Work Place Redesign

In today’s corporate America there are a great deal of outsourcing and “Work Place Redesigning” being incorporated. Companies are making key transformations in the nature of peoples jobs. The opportunity to create more rewarding work places is in need, but there is also the testing part of not making it worse. The desires to make better use of the work place, employee skills and save money are all involve in the reconfiguration of work roles and locations. Work redesign is very important in today’s organizations.

Studying of the Dining Hall

In this project as a group we decide to perform a reconfigure of Lackmann Dinning Facility which is constantly being used by students and faculty alike.What we found was consistent with most schools that are located in the middle of a city, with so many cheaper alternatives the dining hall is more of a pit stop for most individual in between classes. The cafeteria is used more for leisure, socializing and school work then actually eating large quantities of food. In this project we will look at different ways of improving this mixed use facility, to suit the needs of the most used group but also design a more attractive place for those who view the cafeteria as just a place to pick up single items. With this redesigning of the lunch room we also hope to increase profits and produce a friendlier work place environment for the employees and school administrators. We as a group hope to accomplish this challenging idea with surveys, self observations and research on other establishments.

Pictures of Dining Hall with present floor plan

The process of redesigning

In order to assess the needs for change in Lackmann we administered a survey composed of 15 questions to 50 students. The survey questions consisted mostly of Likert scale questions, but also included a few open ended questions. We handed out surveys to students who were in Lackmann, in the library, and some we met in the hallways,the survey consisted on three sections.

The first section of the survey pertained to the current situation within the cafeteria. We asked students whether or not they found the cafeteria to be suitable to their needs, how much time was spent in the cafeteria, and their primary reason for using the cafeteria. The second section of the survey asked students to rank their level of comfort in the cafeteria; this included furniture comfort, brightness, and temperature. The last section of the survey asked for students suggestions for the cafeteria; we used open ended questions for this section.

The survey was completed by 50 Polytechnic students. 68% (34) of the students were commuters while 32% (16) were residents. It is not shocking that the majority of participants were commuters because 80% of the student populations are commuters. We observed that the majority of the students in the cafeteria were commuters; while many residents take their food back to the dorm rooms.

Our survey consisted of 15 questions. The first question was for status, we asked students to indicate if they were residents or commuters. The second question pertained to the cafeteria space, we asked students indicate whether or not they found the cafeteria to be suitable to their needs and rank the level of accommodation on a scale of 1 to 5. We also asked students to indicate about how much time they spent in the cafeteria, how much money they have spent in the cafeteria, if they prefer to eat elsewhere, and their primary reason for using the cafeteria (eating, leisure, schoolwork, or other).

SPSS Results

Note: Temperature was not used because dining hall does not control it

As you can see from the tables above, we surveyed the reason people use the dining hall, the noise level, the accommodation presented by the dining hall, the comfort level, the furniture, the brightness, the minutes spent in the dining hall, the amount of meals eaten per day in the dining hall, and the amount of money spent in the cafeteria. The most amazing results were the reason for being in the dining hall; 54% of the students use the dining hall for leisure, and less then 25% use the dining hall to eat. Only 6% use the dining hall to do school work and 16% of the students use it for additional reasons, mostly for meeting places.

One of our first observations before giving the survey was that the volume level in the dining hall was extremely high. The survey proves that the students agree, as 98% said the volume was loud to loudest. Clearly this is one area that will need improvement. Accommodation was another area surveyed and another area that could use improvement, although 70% feel it is at or above decent. You cannot afford to ignore 30% of your student body, so some improvements will need to be made.

Overall the comfort rating of the dining hall was good; 88% of the student body rated it at or above 3.0. There were no written complaints of lack of comfort. This is most likely due to the fact that most of the students, 72%, feel the furniture is decent or above decent. Comfort is also affected by lighting. The brightness in the dining hall was not a strong point, as 72% of the student body gave it a score of 4.0 or higher. Perhaps it is so bright because of the low hanging lights; this would be an easy area to improve on. All three of these categories could also use improvement, so changes in the furniture and brightness will be made in order to add more comfort.

The last three categories surveyed are interconnected and affect Lackmann as well as the dining hall. The three categories are minutes spent in the dining hall, amount of money spent at the cafeteria, and amount of meals spent eating in the dining hall. Some relations drawn from the results are: 60% of the students eat one meal and 62% spend between $0-10, therefore one meal likely costs $0-10; 56% of the students spend less then 30 minutes in the dining hall per day, therefore it probably takes 0-30 minutes to eat one meal. The correlation between meals, time, and money is high and it makes sense because of relationships drawn above.

Initial Suggestions

Some suggestions that are obvious just by taking a look at the survey results include:

  • Reducing volume of the dining hall
  • Accommodate the students using the dining hall for leisure
  • Make changes to lighting and furniture to add comfort
  • Create more space between tables and widen walkways

Survey Says

As noted earlier, we asked students to give us their suggestions for things to be added, eliminated, and improved to Lackmann. The most popular suggestions were adding a poker table and adding couches. It is not surprising that adding poker tables was highest among suggestions of additions to Lackmann. Any observer of the cafeteria can notice that several students are involved in poker games.

We noticed that students have pulled tables together in order to create a table for playing poker. Students would like to enjoy the opportunity to sit back and relax while eating, adding lounge chairs provides a comfortable setting for students. After a thorough observation and reviewing survey results, we came up with our suggestions for redesigning Lackmann.

Final Design

Many changes were made in order to accommodate all the students that use the space. One of the biggest changes is the layout of the dining hall. The workstations were moved from the center to the side of the hall. Six person booths were added in the center in place of the old workstations. Two card tables were added to the opposite side of the workstations by the four person tables. Lounge chairs were added in the back of the hall near the 2-3 person tables. So essentially we have four different atmospheres that we are accommodating:

  • Schoolwork section: workstations
  • Dining section: booths
  • Multi-purpose section (used for dining, schoolwork, leisure, meetings): four person tables and card tables
  • Lounge section: lounge chairs and 2-3 person tables

What this does for the dining hall is dividing it into volume controlled sections. The schoolwork section will not be disturbed by people playing poker because of the positioning. The people in booths will not be contributing a significant amount of volume because they will be eating. The multi-purpose section will have the most volume, whereas the lounge section has the potential to be very quiet and soothing.

The other floor plan changes include adding an exit to Lawrence Street, moving the utensils stand up against the wall creating more open space, and widening the dining hall to allow more space between tables and wider walkways. Other additions include an ATM, a jukebox (to be played for free at a low volume), and additional outlets (both on the walls and on the floor). The décor could use some changes; we suggest adding pictures a little closer to the student’s era.

Other big changes include the lighting. As stated we wanted to decrease brightness so that it is more comfortable for the students. So we decided to keep the same lighting on the workstation side of the hall. However, for the rest of the dining hall, we wanted to close up the ugly ceiling and add tiles will florescent lights higher then they are now. This will still give us an open look but will take the brightness down a notch.

Conclusion

The space was being used in a fair manor. However, with the changes proposed the space will be able to accommodate everyone without making the dining hall into something it’s not. Without the student surveys and the student’s direct input, the appropriate changes would not have been able to be made, and the new dining hall may have been a disappointment to the students. The SPSS showed what the students needed and allowed us to make the proper arrangements for the new Lackmann Dining Hall.

Emnett, Martinez, Taylor1