-- Intro --
Chris Moriarty
Welcome to Workplace Geeks, the podcast that uncovers discovers and discusses the world's very best research into the world of work, and how we best enable it. Thank you for joining us once more on our quest to join their collective workplace dots. And thank you for the wonderful feedback for the Jack Niles episode. Jack, if you're listening, we had folks emailing us calling us messaging us about how inspired they were by your story. So, thank you so much for sharing it.
Even my dad who has very little to do with the guff that I chucked on about on here said he enjoyed the episode. So that's, that's the seal of approval, if anything, and so did amongst others, John Allgood, who shared it with his network on LinkedIn which earns him additional Workplace Geeks, brownie points as we try and expand our community. Although John, we're going to have to duck a couple of points there for not using the #workplacegeeks. And that's a nudge for everybody. Find us on LinkedIn, use the #workplacegeeks to share your thoughts and reflections. And of course, you could also email Ian and me at hello@workplacegeeks.org. So now that I've mentioned him, let's say hello to Ian and find out what research delights we have in store for this episode. Hello, Ian, who we got on the show today.
Ian Ellison
Okay, so we have got Dr. Harriet Shortt, who is an associate professor in organisation studies at the University of the West of England, in Bristol, or UWE for short. Now, Chris, I thought before we get started, and Harriet explains her areas of expertise, I just actually want to share how we came to know about her, which is actually a really nice story about random encounters and being inquisitive. Okay, so rewind back to summer 2015. I was doing this keynote about my then current research project. And that project was actually about participant led photography in two different workplaces. And I was doing it with 17 participants, both providers, and users of these two places.
Now, somewhat ironically, I was stood there expanding the virtues of rich, deep qualitative research at an event hosted by a firm, all about large scale quantitative data. But after my presentation in the queue for coffee, this industry commentator came up to me, he said, have you heard of Harriet Shortt, she's doing some really interesting work in this sort of area, and you should look her up. So, I did. And I discovered this fantastic work about the three things I was basically interested in them participant led visual research methods, space, and this French socialist philosopher called Henri Lefebvre, that I was really excited about at the time. Now, since then, Harriet's literally written v Well, a book on visual research methods with her longtime collaborator in all things visual research, Professor Samantha Warren, and we may well try and get some on the show at some point, Chris, because she's fantastic as well. But it just really wanted to kind of just, you know, had I not been there presenting had not bumped into that chap in the coffee queue. Maybe Harriet Shortt would have been on our radar and you know, she's not in our field. And everything that she does is ultra-relevant to making workplaces better. So, I'm chuffed to bits that she's on the show with us today.
Chris Moriarty
Magnificent cool. Thank you. Now, before we dive in, we must also make you aware of a Workplace Geek first, Harriet has earned the notable achievement of dropping our first naughty word. Now, it's worth noting that this is not a premier league naughty word, or it wouldn't have made the cut. So, it's like a non-league effort if you continue the football analogy. And to give you a bit of a clue, I would suggest it's related to bird waist.
Now, I'll let you fill in the dots and assess where, but this is one for the school run, or sometimes later. Although if you are listening to this on the school run, I would suggest your children deserve better unless you're training them up to be future workplace leaders each to their own. So, let's jump over to Harriet and we'll see you again on the other side where we call James for our pinder ponder.
-- Interview –
Chris Moriarty
Hi, Harriet, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast. Before we get going, just tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do.
Harriet Shortt
My name is Harriet Shortt, and I am an associate professor in organisation studies. And I'm at the University of the West of England in Bristol Business School, and predominantly, my role at UWE involves three things, one is research, one is teaching and learning, and the other is business engagement, and I guess the most relevant here would be my research work. And that focuses in on two areas specifically one is on workplace and space and people's lived experiences of the workplace.
How the material environment impacts their everyday lives at work in various forms. And then the other area of my research that I focus on is one that's on methods, so I'm interested in using visual methods predominantly participant led photography to explore organisational issues, particularly with regards to space and place. So that's what I spend a lot of my time doing.
Chris Moriarty
So that's, that leads us on nicely to the piece of work that we want to specifically talk about today, which is a toolkit for living in a new building, a visual post occupancy, evaluation of Bristol business school. So just tell us a little bit about this specific project. And just give us a sort of summary of the methodology and some of the findings before we dive into some of the detail.
Harriet Shortt
This was a really exciting opportunity and a really exciting project to be able to do some post occupancy Evaluation work. So, Bristol Business School is on the Frenchay campus, in Bristol, and is part of the UWE master plan projects for campus development. And so, in 2017, we opened the doors to this new fabulous 55-million-pound building. And it was a flagship space to attract students’ home and international, facilitate links with businesses encourage collaboration and have collaborative spaces for everyone to work together. And that would be students, staff and our visitors. So, the architects of the buildings drive trickle down, and ISG, the construction company, were part of this big project. And they had heard from one of my colleagues about some of the work that I do, and that was my colleagues that explores the lived experience of workplace and we had a meeting about how a post occupancy evaluation could be designed for this building, to really think about a more sensory, emotional, a more human understanding of the experience of the building once people had moved in.
And this meeting was sort of within 2017, I think, and then we launched the project in 2018. So, people had been in the building around a year before we launched the project. But strides and ISG, were really interested in how we could create a more emotional, personal understanding of the subjective experience of users type of POA rather than the traditional POA. So, we talked to them about how we might do that. And they were really interested in visual methods. And I talk to them about the participant led photography approach that I use in a lot of my projects. And then sort of interesting challenge was posed where normally I would sample within an organisation, right, I would go and work at the environment agency, or I'd go work in in hairdressing salon or in a hospital or something like that.
