Speakers Q&A: What measures should designers and employers be taking to promote employee wellbeing?
Steve Brewer, Founding Partner at Burtt-Jones & Brewer
Using words like ‘inclusivity’ or ‘diversity' is fine. Everyone has a right to be able to choose how, what and where they work from, especially once in the workplace. Designing in ‘wellness’ rooms, referring to planting as ‘biophilic’ design is a also positive. Labelling a room as the ‘wellbeing’ room, separate from the main workspace certainly has merit but is not the panacea. The key to getting this right, from my perspective, is to answer the human, experiential, questions first. If you do build a wellbeing room, what goes into it, where is it located, is it discrete and quiet, how easy is to access, has it got a view, when can it be used, who has control of booking it, how do you know if it’s being used?
Culture eats strategy for breakfast as the saying goes. Get the workplace culture right and the strategy will follow, or community as I prefer to call it.
Wellbeing is holistic. All the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle need to be mapped out first, to create the company’s unique vision/picture and establish a place for wellbeing within the culture. This isn’t just about the workplace, it’s about before and after people arrive at the office and for those working remotely. Wellbeing isn’t just a well appointed room in the basement.
Tina Norden, Partner at Conran & Partners
Wellbeing has thankfully become a key word outside the spa and it is understood how important it is for productivity and positivity of the team. It encompasses all elements of life and all senses, so there is much that a workplace can do to improve the wellness of their team.
Lighting is absolutely key and can even work different at different times of the day and to circadian rhythms.
Ergonomics are often underrated, in particular in younger teams, but a good chair, a good set up for the computer all mean a happy body into the future.
And most importantly creating an environment that is conducive to team work, collaboration and flexibility in set ups to foster a social and collaborative atmosphere.
Lewis Barker, Director, Workplace Services EMEA at ServiceNow
Manager training to educate of wellness practices and providing company wide wellness initiatives. Have a baseline of wellness activities that employees can tap into, could be virtual or remote. Design spaces that are biophilic and have good air circulation and systems.
Michael Dowds, Head of Workplace Design Standards at Department for Work and Pensions
The WELL Building Standard is a good starting point. WELL Certification puts physical and mental health first by considering a wide number or factors including air quality, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind. It can be expensive to fully implement, but much of the guidance can be incorporated in designs fairly simply just by being aware of what is possible and the kinds of things that really make a difference.
Naomi Sakomoto, Senior Associate, Gensler
Workplaces should support the complete hierarchy of physical and emotional wellbeing. Meeting the needs of a neurodiverse workforce with a range of abilities should be the baseline. The second tier of wellbeing encompasses spaces that support us as whole human beings. This includes designing for all activities that individuals may need throughout their day; places for human connection, collaboration, and movement; and places that connect us to nature and daylight. Finally, at the top are spaces that enable us to thrive, connecting us to each other, to the world, and to our sense of purpose; places that support learning and growth; and that inspire and delight us. Workplaces that deliver the top tier of wellbeing will attract and retain the best talent and empower employees to be their best selves.
Speakers Q&A: How can empathy allow future designs to attract and retain talent?
Amy Gargan, Workplace & Interiors Sector Lead, Director at RKD Architects
More and more we are understanding the diversity of employees and recognising that not everyone works in the same way. We also know that the environment we work in can greatly affect our mood, productivity, and well-being. Employers seeking to incorporate empathetic design principles in their workplace are cognisant of that diversity and strive to create an inclusive workplace that values individual differences in the workforce and makes everyone feel accepted.
Design should focus on creating a workplace which is human centric, catering to individuals, their personalities, experience, and choices in the way they work. Addressing environmental and wellbeing factors will help keep employees engaged, giving them a sense of fulfilment that will ultimately benefit employee retention.
Claire Henderson, Inclusive Design Lead, Workplace Design at HMRC
As a society we are becoming increasing aware of the diverse nature of people, we aren’t all the same and what a boring world it would be if we were! Workspace is key to supporting individuals shine, by providing the right environment, or indeed choice of environments throughout, people see that not only do employers care about them as employees but also as individuals, that comes with increased levels of engagement and retention as well as productivity.
