These are exciting times at the National Australia Bank. It has embarked on a bold program that will transform the way its employees across Australia work now, and well into the future. It will be a brave new world of workspace without boundaries and when it is complete in less than four years, it may well become the benchmark for how to create a work environment that stimulates productivity and passion. To Monica Klyscz, the bank's Head of Commercial Property who is navigating this new highway, the transformation will be key to future proofing the company's accommodation requirements.

Making space work smarter

This radical makeover comprises a number of components, in particular the delivery in Melbourne of a brand new 63,000 square metre building known as D2, which is to be developed, owned and managed by Cbus Property, and the complete rollout of a five year Workplace Transformation Program across the national portfolio. The result will be highly flexible people working in a high-performing workplace that is helping to deliver business goals.

"Essentially we will be making our space work smarter and more efficiently for us," explains Ms Klyscz, who is responsible for 340,000 square metres of NAB office space, "and use the program to support existing business transformations. In effect we are creating a new model which integrates new technology, new work processes and new work styles to use our real estate in a much more productive way."

The bank has long been committed to breaking down the barriers that lie between different business units and creating greater cross-fertilisation between them. Providing an enabling workspace facilitates that process. "We want an environment that will be highly agile, intuitive and connected with the design principles of open-plan and collaboration," Ms Klyscz explains. "Each of our properties will have the same design principles and the same technology enabling tools."

What will set the NAB model apart from other organisations which are 100 per cent activity-based working, is that the program is tailored to align with NAB's specific enterprise strategies as well as business unit specific initiatives, and it is not mandated but rather a choice. "The test of success is if people want to take it to 100 per cent themselves," Ms Klyscz explains. More than 5,000 people are already working flexibly in the commercial property portfolio and that number is expected to soar as the portfolio is transformed.

Overhauling the working environment makes sense. Research by NAB revealed that often only half of all its workstations were occupied at any time, suggesting its workforce was already mobile. Deciding to make the space work harder and more efficiently was a no-brainer for the bank. It facilitated faster information sharing and problem solving, increased teamwork and a greater level of empowerment with staff, because each individual feels they have more choice in their working arrangements.

A space that brings people in

The bank's ambition to converge and to optimise will be ably demonstrated when its new D2 project at 700 Bourke Street in Melbourne comes on line in late 2013. The workplace will combine at least five existing properties in the Victorian portfolio that are no longer in line with the bank's targeted standards and environmental objectives.

"What we are doing is replacing B Grade facilities with A Grade ones to ensure a non-hierarchical and standardised workplace for all people," Ms Klyscz says. "The key aspiration of the project is to realise the potential of the community, our people and our customers. It is a workplace that has been designed to enable our partnered community and customers to make use of and share the facilities with the people that work there. It will have a theatrette and auditorium inspired by the principles of Federation Square in the city which has a multi-functional space that brings people in."

Diversity and transparency

D2 will also be designed with the principles of activity-based work settings and a new concept called real-time working which will support a high-performing and diverse workplace. "The key difference between D2 and NAB's iconic 800 Bourke Street complex, which has underpinned all our commercial portfolio strategies, is that it will have a much more activated realm for the public and our customers. It will include two floors that will not be physically secured and this speaks to NAB's desire to share its space and to give back to the greater community and customers. The building form is totally different, with one large central atrium which will drive a level of transparency unlike any other building in Australia."

D2, which will house more than 6,000 NAB employees, is only one component of a greater workplace transformation strategy. The bank is also investing in refurbishing a selection of its older properties to bring them into line with NAB's business model for the 21st century.