And I would talk to gatekeepers of that project about who is going to be part of that, that sample and who's going to participate in the research. But for this stride in ISG, we're keen to include everybody, so all users so all students or staff or visitors were welcome to contribute somehow to this project. And that posed an interesting challenge in the sense that we couldn't we couldn't ask people to take photographs and interview them like we normally would. So what other tool could we use? So, we were thinking about the advances that are being made in research methods using social media platforms.
And of course, Instagram, is a visually led social media platform. So, we designed this particular project to be one that where we would invite users, so staff, students and visitors to take photographs, based on two questions. One, how do you feel about the building? And two? How are you using a building and ask them to post a picture, and a caption of what that picture means, on Instagram using a dedicated hashtag, we set up a dedicated email account as well, we asked people to take photographs, and just send us their images on email, with a caption or a description about what those photographs mean.
And then yeah, we launched the projects with lots of social media and promotion, we had some lovely promotional postcards made and put all over the building and all over the campus and big pop up posters and stuff, then events and a live artists came and did some cool illustration of the building. And that really engaged people in the big atrium space. So yeah, just encourage people to take part and that project was over the course of 12 months. So, strides and ISG were interested in that sort of lifecycle of the building. Because obviously, university buildings ebb and flow quite dramatically, in terms of usage.
Ian Ellison
So, ISG heard about you heard about you, as somebody who could contribute something from within the project from when the within the business school within the user base, essentially, why did they want to do something different to a normal POE and what's the problem with as you saw it? What's the problem with normal POE’s and the way that the industry goes about stuff?
Harriet Shortt
I'm always really wary of saying, oh, there's a problem with traditional POE I think both have got their place. So, you know, a traditional POE can often be quite quantity. And its survey based. And we're asking people about how hot or cold is your office on a scale of one to 10. And we're asking different sorts of questions. And that's valuable in its own right, for particular people. And I guess, I mean, one of the things I've really learned about this project was one of one of the challenges is, is that multiple stakeholder being? You know, I mean, this was this was funded by strides in ISG, which is fantastic. Like, it was so great to have industry interested. But of course, you're then managing kind of research expectations and client expectations. And then there were lots of stakeholders that were interested in this building. So, we had facilities and health and safety in various parts of the university being really interested in and it was like a new flagship building, so people really kind of cared.
So yeah, so there was that sort of appreciation for the traditional POE and that that was going to give us data or give the university data in a way. For this, slightly more, I'd argue creative qualitative, visual approach to POE just gives a different set of data. And I'm a big believer in bringing all of those things together, and then you get the big picture. So, there's not one over the other, obviously, I'm slightly biased, because I am a visual researcher, and I am really qualitative, and I don't understand numbers. But everything has their place. And they can we can bring those things together. And I think strides and ISG, were just really open to actually what can a POE like this offer us where we're essentially putting the camera in the hands of the users and saying, show me what it's like? How do you feel? How are you using our what is everyday life like for you? And it's all that nuanced, subjective, really complicated stuff that you just don't often get to?
Because there are time pressures and budget pressures. And what I learned along the way was that often, you know, buildings are handed over, and then they're handed over. And then that's the end of that, and then we move on. And then we're gonna, we're gonna go and design and build another one. And I think a lot of this was actually how much can we take from this that we can take into other designs and our thought processes and engaging with HE particular but in particular, but other stakeholders in the future? What can this tell us what more can like we can know stuff, but when people show you stuff, it's different? And when that's in an image?
I always think you can't really argue with that, right? Like if you've actually asked users a question, and they've actually taken some actual photographs of their daily lives, and like this is what's important to me. It's really good evidence, because standing in front of, you know, whoever, leadership teams and other stakeholders who make those decisions, when it comes to buildings new or those in development. That's the evidence you've got. That's how people really feel. And so, I think you can always make really good decisions based on that sort of data.
Chris Moriarty
Just to prove to Ian and James that I do listen to them. It sounds to me like we're talking about participant led research. Yeah, that's correct. This is gonna stick that achievement of learning. But it's interesting. When I was reading this, and you there's a few things that you've mentioned in here that I think you did, there's this kind of battle between subjective and objective data and the differences between the two. But your point about the combination of traditional POE in something like this, there was a sentence that jumped off the report to me, as I was starting to read it through and it was saying, only about 10% of our findings replicate areas covered by traditional POE.
Right, so what I guess you're saying there, is it without combining them, because you're right, they both have a role, but without combining them and allowing people this space to talk about their very personal, very subjective and often, and I'm sure we'll get to quite quirky experiences of the same space that we're all walking through every day, we risk missing stuff, because of the methodologies that we might be favouring because a they're easier or cheaper or just more common
Harriet Shortt
I guess, I always think about my kind of research is offering the y element of something. So, if we know that people are experiencing something negatively or they if they're finding an office, you know, too hot, too cold or whatever it might be. I kind of want to know why. And how does that make them feel and how does that impact their working practices? And does that impact when they come in? And does it impact how they work with others and all of those extra questions that you want to try and dig into and get to, so that you can make better decisions, you can be more informed. So, bringing the two together absolutely is, is where I would, would go with that. And it's the voice, you know, it's the voice of the of the user, which I know you've talked about in other episodes on this podcast seriously, that's what's really key here is that user engagement and going from bottom up.
Ian Ellison
So, let's get to the outcomes in a bit. Because, you know, I thought it was fascinating that within this report, you deliver this wonderful kind of almost sales pitch for why the methodology is valuable. And then you deliver this sequence of incredibly insightful findings, which just demonstrate exactly what you've said, if you'd asked a bunch of questions which, you know, POE’s, within the higher education sector, or, or any sector, there's kind of an industry of them. And what you demonstrate is, if we just approach this differently, even if it's contributing information, we learn so much more about different stakeholder groups.
