Raytheon: Work Environment - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing - American Executive

Raytheon: Work Environment

Manufacturing
Written by John Zorabedian
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Using green building and worker-centric design, this industry leader is changing the way its employees do business. It’s a positive development for office workers everywhere—businesses are moving beyond the cubicle farm. Rather than isolating employees in impersonal settings, forward-looking companies such as defense and aerospace firm Raytheon Company are putting a premium on collaborative workspaces and human-centered design. Tony Palumbo, Center Executive for Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) in Huntsville Raytheon designed its new Warfighter Protection Center in Huntsville, Ala. with an eye toward sustainability for the environment and employee health and safety. The 143,000-square-foot facility, opened in December 2006, combines green building with a sensitivity to team environments. The center was certified at the silver level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system by the nonprofit US Green Building Council, having met requirements for water and energy conservation, construction waste reduction, and air quality, among other measures of sustainability. Although the facility is the first LEED silver certified building in Alabama, under the most recent guidelines, it is Raytheon’s third facility newly constructed or retrofitted to incorporate the US Green Building Council’s criteria and achieve LEED certification. “LEED is gaining tremendous recognition, and it really has a prominence in the industry,” said Bob Demer, mission center manager in the company’s Integrated Defense Systems headquarters. “Raytheon Company made the commitment to build a safe, environmentally sound facility. We’re proud of the fact that we could construct the facility with environmental elements, but it’s a real healthy building for employees.” Raytheon’s 500-plus employees at the center will benefit from improved indoor air quality: a carbon-dioxide monitoring system opens air ducts to deliver increased fresh air whenever CO2 levels rise too high (helping to keep employees productive). Thicker insulation and a reflective roof will help to keep the building cool in the summer, reducing energy costs. Smart lighting fixtures allow employees to individually control light settings from their desktops, and motion sensors turn lights off when workers leave their office spaces. And leaving the office is the whole idea, explained Tony Palumbo, Raytheon’s center executive for Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) in Huntsville. “We recognize the need of the new generation to be able to work together and collaborate,” Palumbo said. “A cubicle or an office is a place to put your stuff, but it’s probably not where you’re going to spend your time working.” Alternative workspace IDS provides joint battlespace integration for its clients, including each of the military services, the US Missile Defense Agency, and the US Department of Homeland Security. The new Huntsville facility is the only Raytheon location with employees in all six business divisions that must work with a common customer set. To allow employees from multiple divisions of the company to work collaboratively on complex technical engineering matters, Raytheon’s new Warfighter Protection Center has two-dozen conference rooms, all equipped with video- and audio-conferencing capabilities and wireless Internet. The conference rooms can also support secure, classified video and audio transmissions. “Every day, in every conference room we have, you’ll see people with their laptops plugged in and the screen on,” Palumbo said. “They’re working through software, technical, or engineering issues.” The center is also equipped to handle a large number of workers from subcontractors and representatives from Raytheon’s customers. “We have a huge customer base here in Huntsville, and we wanted to ensure that we had the resources here that would provide support to that customer base,” Palumbo said. “We have customers with multi-million and sometimes multi-billion-dollar programs that are diverse in nature and very technically challenging. We’ve ensured that we can support our customers here for technical reviews.” The building allows for more informal types of collaboration as well. Several spaces throughout the facility allow for “hoteling,” in which employees reserve spaces for work outside of their traditional offices. These spaces include comfortable furniture and relaxing settings along with complete access to networks. In line with the concept of alternative workspaces, Raytheon is planning to incorporate hoteling and collaborative spaces in construction of future facilities, Demer said. As opposed to providing one office per person, alternative workspaces maximize the use of space and take into consideration workers who spend a lot of time off site. “We’re focusing more on supporting what employees do, not where they do it,” Demer said. Fringe benefits Recruitment of top engineers is crucial for Raytheon’s business, and in a highly competitive market like Huntsville, which is also home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a comfortable work environment is a key selling point. Raytheon’s facility includes a dining center, which offers catering for on-site conferences, and a fully equipped gym that is open to employees at all hours. “That is an attractive point for us in recruiting,” Palumbo said. “We’re in a critical market here—talent across all of aerospace is a major challenge. We bring people in and show them our state-of-the-art facilities, team rooms, and they really like it. In retrospect, it’s clearly giving us an edge.” The company also provides support and affinity groups for a diverse range of employees, including its younger engineers, military veterans, African Americans, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees. “Raytheon is a very accountable, responsible and diverse group of people,” Palumbo said. “Our culture is open, accepting, and inclusive, and we focus on respect for our people.”

< Previous Story		Next Story >