee social behavior and their productivity (O’Donnell 2017).
The innovative strategy by Apple to change in employees’ social behavior by pushing them the out of their norms for the purpose of increased interdepartmental and team cross communication was not received well by some of its employees. Although its artistic and futuristic designs which are an envy of many employees from other firms especially in the Silicon Valley, it still meets mixed reactions even from its senior employees (Jennifer 2018). According to Rima (2017), he states in his article that some of the employees were so unhappy with the new open office layout that they revolted from working at the Apple park. This, of course, came as a huge surprise, despite the fact the huge sums of amount money, time and artistic work put into the new building. The disappointment and revolt mainly revolve around working in pods and open spaces with long tables. engineers and developers who were used to their private offices were mostly affected. The case was so serious that it even led to some of the senior employees such as Johnny Srouji the senior vice president of hardware technologies at Apple, demanding their own buildings for their teams citing that it will disrupt their productivity and working environment which will incur additional unnecessary costs to the firm. Working of long tables in an open space and use of pods was deemed destructive to their work cycle which led to some employees working at home during the night, where there is peace, quiet and privacy (Raziq and Maulabakhsh 2015). This shows that pushing and determining employees’ social behavior in context to Apple’s good intentions will be bound to no be fully successful.
The amount of effort and innovation put in the open office layout is definitely remarkable but what should apple and other firms do in the future to avoid such a scenario. First and foremost, it would be efficient to recognize that utopia tends to be tricky in the sense that collisions are not often enjoyed, moreover having their social behaviors and norms pushed or reinvented for the purpose of suiting the firm. It is true that firms would save money through open plan offices rather than constructing private offices but at the cost of the productivity of its employees who have human tendencies to gravitate. Therefore, it would be the best interest of firms to conduct a conducive research with and on its employees for the purpose of determining the influence and the various designs that would fit as their conducive working environment. This means that firms should be in a position to acknowledge that not everyone works in a similar manner. According to Gensler (2016), he conducted a workplace survey and came ta conclusion that employees are likely to be more comfortable and productive in firms that offer a different range of spaces that support different working styles. This further illustrates how Apple open workspace was not going to be fully successful since it did not support different working styles and it only offered two range of spaces the pods and that open tables.
If one thing that was automatically achieved by Apple park and initiative of Steve jobs is the trend-setting technology incorporated into the campuses that have motivated large cooperations such as Amazon in spearheading similar projects that would challenge the remarkable ‘spaceship’ project. A big influence that it has made in the technology industry is the use of renewable energy while respecting the environment around it which has gone in hand in reducing energy costs efficiently. This has been achievable through laying of solar panels in the campus which so far is the largest layout of solar panels in the world and storing that energy in the electricity grid that is used to power Apple park on a daily basis. The campus has also strategically and efficiently showcased the importance of conservation of the environment, almost 80% of the park is green. This has been achieved through transplanting adult trees all over the campus which has made it possible in propelling natural air conditioning throughout the campus which again, cuts cost effectively
( Bird et al 2017). This truly motivates firms to go green and maximize their ability in cutting costs Another influence on the tech industry is the ground-breaking boundaries in creativity and initiating artistic designs that initially saw tech industry shy away and follow the norms of its industry. Through Apple park, Apple Inc. has also made a signature move that showcases the length it’s willing to go for their employees to have an environment where they are motivated in creating of new products that would change and influence the world, this was Steve Jobs dream before he passed on and it has been achieved through the campus. Where firms such as Google and Microsoft seem to be emulating this
Conclusion
This paper has put into perspective John Gapper’s article on Apple’s new headquarters the apple park located in Cupertino and its new concept of a workspace. It has incorporated the use of open offices with long tables and floors segmented into pods where all employees, regardless of their ranking authority are required to use those spaces for the core purpose of creating a collaborating and mentoring environment resulting to the exchange of ideas from different teams. Initially, this was the main agenda in creating the project that came to be. However, it has not gone well with some of its employee who was used to the traditional setting of private offices and cubicles. they see this as a breach of their privacy and some have requested a construction of a new building while others prefer to work at home during the night. Solution to such scenarios could be the further research on what employee would determine a conducive environment for encouraging social behavior and also providing spaces that support different working styles. Apple park has largely influenced the technology industry through its ground-breaking innovation incorporated in the campus that makes it a trendsetter (Arocha 2017). Its initiative ongoing green has seen it come up with its own renewable energy through laying of solar panels that are used to power the whole campus.It was Steve jobs dream to build an enduring company that will focus on innovation of great products by providing an environment that represents the same, this was achieved and still continues to be achieved through his ‘spaceship’ (Kif 2014).
References
Arocha, J.B., 2017. Getting to the Core: A Case Study on the Company Culture of Apple Inc.
Bird, L., Heeter, J., O’Shaughnessy, E., Speer, B., Cook, O., Jones, T., Taylor, M., Ralon, P. and Nilson, E., 2017. Policies for Enabling Corporate Sourcing of Renewable Energy Internationally: A 21st Century Power Partnership Report (No. NREL/TP-6A50-68149). NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)).
Gensler. 2016. Gensler Releases U.K. Workplace Survey 2016 Findings. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.gensler.com/news/press-releases/uk-workplace-survey-2016-findings . [Accessed 21 April 2018].
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/tech-giants-like-apple-and-amazon-building-monuments-to-digital-domination-a-936095.html . [Accessed 21 April 2018]
Jennifer Ma. 2018. Why Apple’s New HQ Is Nothing Like the Rest of Silicon Valley. [ONLINE] Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/06/why-apples-new-hq-is-nothing-like-the-rest-of-silicon-valley. [Accessed 21st April 2018].
Johnny I. 2017. Apple Park: “It’s nice, though, isn’t it?”. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/28/jonathan-ive-interview-apple-park-campus-foster-partners/. [Accessed 19th April 2018].
Kif L. 2014 s. Meet Apple’s New Steve Jobs Theater and $5 Billion ‘Spaceship’. [ONLINE] Availableat:https://www.inc.com/business-insider/apple-park-spaceship-steve-jobs-theater-matthewl . [Accessed 19 April 2018].
Kim, A., Kim, Y., Han, K., Jackson, S.E. and Ployhart, R.E., 2017. Multilevel influences on voluntary workplace green behavior: Individual differences, leader behavior, and coworker advocacy. Journal of Management, 43(5), pp.1335-1358.
O’Donnell, A., 2017. When will traditional real estate catch up to the modern world? A professional services occupier view. Corporate Real Estate Journal, 6(4), pp.300-306.
Raziq, A. and Maulabakhsh, R., 2015. Impact of working environment on job satisfaction. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, pp.717-725.
Rima A. 2017. Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/10/apple-park-campus-employees-rebel-over-open-plan-offices-architecture [Accessed 20 April 2018].
Thomas S. 2017. From Apple to Amazon The New Monuments to Digital Domination; Technology giants in the United States are building bombastic new headquarters to immortalize their grandiose ambitions, while inside they plan to turn traditional office culture on its head. [ONLINE]https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/tech-giants-like-apple-and-amazon-building-monuments-to-digital-domination-a-936095.html [Accessed 20 April 2018].
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