But before we get there, I've heard you talk previously about some of the challenges with different stakeholders and Instagram, and some of the approaches some of the design decisions with research like this, that you then get unintended outcomes that you didn't expect. So, could you talk a little bit about that, please?
Harriet Shortt
Yes, so Instagram was interesting. For lots of different reasons, I think there's a real emerging field where social media can be used to gather interesting research data. So, Instagram offered this opportunity for us to kind of experiment a little bit with visual methods in contemporary society, and how that how that could work. For us. I mean, I look back on it now, I made massive assumptions, massive assumptions that students in particular, as a stakeholder in this would engage with this, we sort of saw them as digital wayfarers as they can be known. So, moving about space, and taking photographs with a mobile device. They are a perpetually moving mobile user. And so, can capture all of these experiences.
And we thought that our email account would mainly be used by others. So perhaps staff and maybe some visitors. So, what was interesting, like, really early on in the project was the students went absolutely 100% not using Instagram at all, they said things like Instagram is for the presentation of the best self, why would I contaminate my feed contaminate? Right? Like, it was quite a strong word? Why would I can contaminate my feed with pictures that are nothing to do with who I am? And, you know, they're just like pictures of a university building? And we thought right, okay, but we started to investigate this and talk to them a little bit more. And of course, Instagram to them is this very carefully crafted, filtered, cropped visual representation of an identity that they construct online? Of course, why on earth would they take a picture of a chair, or take a selfie sitting in a booth saying, Hey, I'm doing my coursework, that that seemed really, really alien to them. So, so that was just a real surprise, but a real learning point for us and really helpful.
Certainly, for future research, if you're gonna go and explore identity construction, then you know that that's a really interesting way of going about it. But for this for students, absolutely, absolutely not. So, they emailed in, instead
Chris Moriarty
Like going through the report, it was really interesting just to scan the photos. And I guess that's, you know, that's part of the work you do, you know, almost get that kind of sense. So, but just tell us a little bit about, you know, as we look at the findings, what sort of photos did you get through? And how did that start to develop the findings that you list in the report?
Harriet Shortt
I think about 250 people took part in the end, we had over 750 photographs. And that's, that's big for a visual a qualitative visual study. That was a lot of data. So, yeah, we got a lot of photographs through it was interesting to see who shared what, on what platform, there was a really interesting kind of paradoxical field. So, a lot of the findings it was like a real love, hate, embarrassed, proud vibe going on with a lot of those findings. The positives and the negatives and people kind of embracing both and talking about both, so yeah, there was a real wow of the building staff lots, lots of photographs of the staircase in the building the lit staircase, it's a real feature, we realise a real iconic feature of the building.
And that was really important, actually, to people to see that lots of photographs taken at different angles going up talking about learning and growth and going down and the light and the skylight above it. And there was a real sense of pride associated with that iconic feature and being very attractive aesthetically. And then, in the on the flip side of that, yeah, these kind of really lackluster identity lacking corridors, behind the scenes, bare walls, and this could be anywhere type of feel that people didn't enjoy, and the sort of the rule micro stuff. So, this big fancy staircase, and the real wow factor attached to this sort of social emotion of pride. But then having photographs of things like bird poo, all over, which actually did make it to Instagram, on one account, symbol bird all over some railings outside of a staff office and a real sense of embarrassment, that actually, this is where I'm going to meet students. And you can see out of the big glass window, all you see is, well, this bird shit everywhere. And it's just, you know, that a social emotion of embarrassment, and then feeling that you'll be adversely judged on that as a person, because you are a member of staff as part of that organisation.
So, there was a lot around there about these sorts of emotions. But I guess if you zoom out, that's essentially about organisational identity, and how much we attach to identify with the organisation and the values that they hold that they spent all this money on a staircase. And it's really fancy, and it's saying something really great about how prestigious his business school is, and come and study here, and we want to be attached to those kinds of values, and we share those values, and at the same time feeling really disidentify from our organisations, because we they let us down, you know, by having bird shit outside or rubbish on the, on the internal staircase that you don't get to see, but there's rubbish and people have kind of left crap, you know, on the stairs. And, and, and I think one of those pictures made it to Instagram as well. So, this. So that's that feeling of that sort of paradoxical feeling really came through in some of the findings, particularly about that sense of identity.
Ian Ellison
The other thing that I heard in that was the real dichotomy of open and closed, that classic, particularly within academia have, we have this opportunity to, to broadcast this massive message of collaborative openness? And yeah, which is very kind of the moment, isn't it? It's very de rigueur, it's very new university spaces. And then that kind of yeah, but that might say something, but does it help us get our job done? And within your study? There's not just about the staff, it's also about the students, isn't it wrestling with open and closed? So, could you say a little bit about that?
Harriet Shortt
Yeah, absolutely. It's, I mean, that was one of the overwhelming findings that that that emerged, and I think that interests, interests me, and the rest of the team, you know, a great deal is this idea of, of transparency and visibility, because to your point, the ethos of the building and the values that were held through the design and briefing kind of stage, we're around, let's create a building where we can collaborate. This is about bringing organisations in, it's a business school, we want to be connected with businesses in the region. And so, they all that internal narrative then gives us a space that is open and visible and transparent, lots of use of glass, huge, great atrium, as you say, it's very of the moment of those kinds of buildings. And of course, the many knowledge workers who find themselves in those sorts of buildings, you know, only need to talk to friends and colleagues, you know, and they're largely working in these sort of glass palaces as Yanni Gabriel would argue in his paper some years ago, it’s very of the moment and current.
