The big “activity-based working centre” on Fanshawe St near the Viaduct consolidates for the first time people who worked in five Auckland locations until now.
The previously inadequate head office in Princes St, on which the lease ran out; two rented premises in Shortland St; the Takanini Fonterra Brands offices and the Mt Wellington Tip Top offices have been amalgamated.
Non-production staff members from Takanini and Mt Wellington have been brought into the central city, to gain cross-divisional benefits in accounts and marketing, for eample.
Working in an “office-less” way has reduced the footprint of each employee by 33% from 12 square metres to eight.
Each person has a locker in a zone and floor of their department, but no desk or files.
They hot-desk at work stations, attend scheduled meetings in conversation areas or meeting rooms, and stay in wifi contact at all times on mobile phones and laptops.
Use of a Find Me application in all devices works as a notification and paging system for staff.
All employees have access to all six floors and could be seen interacting and moving around the large open-plan zones, standing or sitting behind monitors, and using the many less-formal lounges and kitchens.
Activity-based working mirrored the way people use different rooms in their homes, Fonterra said.
“The total occupancy cost of the move is more cost effective than leasing at multiple locations on a traditional fixed-desk occupancy basis,” a spokesperson for the “ways of working” group said.
With numerous unplanned meetings, across disciplines, staff reportedly saw their senior executives, including chief Theo Spierings, and directors more often, which was supposed to be good for morale.
Fonterra has a 15-year lease on the building.
The purpose-built environment has huge connecting staircases in the central atrium to encourage walking rather than lift-riding.
Sustainability features incorporated by the building joint-owner, Goodman Property Trust, would deliver up to $250,000 a year in energy savings.
All rainwater on the roof is collected and stored for garden features and to reduce grey water consumption.
The ground floor has a Dairy for Life themed display and interaction area for farmers and members of the public, a demonstration kitchen for foodservice chefs and a 300-person function room with audio-visual connections for television and radio.
The room will be the setting for the interim results announcement to the media and share market for the first time this week. (subs March 23)
This style of white-collar working now prevales in Europe for large organisations, where it is claimed to aid organisational agility through collaboration, increasing efficiency and speeding up decision making.
Paper records are scanned and stored electronically rather than in filing cabinets.
Fonterra’s head office had been printing up to six million pages a year, many of them in colour.
The department of chief financial officer Lukas Paravicini, one of the first to move in, has reportedly reduced its paper flow by 94% in six weeks.
To farmers worried about loss of effectiveness and accountability if employees couldn’t be found at traditional work stations, Fonterra said it operated a high-trust work environment.
That meant each employee had his or her tasks allocated and expectations written down – the hours of work, way of working, and outcomes were the employee’s responsibility, on which they would be regularly monitored.
After formation Fonterra had two years under Craig Norgate at the Auckland Airport business park before moving to Princes St, which was a leaky building too small for its requirements.
The lease would be up in July and the owners were not offering an extension.
Fonterra said the objection raised by some critics that it should not be head-quartered in Auckland was not realistic in terms of space needs, skill needs, travel needs, and interaction with international customers and domestic suppliers.
All visitors to the new headquarters go to the first floor, where they see first-hand how the building works, after which Fonterra escorts and swipe cards are necessary to get through turnstiles.
Groups of farmers will be invited to tour the new building from April 1.
