University of Sydney: Susan Wakil Health Building
A Leap into the Future of Higher Education
The Challenge
We experienced some resistance from staff and faculty who believed Activity Based Working to be incompatible with the way of working at universities.
To mitigate resistance, we created a pilot space for staff to gain a hands-on introduction to an Activity Based Working workspace and experience it for themselves. The support of high leadership buy-in also helped align and guide staff members on the future of work at the University.
Veldhoen + Company developed the change strategy and approach to support the transition program. We also played a significant role in delivering interventions, alongside supporting and coaching the integrated team.
Among our key considerations when designing some of the interventions was how to make the change scalable. We provided e-learning modules detailing the behavioural changes required to all staff and stakeholders and ensured that each individual’s learning could be personalised. These helped to minimise the strain placed on resources.
Veldhoen + Company also supported co- facilitation workshops to help build the University’s internal change management capability.
The Results
The Susan Wakil Health Building opened in September 2020. ITs three office workspace levels accommodate numerous schools and disciplines that now form the Faculty of Medicine and Health. The space is arranged in a neighbourhood fashion where each school and discipline is anchored to its own part of the workspace, but staff can easily and serendipitously interact with colleagues from other areas of study. Enclosed and bookable rooms are available to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration, with a separate section exclusively dedicated to student-staff interactions.
People can navigate through the activity zones intuitively and understand the etiquettes around the use of each space. There are opportunities for both planned and ad-hoc interdisciplinary collaborations, which help foster the vision of being a global leader in health.