Only by listening to a diverse range of end users will design teams truly get anywhere near providing an inclusive workspace and ultimately a change for a protected characteristic generally is something that helps others, lowered kerbs, clamshell doors, all examples of that so it’s a win win.
Claudia Bastiani, Head of Workplace Experience & Design at Legal & General
Neuroarchitecture will play an ever more significant role in the creation of future workspaces; understanding the question that we are trying to answer ie what does empathy in the design and operation of a workspace really mean? These are the sorts of interesting and sometimes uncomfortable conversations that need to be explored.
The interaction between HR, Real Estate and Technology has never been more significant. Data and the ability to pivot your thinking quickly is key to evolving strategies around employee engagement. Neuroscience will make more and more of a contribution to future strategies which might seem disruptive for some, whilst very exciting for others.
Natasha Hewlett, Senior Project Designer at Peldon Rose
I think empathic design should consider the human above everything. The needs and requirements within a workspace differ between every single person, so for employers to both attract and retain talent they have to invest in their people. Creating ‘everybody’ spaces sounds like a challenge, but by designing a workspace revolving around the human flow with flexibility in mind will do exactly that.
Quiet focus areas, dedicated collaboration zones away from the desk, high energy social spaces, but most importantly the choice of how the employee can work. These are all ways to create diverse environments that go above and beyond the basic requirements of the traditional office, giving choice and flexibility for everyone - for example introverts, extroverts, anyone with a disability or who is neurodiverse.
Speakers Q&A: What changes are you hoping to see in the UK workspaces in 2023?
Tina Norden, Partner at Conran & Partners
More variety, more flexibility and a regard to the human factor whilst retaining a professional environment. And professional doesn’t mean boring and grey, it means and environment that is conducive to the type of work being done, looks right for the sector it is ibn and promotes staff wellbeing.
It is easy to forget that working on a sofa or a badly set up desk can actually be very harmful to our wellbeing, so designing spaces with character and personality that actually work will be real progress.
Claudia Bastiani, Head of Workplace Experience & Design at Legal & General
For 2023 and beyond, I am interested in exploring design that is truly inclusive and sustainable, so catering for neurodiversity, the not so obvious physical disabilities such as challenges with hearing and sight, spaces for community that cater for all and true carbon calculation. What will differentiate a great workspace from an outstanding workspace will be inclusivity and sustainability.
Both interesting subjects are ever evolving so understanding what the current thought is around these will be interesting, as well as understanding the current challenges. We find ourselves in a situation where for the first time we have a very informed audience (the workforce) so not being engaged in evolving your thinking on this is no longer an option.
Lewis Barker, Director, Workplace Services EMEA at ServiceNow
More climate and sustainability focused spaces – our company has commitments we need to make alongside other companies and as Real Estate is a massive polluter, it’s within all our control to help solve this issue.
Flexible and adaptable spaces – simply put we need to experiment and having flexible spaces allows this experimentation to happen. We’d still need to ensure quiet and solo working spaces, but these can also be flexible in nature too.
Claire Henderson, Inclusive Design Lead, Workplace Design at HMRC
Post pandemic return to the office has seen us all think about our work environment differently and that is even more evident in the recent generation of recruits where going to an office is about more than just a space for a desk, it’s about all the wellbeing benefits which come with that.
We were already on that path pre-pandemic but the change in behaviours has been accelerated and I hope 2023 sees more of us adopting that behaviour and making the most of fantastic workspaces that are out there, and of course we need to ensure we have designs and products to meet that challenge!
Speakers Q&A: How do you see flexibility being implemented in offices to maximise the use of real estate and improve the employee experience?
Paula Rowntree, Head of Workplace Design at Lloyds Banking Group
At a personal level I am curious about how we can blend more retail design thinking in our office space; retail is constantly reinventing itself and designs for low cost/modular/flexible environments. If I know nothing I know that change is a constant in today’s world so bringing more of this retail way of thinking/designing is something I am exploring.