And of course, a lot of it for us was about how do we celebrate the, again, the internal narrative was about how do we celebrate and make visible our work and showcase what it is that we do so people can see the teaching, and they can see what it is that we do, and they can see the collaboration, and that's fine. It's how do people respond to that? And that's where research like this will help you kind of get to that kind of stuff. Okay, we've done that. But how does it feel? How is it experienced? How is it lived in the everyday? And how do users respond to that constant surveillance and that constant open feeling, what do they do in in response to being in a space like that? And of course, that's what we got pictures of these vast, you know, the vast atrium and saying, you know, well, from the everyday perspective, we, from staff and students, as you quite rightly say, really emotional responses to where they were working or where they were studying, in relation to pictures of people had blue tax flip chart paper up on a big glass window to gain some privacy.
Students move furniture, so high back booths and high back chairs, they move them to create these, they would use words like cocoon, or secret space, or nest. People would manipulate chairs and tables in in collaborative spaces to be able to kind of create their own, staff would move the lockers in the middle of their offices so that they could, quote, hide behind them, and not be seen. So, all these very, sort of micro behaviors, if you like, in the every day. But this is the response. So, if we think about constantly being exposed, in a way, it's like, well, yeah, obviously, right? Like, if you're constantly exposed, I mean, in life, we wouldn't do that, right? Like, we'd go out and do things, and we're at work, and then we come home, and there are certain, you know, our home is that sanctuary and that sense of refuge.
But, of course, people can't keep that up this constant sort of sense of being exposed, particularly if you want them to stay at work for most of the day, or, you know, you want students to stay on campus in between talk sessions. So that's important in terms of the narrative around HE design, from what we know. So, if you're doing that, people are going to have to respond to that it's almost this, it's really sort of subtle resistance in a way to in responding to that sense of, of being exposed. So that's what we saw. And that was a big part of understanding the experience of open and closed, as you put it
Chris Moriarty
When I was reading it through something, it's kind of struck me that in the past thing, architects, in our sort of little universities sometimes get a bit of a hard rap, because there's this kind of caricature of an architect the kind of roll neck sweater and the horn ring glasses and talking to us about exposed concrete and all this sort of stuff. So, there's this kind of playful satire that they have to put up with an awful lot. And we then, particularly within my kind of universe, and facilities management, we get very into the sort of everyday stuff that you've been talking about. But what struck me with this is that whilst we might poke fun at these kinds of big ideas that architects tell us about the way space influences people, and it actually came through and, in the work, when, you know, they weren't led these people, they were asked just to take photos, whatever. And there was one that, that you mentioned the staircase, and it's a lovely staircase, I said, you know, I once heard someone refer to staircases as vertical connectors, so it's one of the best vertical connects I've ever come across.
So yes, I saw that. But people do have a genuine comment that someone says, it makes me feel like I can achieve anything. And I'm sitting there, I mean, shows you a bit of my character here. And I've just placed a set of stairs at the end of the day. But it did evoke these very emotive things. And I think, you know, I just wanted to have the architects took that because I imagined they would be delighted with some of these comments that probably ended up in testimonials from the next pitch, but how do they balance some of the very positive bits that you know, that kind of really tick the architects box versus some of these, you know, sort of almost mundane, but very important things. There was one photo that literally made me laugh out loud, which was someone saying, Oh, this glass is great, but I'm not sure whether I should be looking at those people because I can see them. And but I'm not sure if I, they know that I can see them. And what made me laugh was that they then decided to take a photo of maybe sort of exposed what they were thinking at times. I don't know if I should be looking, but I should take a photo. But you know, how did they balance those two bits out? Because they were? I found that fascinating.
Harriet Shortt
Yeah, I mean, it's so it's a really good point. I mean, I think credit to strides and ISG for funding this for being open minded through the whole thing. Because, I mean, we did set it up to say, you know, when you ask questions like this, and you ask for photographs like this, you are you are opening it up for all sorts to share. So, I think I think everyone went into it, understanding that there was going to be the positive and the negative, and then somewhere in between. And I think they really appreciated that. And I went into it with that open mind, it was great that they could see the things that they thought might be really great. With regards to, to the staircase, I think that that was going to be an iconic feature of the building. And I remember talking to somebody from strides about the fact that another building didn't have one, and that they were worried that actually now we can see the importance perhaps of an iconic feature, whatever it is like it can be a big piece of artwork in the middle of your atrium or something. But something that that is iconic for that building. So that was really important for them in terms of future work, I think the conversations that we had as time went on, and when the negative stuff came out, it was quite clear that the design and briefing stage and influencing decision makers within the university, that was complicated.
And so, some of the negative things that came up, maybe weren't a surprise that they'd come up. But other stakeholders and decision makers had been involved in that. So, it is not all with the architect, quite clearly, it is with many other people with many other views with financial responsibility a lot of the time as well. So, decisions have to be made. And there was an appreciation for that, but again, it's that complexity of bringing lots of stakeholders, designers, construction, all sorts of people together to make decisions about user’s experiences. And when you get into that micro detail. Sometimes that gets lost along the way, you know, especially when these sorts of buildings take a long time to come to fruition. You know, when you think about design phases. I mean, you know, it's years, so people move, right, and they leave, and they have other jobs and make different decisions later and get promoted, or so it's a really complicated process. And I think what this is highlighted, one of the things this is highlighted is the importance of user engagement through that whole thing.
