Expectations of new candidates and existing staff have shifted from an environment full of entertainment to a business environment designed for personal, professional and emotional fulfilment. Therefore, we have spent considerable time designing activity-based workspaces.

We don´t say that the new Johnson & Johnson building, that forms part of the Mechanica office centre in Jinonice, Prague, is our new home. Home is the place we share without family or loved ones. “We have, however, moved almost 1,250 employees working in the Czech Republic under a single roof,“ David Mansfeld, director of the Czech branch of Johnson & Johnson Global Services, opens our interview.

Johnson & Johnson workspaces where we enjoy working.

SPACES AND WORK ACTIVITIES
At Johnson & Johnson, we understand that having your own mug or photographs of your loved ones on your desk is not important. The meaning, purpose and way of spending our work day and with whom and why we do it is much more important. Thinking of my own experience makes me to realise that I have spent lot of time in my own office while all this environment was not necessarily pleasant and friendly.

Currently, myself and others can meet with people in shared spaces, in the kitchenette by the coffee machine, in lounges or shared work rooms. This is a great benefit since the information you receive through such occasional interactions is unique and coming from people who actually live their job and are in the core of all what is happening.

Changing the working environment is a big challenge. The company must plan it well and the people must get in line with such change. But how can be achieve that? To learn about the actual needs and wishes of our employees, we have picked some ambassadors from among employees who are with us for over three years. They are familiar with our needs, how we want to operate, communicate and cooperate.

Our people can choose when and where they work.

TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE
Modern technology is controlled by people. That may be the reasons why sometimes it seems easier to understand technology than people. We should be careful not to start managing the company according to some currently available dashboards. Yes, they can show us the results, but they will never tell us WHY. Specific results are associated with stories of people who experience good or bad times. If we make everything impersonal and assess and benchmark according to stock numbers, things will go wrong.

Currently, there is a mixture of two cultures in the building: sales and marketing managers and Global Service employees. Everything is shared with everybody, nobody has a fixed workplace or a corner office. David Mansfeld, director Johnson & Johnson Global Services

At Johnson & Johnson, we have modified the assessment system from WHAT you achieved to HOW you achieved that. We assess WHAT you deliver and WHAT are your competencies, but are interested also in HOW you are willing to share information with others. Information sharing has an impact on the corporate culture. Creativity, engagement, performance, responsibility and personal involvement shape the way you deliver the required work and whether you contribute to the development of others and follow the work of others. Simply saying, our aim is to appropriately develop the personality diversity and team cooperation.

Working in small autonomous teams that use difference experience of team members has proven to be the right way. People working in such teams think and
work differently (mindset shift). They understand that competing among each other and with other teams leads nowhere. They understand that cooperation is more productive than competition. They understand that the team is stronger than an individual ego. They are motivated to succeed in the team effort in so called created team. The creative teams come with new ideas promptly, effectively and comprehensively. This type of cooperation requires workspaces other than standard offices.

We are happy, that in cooperation with AV MEDIA we managed to develop activity-based workspaces where people can work together, feel good and share the corporate culture. As a standard, we have multi-generation, multi-culture, multi-discipline teams that need to work in the office, in the field or from home. To respond adequately to such flexible needs, we had to learn about and understand better the new communication technology.

„People at Johnson & Johnson see technology as essential tools supporting easy communication, cooperation and creative thinking. The technology usage rate is closely associated with setting of rules for why and whether a technology should be deployed in practice,“ David Mansfeld concludes.

Developing a work environment with an emotion will significantly improve the motivation, engagement and performance of people. It is proven.

Healthiest workforce by 2020. Focussing on the following four pillars.
The fist pillar is the “workplace concept activity base“, workspaces that support cooperation, sharing of ideas as well as undisturbed individual work. Such spaces encourage people to choose where they want to start working and where they execute and complete the work.

The second pillar is “healthy eating“, i.e. the canteen that offers healthy food. In addition, the canteen can be used for company-wide meeting or community activities.

The third pillar is the “healthy facility“ in form of a health centre providing free consultation or preventive medical examinations.

The last pillar is the “healthy movement“, i.e. active office furniture, such as adjustable desks, as well as exercises in the fitness centre, yoga or spinning lessons.