Intel's Increased Risk Profile

The bigger you are, the harder you (might) fall....by which I mean that as facilities groups get their seat at the executive table with other important functions to add more value, we also take on more risk.

There has been press lately that mainly conservative Intel has been experimenting with flexible facilities with unassigned desks.  This is likely to be a good thing for the company but now they are playing a bigger game with employee productivity.  Flexible programs require more interaction with technology and the management practices to be effective (Intel could reference their high tech cousins Sun Microsystems and Motorola).

A six sigma approach to workplace strategy would have started with the high level objectives (employee productivity?  cost savings?) and then established a transfer function, just a simple map of what factors would be necessary for a successful program.  A six sigma approach would also do a preliminary risk assessment and recognized that a potential failure mode might be managers not knowing how to work with employees that are not tied to the same desk every day.

The new space looks good.  And functional.  But the news coverage doesn't discuss changes to underlying management protocols.  Let's see what happens.