Scott Rominger, Creative Director at WeWork
Work trends continue to evolve as businesses put their right foot forward and employees figure out what they need and want from the office going into 2023. As a result, companies must embrace flexibility on all levels to adapt to new demand, and spaces must be reconfigurable as this demand evolves. At WeWork, flexibility is at the core of our business – particularly in our design approach, where we adapt and enhance our spaces depending on our members’ varying needs. For example, in large offices, we used to provide 10% lounge space and now we are seeing the need for 50-60%collaboration and lounge space.
We’re also seeing increased demand for dedicated, focused areas. What’s become clear is that as the criteria for the modern office evolves, flexible design solutions that can be adjusted in a few weeks rather than in a few months will be table stakes’ for any operator as we head into 2023.
Natasha Hewlett, Senior Project Designer at Peldon Rose
By creating flexible workspaces, employers can cater to a diversity of needs whilst maximising the real estate. We are seeing more multi-purpose spaces being designed, for example social areas that can be adapted into town hall spaces. Two very useable zones utilising the same amount of real estate by considering the flexibility of the furniture, as well as the technology and AV solutions.
The ability to ‘plug and play’-that is to work from chargeable devices comfortably in your desired location - is so important when creating multi function spaces. If the furniture can flip, fold and move out of the way with ease and AV can be adapted easily then employers can maximise real estate whilst giving their employees the workspaces they need.
Steve Brewer, Founding Partner at Burtt-Jones & Brewer
Multi-tenanted buildings will need to offer more to legacy and prospective tenants, it’s no longer good enough to just offer great showers, upscale changing spaces, plenty of lockers and bicycle parking. With many high rise office buildings occupied by businesses from various sectors, demands are becoming multiple and diverse, extending far beyond what would originally have been considered core business needs. New developments have been adding communal gyms, bike parking, showers etc for years. It is now about experience, not just facility. The demand is for spaces that need to flex more, where an entire area of site, floor or group of floors are assigned as a shared space for tenants to flex and grow. For example, this could be a short or mid term project rooms with dedicated workspaces for tenants looking to incubate new business ideas, or a dedicated, informal environment for external tenants to mix and collaborate with building users, curated with a specific agenda to engage in creative workshops and sessions to directly and indirectly foster innovation. The key being to enhance the experience, not just the facility. These new spaces should be viewed as collateral to the tenant offer, as a void to fill, providing value as a service, not as an overhead and operational cost.
In terms of how to improve the experience within individual workspaces, employees are being given a new level of personal autonomy. The Covid experience has enabled them to have a voice in the discussion about what the workspace becomes and how it should be shaped, taylorism if you like. Where small enhancements can be made to better an individual’s needs and wellbeing at a fundamental level, such as direct control of lighting, comfort at the desk or work setting.
Tina Norden, Partner at Conran & Partners
Flexibility in the workplace is very important but also very hard to get right. Whilst most offices are driving towards flexible workspace, most employees actually like having their own desk, with their team and their things around them.
If flexible desks are key, bringing in personal touches like a trolley for personal items that can be stored and brought along, can help to still create that sense of place.
Flexibility is also important on a closer level, bringing variety into the desk set up.
The height of the desk and chair, using a chair or not, how the computer is set up and even lighting moods – allowing the team to customise these will give flexibility and will promote satisfaction and wellbeing.
Lewis Barker, Director, Workplace Services EMEA at ServiceNow
I see prescribed team days in offices. Certain events can be hosted in physical spaces as default – a prescribed matrix of what happens in office vs at home vs 3rd space. Working hours won’t exist – use the space at all times, if that what works for the individual.
Speakers Q&A: What are the most important considerations for employers when creating spaces where people really want to be?
Michael Dowds, Head of Workplace Design Standards at Department for Work & Pensions
You need to really know your people. Take every opportunity to bring the various teams using a space on the design journey with you. Help them reimagine how they could carry out their work in different settings to achieve better outcomes. Encourage creativity, imagination, collaboration appropriate for those using the space.
Most people don’t naturally default to a smarter way of working. Help your people understand how the workplace has been designed with them in mind, and how to make best use of the various work settings. Review the workplace with your people after a period of time to help keep things fresh, appropriate and to continue the journey together.