Ian Ellison
Some people by this point might be listening, going well, okay, but this sounds all super fluffy, and how incredibly insightful. And okay, so we've got into the why, but I'm in the business of building buildings, I'm in the business of convincing stakeholders that they need to invest what I think we musn't lose sight of and we've really got acknowledged here Harriet is there, despite all this rich user participatory work, which really understands the lived experience of this new building over the time period that you were studying it. So really getting a feel for it, it's like, you close out the report by saying, essentially, these are the things we found. These are how they relate to how we ought to be thinking about doing things differently in future, and even the way you present them. I could see for listeners that are aware of the RIBA plan of works and the architectural kind of basically the headline project plan to bring in any new building out of the ground or refurbishing, you're making recommendations about the upfront things that need to happen.
So that the product can be better, and the process to get to the product can be better. And you're also making recommendations about then how to live in the space better. And not only are you doing that, at the end, you're also going and by the way for our business, university, UWE, who have these six strategic priorities, these are how they relate to these two strategic priorities that you're trying to achieve. So, if you want to do those better, these are the findings derived from an incredibly innovative, kind of quite pioneering way of gathering data. But these absolutely relate to your business and what you're trying to achieve. So, you bring it full circle to the stuff that matters at the top table, despite going super deep with the why to get there.
Harriet Shortt
Yeah, t's really important to me, because I do what some might say, as the as the fluffy stuff of work. So, it's organisation studies, it's the people side, it's all very subjective, and everyone's got an opinion, and how do we really pin down things like culture and behavior and teamwork, and all of those things are really tricky, complex, big, amorphous things. Actually, we need to get down into that really granular detail to understand but we need to come back out at some point and say, right, well, who cares? And so, what? And that's always the thing that I try with the papers that I write and with this report was to think about, okay, who cares now? And so, what? So there needs to be an answer for that. And for business and for industry, it will be, yeah. What are these recommendations that you can make for us in relation?
We, as you said, we sort of structured them from the point of understanding when you're designing your building, and you're thinking about what that is. And then when you're thinking about how you might influence those decision makers. So, knowing some of the challenges from this particular project, actually, if you were in front of decision makers, again, what would you argue for and why user engagement, not lip service, it is very important to engage in these sorts of ways.
And then one of the things that I felt was really important, I thought, yeah, actually kind of gets a bit lost. And this came out of some of the findings around ambiguous spaces. So, there are lots of photographs and narratives around. Like, I don't really know what this space is for. It's just sort of like space. It's like a kind of half kitchenette, half sitting room. Some student’s kind of explained it as a lovely description of it as being an Ikea showroom, you know, it's like, but who's using it? And we don't really know who's using it. Was it for staff? I thought it was, but it's not, it's for everybody. Oh, but if it's for everybody, how do we need to navigate negotiate those social norms and rules that get associated with particular spaces, like we all know about, then all of a sudden, a few months in a sign goes up saying staff only for the tea point.
But then the students got confused, and everybody got confused. And then there was a rule slapped on to the ambiguous space. So, we were like, oh, what's going on? And that really brought out one of our sort of recommendations and some of the discussion at the end around moving in and how we're inducted into a space because I don't think we are enough anyway, when we go into a building, it's all kind of shiny and new. And this is, and this is what we're going to do, we're going to make massive assumptions about the fact that people know how to use it. It's a bit like hybrid working at the moment, right? And teams and this hybrid, flexible, fluid boundary thing. There's been massive assumptions that people know what they're doing, and they don't, there's no shared, and I'm doing another research project at the moment. And nobody's got a shared understanding at all, actually, about what I read working is everyone's interpreting it slightly differently, got their own experience.
So, with this, it was very much about when you move in, and when you how do we induct people into a space. And when you've got especially we've got multiple users, as we know, space is an organic thing and how people experience it isn't an organic thing. It's generative. It's one of those things that sort of always moving on when negotiating and renegotiating ownership and rules and all those things. So, one of our recommendations was to, and this is a new job for somebody somewhere up to an appoint a custodian for building culture and behavior. So that custodian is focusing on the building, and space, or place, and culture and behavior. So, they're not facilities, it's not health and safety. It's not a management role. It's somebody who is going to have an appreciation for the organic nature of the space that can engage in these lateral conversations and can help people understand how they navigate the space and use it over time, because it's never static.
Chris Moriarty
What would you say? This piece of work has done in terms of making you think about new avenues that could be looked into? Or if someone else was listening to this and other academic team, were looking at this and wants you to build on your, on your work, you know, what avenues would you be looking at next? How would we take this another step further?
Harriet Shortt
I know that I want to take this a step further. By exploring this idea of visibility and transparency. It's something that's so present in our, in so many organisations, not just HE, it's think it's really relevant to a lot of people. And it's something that hasn't really been explored in relation to how people respond to it. So, we know that it happens, but understanding how people respond to transparency and visibility in these sorts of buildings, because we keep building them like this. And there's a lot of use of glass and atriums and those sorts of things. And I'm also thinking, post COVID that we are desperate to get back to the office and there's obviously lots of debates around what offices and office spaces might be used for knowledge workers.
And from what I hear and understand the notion of collaboration and togetherness comes into that conversation. So, oh, we can do our quiet private work at home. And then the office is going to be for coming together, collaboration being together. And largely getting rid of offices and desks and creating these collaborative working spaces. And I've got nothing against that. And I think there's some real value in that. And again, we need to do a lot more research, you know, if there's other researchers listening, great, that's what we need to do understand much more about hybrid working, what the office is for all of those things.
