Action stations at CBA
Commonwealth Bank has taken the wraps off its new campus located at the eastern edge of Darling Harbour in Sydney. By the end of the year, 6200 staff will have moved across to the completely open-plan facility, and the bank hopes the collaborative workspaces and technology will act as a magnet for new talent.
Developed to support the activity-based working model that has emerged from the Netherlands, Commonwealth Bank Place comprises two low-rise towers which have achieved a six star energy rating. No one working in the buildings has an office, instead staff are assigned to a home zone where they have a locker and where they can sit and work.
However, staff - each armed with a MacBook Air (replacing Dell desktops) and a digital, cordless VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) headset, allowing them to make phone calls wherever they are - can roam wherever they wish in the wirelessly networked complex. At the perimeter of the building there are quiet spots, but the core of each building features a central atrium and multiple collaboration spaces.
Chief information officer Michael Harte is one of the first executives to make the move. He has set up on level 6 of North tower. He will shortly be joined by Annabel Spring, the new group executive for wealth management, and Ross McEwan, the head of the retail bank, and both will move in to the new building in the New Year.
Some staff - CEO Ralph Norris; CEO-elect Ian Narev and CFO David Craig - will remain in their current, more traditionally designed, offices in a building a couple of blocks north of CBA's new campus.
Harte, who like everyone else hasn't got an office of his own in the new facility but instead can choose where he wants to work on a daily basis, said that he hoped the new approach and technologies would encourage more IT professionals to consider a career at Commonwealth Bank.
"We create new platforms and new products and services every single day, and we have to get the very best people to come and work for us - not only retaining and exciting existing staff, but attracting new talent into the organisation," said Harte.
"We have around 12 per cent attrition and we find it difficult, particularly in IT, to attract a young, vibrant workforce directly out of university. They don't immediately associate, for example, a bank [with]... an IT career opportunity - but once they see we are doing some of the largest projects; that we have got work environments that enable them to enjoy not only mobility but a fresh way of working (we are increasingly allowing people to bring their own devices; we are increasingly allowing people to work in any location they choose) they are immediately attracted.
"They don't then assume that the best IT opportunity is at Google. They see how the Google people work and they come and have a look at this and say, 'Hang on a minute I can get more exciting projects, wonderful IT work and work with a large open workforce in a beautiful facility with all the up-to-date collaborative technologies'. It's a no brainer."