Cisco Systems' (www.cisco.com) Workplace Resource Group is expanding its Europe virtual and collaborative work-space environments from the current half dozen to another 20 European locations.

Small wonder, since Lucent's initial European efforts in workplace innovations are already paying off big. Cisco's European rental costs have dropped by US$4 million in a one-year span, while outlays for revamping European facilities are down by $12 million.

In Stockley Park near London's Heathrow Airport, for example, Cisco over the past two years has cut its occupancy ratio by more than one-third to less than one employee per 133 sq. ft. (12 sq. m.). In Central London's pricey financial district, the ratio has been more than halved in 1998-99 alone to one employee per 67 sq. ft. (six sq. m.). Some sharing ratios have risen to six persons per dedicated space.

Staff Quadruples, but Space Shrinks
Despite that backdrop of imploding space, Cisco is rapidly increasing its European employment, quadrupling, for example, its technical support staff on the continent. The strategy is to leverage technology to make people more mobile. Eventually, some 40 percent of total staff will use shared corporate space, with that proportion rising to 60 percent for sales staff.

That success in Europe mirrors the broader bottom-line benefits achieved through the "Workplace @Cisco" program. That initiative has yielded a 40 percent increase in space utilization, despite Cisco's 45 percent increase in head count, says Cisco Vice President Robert Lloyd.

High tech has enabled most of that transformation, including the exploding ranks of European Internet users, which Cisco projects will number 562 million by 2003, more than quadrupling 1998's levels.

With information technology and high-tech telephony, Cisco staffers take their electronic infrastructure with them as they move.

Says Chris Ross, the U.S.-based Cisco workplace strategist who's been shepherding the project, "Europe is way ahead of the U.S. in wireless telephony. Coupling Internet Protocol telephones and virtual desk tools allows Cisco people to have their data, telephone and voice mail follow them wherever they go.

"Our people can now reserve space through the Web from all over the EMEA region even before they come into the office," Ross continues. "Once they plug into their workstation, the network knows where they are and treats them as if they're at their home base."

Expanding the 'Cisco Hotel' Chain
Cisco essentially has set up a rapidly expanding sort of European hotel chain. Offices in Amsterdam and Helsinki have been retrofitted, and new units have been built in London, Oslo, Paris and Stockholm.

"At Stockley, we built the office for 650 people, but as London is a jump-off point for elsewhere in Europe, user volume quickly went to 1,100," says Ross. "We're growing so fast, the real estate is having difficulty keeping up with us. So we're pushing the envelope on the tech side."

The leading-edge London office has been a major factor in keeping up with Cisco's formidable growth curve.

Says Ross: "We initially had 30 people in a 5,000-sq.-ft. (450-sq.-m.) locale, and the convenience of the space to customers caused user level to triple." (The London-area facility has since been expanded to 93,000 sq. ft./8,370 sq. m.)

Getting Employee Buy-In
Soliciting employees' ideas has been a major factor in Cisco's successful expansion of its European workplace innovations. Including those ideas in the final plan ensured employees' support.

In Paris, for example, Jim Cowey, associate principal of Paris-based Studios Architecture, held French-language staff rap sessions as part of configuring Cisco's new workplace to fit Gaelic business habits.

Says Cowey: "Status is important in France, so we adopted identifiable team areas for each group to compensate for loss of individual territory."

Similarly, Ross sees "cookie-cutter approaches" as inappropriate in workplace change.

"You have to adjust to the way people use the office," Ross says. "For example, highly mobile sales people use the Amsterdam retrofit, and they were clamoring for customer meeting places and demo labs. With people in the office barely 30 percent of the time, we came up with a mix of individual and collaborative space that got the highest usage.