But, from talking to participants in in other projects at the moment, I was talking to a student of mine, an MBA student of mine, who is doing a dissertation, and she was talking to somebody, she's a transformation manager. And she was talking to one of her colleagues who said, yeah, you know, I'm back in the office, it's great, really pleased to see everyone, but I'm back in my cupboard on the box. And she said, what do you mean? And he said, well, I still need to have these really private conversations, but everything's been moved around. And we're now coming back in this very collaborative together, he sort of way. But I can't find my little space to be able to have sort of private conversations and just have a moment to think about some quite confidential work that I think he does. So, he's back in a cupboard, literally a store cupboard, sat on a box with his laptop on his knees. And I thought, right, okay, well, we haven't moved on much from where I was doing research many years ago, where, where I talked about the importance of liminal spaces, I cupboards and toilets, where people are getting five minutes, because they are constantly exposed in very public open sorts of spaces.
Ian Ellison
Let's say that, as a listener, I have found all of that thoroughly inspiring. And I am motivated to do a little bit of visual participatory stuff within my own organisation, right? I might not be a seasoned researcher. But I've really been switched on to this idea of, okay, I normally do things that get the what, I normally I'm quite comfortable with surveys and stuff like that. So, I could get the surface stuff. But I want to understand why a little bit more. And I want to dabble with photography, or visual methods or something as a way to go about doing that. So, bearing in mind that this is a ethical minefield, and you can get things that you need to be quite skilled in dealing with, what's your practical advice for people getting started into this and just doing a little bit of a kind of their own kind of journey of discovery?
Harriet Shortt
Yeah, I mean, I think it would be great if organisations could embrace this, because it's particularly at this moment in time, now is the perfect time for organisations to do a bit of their own research, and get a conversation going. Because like I said, in his current projects, I don't think anyone's actually having some in depth conversations with people about how it's been. Because remember, we've been through a trauma, right? Like, it's been quite a traumatic experience for a lot of people. And that means we need to heal and healing often within an organisation comes through conversation and talking. So, we need to allow some space for that, and then talk about the future. And actually, what do people want? How have their working practices changed? And how do they feel about the future of where and when and why they work there.
So, I mean, and I'm making an assumption, again, that a lot of people have got smartphone. So, people have got access to taking photographs. And I'd encourage organisations to just start that conversation, you don't need to know all of the details about being a visual researcher. But you can ask your team to take three photographs that sum up what hybrid working has been like for them. And one photograph that shows the future of work, and what that looks like for them. So simple, brief, people can go off and do that and you can give them some guidelines around. A really good website to look at is the International Visual Sociological Association, the IVSA. They've got ethical guidelines on visual research, but essentially, you are making sure that you're protecting people's confidentiality and anonymity, their privacy, and anything that might be private in terms of an organisation.
So, I write a really Shortt paragraph for my participants saying, you can take pictures of people pets, spaces, places inside outside, you know, metaphorically or literally, they just need to represent how you feel responsible photography includes asking permission if it does include a person asked their permission before you take it. Don't take pictures perhaps of your computer screen if it's got a confidential document up on it, those sorts of guidelines, but they can be really simple. Pretty straightforward. And you can put your own boundaries around those as an organisation. And then you can give people two days to take their photographs, it doesn't have to be a time-consuming activity. And often this speaks, this is stuff that speaks to people, right? Like, everyone's just had this experience. And largely from my experience recently, everyone needs a space to talk about it. So, you're opening something up that people largely connect with, and then organise a well facilitated. And this is where an external person might be really good. A well facilitated conversation where people bring their photographs, and they've been told that they bring their photographs and share them with others.
And have them up on they can bring their photographs, hardcopy, and you can move them around on a board, we've got great online materials. Now we can use Google jam boards, and poplar and all sorts of mind map things, you can get everyone to upload their images, you can share them on your LinkedIn group, whatever it might be, and open up a conversation where people are able to talk about their images. And this is again, where you might want to think about some ground rules for that facilitated conversation. So, allowing people to talk about the meaning of their images. People not putting their own meanings on someone else's image. But asking questions into it would be important. So that's a sort of visual etiquette, if you like, of how we're going to manage this, rather than people saying, Oh, what's that, and, you know, making comments that might be derogatory, or make people feel uncomfortable or taking the meaning away. And I've been in situations like that, and it's not very pleasant, because actually, you've taken a photograph, because it means this to you. And it's important to highlight that and recognise that and hold that space for that person. Because after all, these are participatory methods that raise people's voices and emotions.
So that's why a carefully well thought out facilitated session. But that will open up a whole conversation. And that's when if it's recorded, or someone's taking notes, or you start to move images around, that's when you get to start to see patterns in those images. And I mean, already, I've only done a few interviews in my recent projects. But already there's stuff coming up about how people separate things, how do they separate work and life? How are they trying to grapple with the idea that everything's so liquid now? Right, our boundaries have been blown to smithereens and everything's mushed together, that people are trying to curate spaces for XYZ and make spaces for ABC, and, you know, they're trying to separate out now. And that's really good to know, because then you get an insight into your employees into your team as to what's important to them. And what do you need to acknowledge, because every organisation is going to be different here. There's no one stop shop of hybrid working, it will be down to teams and organisations to really understand their workers. And what's good for them. This is a great way in get people to show you, you might know but get them to show you how it's been for them and open up that conversation with their images.
-- Reflection Section –
Chris Moriarty
Hello, James.
James Pinder
Hi, Chris.
Chris Moriarty
Hello, right so, you've had a chance to listen to Harriet. Now, what were the three key takeaways that you had from her conversation with me and
James Pinder
The three were, the first one was around POE, and I thought it'd be good to just chat about that in a bit more detail. The second one was about what Harriet described the more granular type of research the fluffy stuff to use the term that she used in the research, it might get to the why, beyond the what. And then the third one was around novel research methods and trying different techniques for elicited data.