Lewis Barker, Director, Workplace Services EMEA at ServiceNow
Event spaces to host large meetings ranging from a hour, to a day to a couple of days. Also seamless technology embedded in the designs to ensure a great employee experience. Finally hospitality focus from the workplace teams equals personalised experiences that the employee base remembers and wants to come back to.
Tina Norden, Partner at Conran & Partners
In our post-Covid WFH world our ambition is to design spaces that make people want to come to the office and actually be there on an (almost) daily basis. The new flexibility is amazing and a real game changer, but it is easy to forget how much enjoyment a good and professional working environment can bring.
Key considerations are now to actually set the workplace apart from home functionally whilst creating environments people like being in. Lighting is key, ergonomics of chairs and table, flexible height desks – and spaces where the team can come together for meetings and socials. All things that are very hard to recreate at home!
Steve Brewer, Founding Partner at Burtt-Jones & Brewer
To create a place first and foremost, and not a space. Build in staff engagement at the offset. Allow time to listen, to have their input, the brief building process at the start of the project is almost always the part of the project that is easy to compress, but is the part of the project where you learn most, it will define the project. Discuss what your employees are willing to compromise on early too. We’d all love everything to be just as I want it, but that may not be the same as you would like it. Your employees will understand this. Clear, open, timely and transparent communication is vital. Treat the problems and subjective and objective. What is best for you, and your team, the wider business needs and the planet. The employer has to listen, allow a degree of, taylorism (there’s that word again). Always respond to every idea, no matter how daft, crazy or pointless. Show that you listened and responded. Embedding your staff into the process will pay dividends. They will own the project. Co-design it with them, not for them.
Natasha Hewlett, Senior Project Designer at Peldon Rose
Today’s offices need to deliver something special and should be so much more than just a place to work; somewhere that encapsulates the purpose of a business, provides space for connection, collaboration and bring the best out in their people. A true destination workspace considers the needs of the employee as an individual and caters for everyone, which is a delicate balance of designing for their priorities and needs.
One reason we are seeing staff coming into the office is for the social aspect, so employers have been more invested in creating those spaces and showing the employees are trusted to utilise every aspect of the workspace. Having had our home comforts at our fingertips in recent years while working from home, businesses now need to ensure that they are mimicking this in the workplace.
Claudia Bastiani, Head of Workplace Experience & Design, Legal & General
Looking forward to seeing whether what we thought were the key factors for a high performing workspace before the pandemic; have these changed with the key shifts that the more general population have come to realise? We have followed the Hospitality sector for the last 20 or so years in creating ‘experiences’ and placemaking, insistent upon work/life balance and creating workspaces that support both. Generally our workspaces now cross at least two different places each week; do we need to change our design thinking?
Amy Gargan, Workplace & Interiors Sector Lead, Director at RKD Architects
Undoubtedly the focus now for employers is to provide a workplace that offers so much more than what their employees can experience working remotely. Their reason for coming to the office is no longer one of routine or a sense of obligation, but rather it is purpose driven and the workplace must respond by tailoring itself to meet the needs of the individual.
This means a curated office landscape that offers a variety of intuitive work settings that fulfil the individual’s requirements providing for ultimate flexibility and productivity. The experience when in the workplace should be seamless – from booking a desk or reserving meeting space, to knowing who and when other team members will be there.
The employee who is removed from the office for part of their working week comes there seeking a sense of belonging and therefore it is incumbent upon the employer to create an environment which not only enables their employees to work in the most effective way possible, but also embodies their culture and values, creating a sense of community.
Scott Rominger, Creative Director at WeWork
At WeWork, we’re consistently speaking to our members to understand more about what they need and want from the modern workplace – especially as flexible working continues to take shape and office visits become more intentional, depending on working styles and tasks that need to be completed that day. With this in mind, there can no longer be a “one size fits all” approach when it comes to office design in this new era.
Instead, a workspace must be a dynamic and mixed-use space that meets the varying needs of workers. From quiet nooks, lounges and collaborative spaces to conference rooms and dedicated focus areas, at WeWork, we strike a balance between functional and thoughtful design – underpinned by flexibility. As work trends evolve, it's a combination of understanding what workers actually want, and having the flexibility to adapt seamlessly that will be key in 2023.
