Kaiser Permanente's Phased Move Will Increase Hacienda Workforce

By Nicole Zaro Stahl, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Working Population in Park to More Than Double by December 2010

This is a landmark year for Kaiser Permanente in Pleasanton. By December 2010 Kaiser Permanente's Hacienda population will be more than double what it was a year earlier, up from roughly 1,400 to more than 3,200 employees.

The newcomers are current employees, moving from various locations in Oakland, Emeryville, and Walnut Creek. The move is designed to reunite the IT organization into a campus setting with Kaiser Permanente's existing Hacienda workforce.

One of the incoming employee groups supports KP HealthConnect, the largest private-sector electronic health record in the world. The comprehensive health information system securely connects more than 8.6 million people to their physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, personal information, and the latest medical knowledge.

Having the IT employees connected on the same campus sparks many synergies, notes Tracey Stiles, Kaiser Permanente's director of IT facilities management, who has spearheaded the building remodels and coordinated the phased move. "This is a first for the IT teams, to all be on one campus," Stiles says. "They are really excited about being able to walk across the courtyard to meet with another team in an environment designed to support creative development. And they appreciate having amenities like a cafeteria, gym, and volleyball court on site."

The impetus for the move included the expiration of about 600,000 square feet of East Bay real estate leases. "We had the opportunity to make better use of our space, better support an increasingly mobile workforce, and reunite certain workgroups by moving into these buildings in Hacienda," Stiles says.

Her group put a lot of time into planning. In 2008, a utilization survey revealed that the IT teams' work space was too static and stationary for today's workforce. The heavy furniture was too hard to move when teams changed or had to convene for special projects. The challenge in Hacienda was to create more flexible space while being thoughtful about spending.

"The smarter we were in creating that space, the longer it will last," Stiles explains. Working together, facilities staff, user groups, and the architects came up with a "smart plan" that added collaborative spaces, conference rooms, and touchdown spaces, where people plug in and work for a time, to existing buildings. "Teams are very mobile today, so we have to provide the right types of work areas," she notes.

All non-medical facilities, Kaiser Permanente's Hacienda campus includes Buildings A-D at 4460 Hacienda Drive and Buildings E and F at 5810 Owens Drive. A nearby Kaiser medical facility is located outside the park, at 7601 Stoneridge Drive.

The first wave of 300 employees settled into Building F in February. A larger group of around 950 will move into Building E in the next few weeks. The remaining employees who are moving are scheduled to arrive in the fall. The organization's headquarters will remain in downtown Oakland at the Ordway building.

Photo: Tracey Stiles (in grey suit) with members of the IT Facilities team, all highly involved with the Pleasanton move.

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