Chris Moriarty
Let's take that first one then. So, POE, what did you What was your kind of your ponderings off the back of what she was talking about in terms of POE?
James Pinder
I think moving beyond the traditional I guess I mean, POe is an interesting term, it does mean a lot of different things to different people. And we know some organisations that do very structured POE’s at different periods of time after a building has been occupied or off after a project's been finished. But also love POE’s do just involved in sending a survey round or a questionnaire to say, you know, tell us what you think about your work, workspace, your working environment, and I guess it's are there alternatives to that and the tension has always been a guesses, projects end, people move on and project teams move on. And also, there's a cost and a time element involved in getting feedback from people and then is that feedback acted upon that you can think of an organisation did POE’s. And nothing ever happened to them, they sort of just literally ended up on it in a filing cabinet. But they, they'd done the POE, they tick that box. And, you know, I mean, that's, it's really sad to see that,
Ian Ellison
You could argue that the best people to do POE are the organisation's themselves, if they've got the skills to own it the way UWE did with Harriet, with the collaborative team that they put together, then they can genuinely own some really valuable findings. I mean, James, I remember when we looked at this, a good few years ago, the first time, you can almost like he can evaluate the project, you can evaluate the Shortt-term impact of the new space. Or you can try and evaluate the longer-term benefits or otherwise to the business. And this is what this one was going looking for.
James Pinder
Yeah, so that is that I mean, that's a model that's from AUDE, which is the Association of Universities Directors of Estates. And that's, that's a very thorough methodology around POE actually quite intimidating because you think, Wow, this is, you know, this is quite a big undertaking. And at one stage, I don't know, if it's still the case, one of the conditions of certain university funding for capital projects with you've got to do a POE. Yeah, that's kind of part the condition of the funding. And interesting, you mentioned, Harriet and the university, I always think universities have probably been more at the forefront of doing POE’s for different reasons. And, you know, sometimes it's because there are interested people in that university to do that sort of work. And like I said earlier, you know, I don’t know if it’s still the case, but it used to be that part of the condition for some of the funding bodies was you need to do need to do a review of this afterwards.
Chris Moriarty
But not necessarily do anything with the feedback, right? Because you have to do it, but not necessarily do anything with it
James Pinder
Somewhat, and I think that's like anything in life has some, some would probably do more with that than others. And some would probably just go through the motions.
Ian Ellison
I wonder if there's also a culture of in universities, there's a culture of voice, a culture of we will consult, and people have a right to be heard. And that is sometimes a slightly different dynamic to other organisations. So, you can see that play out as well. There's an expectation that we can put our points across
Chris Moriarty
Is there, is there a problem with what the words POE with post occupancy evaluation, right, because it almost suggests your point in about where the ownership of it would be the insights you get from it interesting at any stage of the traditional property lifecycle, that it should just be the ongoing conversation with people how they use space, but because we've called it post occupancy, it feels like they only have merit and value as a result of a project where there was pre occupancy. Right. So, the word the wording almost pigeonholes it.
Ian Ellison
Yeah, it's a flawed title. It's a flawed name, for sure. Yeah,
James Pinder
That's been the case for decades, you know, going back to the 1970s, it's often struggled to get traction, for all the reasons we've talked about. And also that disconnect between delivery and use operation sort of thing, can't underestimate that is, is an issue as well, because who's responsible for this, and particularly, maybe in some smaller projects, where maybe there isn't, maybe it's a one off project and whatnot, you know, a client isn't doing project after project, maybe they don't see the need as much without generalising too much.
Chris Moriarty
So, your second point that you wanted to talk about was the kind of participant led, lived experience type work what Harriet kind of referred to as a kind of fluffy stories that, that people tell. So just to expand on that a little for us
James Pinder
I guess in in more research methods, turns it's a more qualitative approach, and more, more participant lead and the stuff that went in and I doing work with organisations, you know, the sort of tech qualitative techniques that we use, because actually, you can get really deep insights using those methods here, whether it's be interviews, workshops, or, or, or those sorts of techniques, you can get really rich insights. And Harriet used the, you know, the phrase, the Why get into the why. And we know that you could do a survey and more traditional sort of tick box type survey. And that's not criticising them, because we do those surveys as well, that you can only often get a certain amount of information from those surveys, because of the nature of the data you're collecting. You know, that's just, that's just the way it is. And so being able to do those more in depth, research methods can be great. But actually, how do you scale those? How do you do those at scale? That's the problem.
Ian Ellison
So, if you were sort of teaching this in a research methods, undergraduate postgraduate class, you'd probably have a diagram up which kind of was like a tea and you can do research which is good I'd like shallow and really, really broad. And that's where tons of the research tends to happen around workspaces post occupancy or otherwise, because they're easier questions to ask. And they're easier questions to analyse, and you can get them to more people. But, Harriet, it's all about the sort of narrow and deep here, it's all a game you want to go digging for the why then you can't. In traditional terms, as James said, you can't necessarily do it with a wide, broad population, because there's just so much data. And there's so much more sense making that needs to happen with the data.
So, it's interesting times, with the advent of all sorts of new technology and whatnot in the workspace and workplace feel this really interesting times for whether that tea is challengeable now, now, when you're in a system, which is demanding summaries and statistics in three sides or less, so that they can go into a prep pack for an executive team to be able to make good decisions or whatever, then you might gain something with that the ability to move at speed, the ability to decide in a relatively objective way, but you might lose a huge amount with that. And I think one to the credit of this project, it really stood out to me that despite doing a really rich, why based, I'm not gonna call it fluffy, because to me, it isn't fluffy, actually, you can use it that, but I wouldn't mind calling it that if that hadn't become a pejorative term, right? Because it isn't fluffy, right? That is really complicated work to both do properly, ethically well, and then to analyse.
But what you saw the end of the report doing really powerfully was taking it right back to the strategic objectives of the organisation, and to tangible things that could be done, either with that project, or for the next project, you know, that suggested about there's a role here a curator of behaviors and cultures, that needs to have their finger on the pulse for a building to help that building function more effectively. There's not function physically, it's function culturally, behaviorally, right? That a what, what an insight for an industry that's been struggling with the future of what reception is, for years now.
Chris Moriarty
And we're seeing more and more organisations, looking at co working spaces and wondering what it is about the magic of those spaces. And I sometimes think that there's a lot of focus on the design and the vibe and all the rest of it, but they're missing that kind of social glue, that that kind of host slash Community Manager brings and just makes things tick over right.
James Pinder
I think it's an input and output thing. So, I think input wise, that type of research is more time-consuming resource intensive, it's harder, you know, having spent many years doing any Ian’s right, you know, I mean, Harriet called it fluffy, but it's very complicated, time consuming research. And it takes time. There is a scalability issue there. But ultimately, it's quite challenging research, particularly to convert into something that is digestible and, and usable.
And I think on the output side, I think, you know, the business will this orientated towards numbers, as Ian said, and if you think of business intelligence tools, BI tools, what are they there, they're essentially quantitive platforms, aren't they? Things like Power BI and Tableau and those sorts of platforms, all orientated towards numbers and dashboards, aren't they? So, I think it's a combination of those two things. But I don't think you can underestimate the sort of challenges of doing that type of work and, and the time it takes to do it well.
Chris Moriarty
So, going off the back of that research, methods type idea. Your final point was about novel research methods in this kind of experimentation, and just pushing the envelope on research will talk us a bit. Talk us through that bit.
James Pinder
Yeah, I mean, this is something that always interests me, you know, trying to use different techniques. And, you know, we touched upon it, I think, in an earlier episode, where we talked about multi-disciplinary teams, and people bring in ideas from different disciplines. And Jack actually touched on it in the last episode, you know, pulling different disciplines together, because often, that's when the really interesting stuff happens. And I think that's often when, you know, different novel techniques are used novel in different contexts, because that's, you know, in certain areas, they might be well used or used more commonly, but it's when they're transferred to a different context.
And yeah, I just think it's interesting because there's also been, it's quite brave as well to do that to move beyond the tried and tested and to use something that maybe hasn't been used in that particular situation or that area before. And, you know, Harriet touched upon that, that there was a really interesting section in the episode where talks about what we, you know, we made assumptions about, about how people will engage, which is all you can do, because if you've not used it in that context before, and you know that that comment about, I don't want to contaminate my feed, which sounds like more like a farming problem, actually.
Chris Moriarty
Welcome to the agricultural podcast
James Pinder
You can tell that I'm, I'm active on social media. So, so, so yeah, I just think it's interesting, and the different issues that that can throw up, you know, the ethics side of it, and what the reason I use the term brave early or sort of more progressive is because in that case, in a lot of research, you'll do the research, you'll write the research, you'll maybe have it checked, maybe if it's been funded, and signed off, and then eventually, it will end up in the public domain. And often a lot of POE’s don't see the light of day. And in this case, you know, there was more of a risk was in the in terms of collecting data live in, in public sort of thing. So, I just thought it was interesting
Ian Ellison
I would say absolute props to strides and ISG, for funding and being up for such a progressive experiment in POE, it, it don't whether it's a POE, or otherwise, digging deep into a building that you have a vested interest in, and you don't know what the findings are going to be. But being prepared to try something new like this. It's absolutely to be applauded. And I think, you know, we'd be fair in saying, in an industry that doesn't necessarily have a lot of budget for research and development. And that's, arguably, maybe one for another day, but arguably why we're not quite as progressive and groundbreaking in as many fields as we should be. It's brilliant to see that,
Chris Moriarty
Is it, I suppose there's a danger of something that's novel, and therefore new is the there's a like a confidence thing, right, you know, that it's play it safe, I guess, is the kind of alternative and do the tried and tested? I guess, there might be a risk that some people think it needs to be new, to be useful. But you know, I guess what we've tried to do with this podcast, as well as show people where they've maybe done used a research methodology or technique in a different context and say, well, actually could that work for us in our context? So, it doesn't need to be a new idea, does it? It just needs to be a new application of that idea, I guess. So that kind of encourages people to have a look around and see, really get into the research part of things, which I think is often is not you guys took it as a research design before.
Ian Ellison
Well, if you went if you went to fields of education or geography, I think James, you might have said this, a previous episode, if you went to a different discipline, this stuff would be new or novel, right? Because you know, different stakeholder groups, different fields of study. It's common practice, right. But what's novel about it is we're trying a new application.
Chris Moriarty
And s that symptomatic of the sector. Going back again, quoting Jeremy, he talked about how we've, we've viewed workplaces as a technical construct, right. And he was talking about social construct. Well, there's other there's other things that are social constructs in in the wider world. And there's lots of research that goes into them. So, we can almost borrow from some of the well, you know, sort of tried and tested in a different field of study, right?
Ian Ellison
This is getting very philosophical, Mr. Moriarty?
Chris Moriarty
I know, I know, I think it's the time of day I've had two coffees and a handful of peanuts. So, I think that's, that's the philosophical cocktail that I need before we record these things. So, James, thank you for sharing your ponderings with us. Have you got anything planned for the rest of the afternoon
James Pinder
I'm gonna go and check my Instagram feed.
-- Outro --
Chris Moriarty
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