Paula Rowntree, Head of Workplace Design at Lloyds Banking Group
For me, the most important consideration is our colleagues and the different roles and needs they have from space, one size does not fit all. How do we create the optimum space to support both productivity and also well being and comfort in the workplace. After two years of Covid and home working we need to focus on how the Office space can provide the face to face human interaction that you simply don’t get at home; virtual is just not the same; humans are social animals with connection being vital for our health and well-being as Covid so aptly demonstrated.
Naomi Sakomoto, Senior Associate, Gensler
Today’s talent seek workplaces that combine the best of the pre-pandemic workplace, mixed with the best of the remote workplace. In broad terms, the best of the pre-pandemic workplace ingredients were:
Work: the technical infrastructure to support production;
- Play: the social infrastructure to support connection; and
- Love: the narrative infrastructure to support communication of values, impact, and purpose.
The remote workplace, despite its difficulties, brought us a few key wins:
- Flexibility & autonomy to choose when and where we work best;
- Equity for different personality types, life circumstances, and physical, neurological, and social abilities, enabled by technology;
- Convenience.
Workplaces will need to provide all of these ingredients, combined into their own recipe based on the organisation’s ways of working and unique culture.
Workspace Design Show announces inspiring speaker line-up for 2023
Workspace Design Show returns for the second time, unveiling an exciting speaker line-up as part of its 2023 edition. Taking place once again at London’s Business Design Centre, the show brings together the UK’s workplace interiors community to explore the experience of tomorrow’s workspaces.
The show will take place from 27- 28 February 2023, with this year’s theme being Destination Workplace: Places Where People Want To Be. One of the highlights from the inaugural 2022 edition was the Show’s talks programme, which was well received by the workplace design community.
Confirmed speakers for 2023 hail from a raft of stakeholder groups, from developers to architects and their blue-chip clients. These include architects and designers such as Collin Burry, Design Principal with Gensler; Christos Passas, Director, Zaha Hadid Architects, Katrina Kostic Samen, Director and Head of Workplace Strategy & Design, KKS Savills, and Grant Kanik, Partner, Foster + Partners. Other industry professionals speaking include Kate Smith, Executive Director, Head of Workplace Strategy at CBRE, Scott Rominger, Creative Director at WeWork, Kael Gillam, Principal Lighting Designer at Hoare Lea and June Koh, Total Workplace, Partner, Workplace Strategy Lead EMEA, Cushman & Wakefield.
International furniture specialist The Furniture Practice are curating the Talks Lounge once again this year, as well as collaborating with architectural firm BDP on the newly added talks space. The spaces are set to feature iconic brands including Vitra, Fredericia, Arper, Andreu World, and Moroso amongst others. Panel sessions will include the likes of, Ed Hoban, Associate Director and Head of Workplace at The Furniture Practice, as well as Matt Davies, Director of Sustainability.
In a series of talks, interviews and discussions, the Sustainability Works programme will bring together a selection of key figures behind the workplace market’s leading sustainable initiatives, projects and product developments. Confirmed speakers include Natalie Smith, Principal, Perkins&Will, Georgia Elliott-Smith, Managing Director at Element 4 and UN Special Junior Envoy for Youth and the Environment. Curated by Mick Jordan and the Works editorial team, it is a response to sustainability’s place at the top of the workplace agenda.
Workspace Design Show will also be hosting the Occupiers Forum - ‘The view from HQ’. Among the speakers from corporate organisations are Anita Glenn, Head of Workplace Design, AstraZeneca, Michelle Harwood, EMEA Real Estate Director, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, Ash Kaur, Workplace Design Lead for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Oracle, and Suzan Dixon, Head of Workplace Europe & Americas, Standard Chartered. This gives visitors the opportunity to hear perspectives from current senior workplace end users, exploring the present and future demands of high-profile firms.
The Finishes and Interiors Sector Conference (FIS) will take place over both days of Workspace Design Show too. The first day will focus on the compliance and the fit-out process: creating the best possible environments to put the wow factor into buildings, while the second day will focus around creating destination workspaces: places where people want to be. Among those presenting their thought leadership are Jamesina Sainsbury, Director of Consultancy, MCM, Andrew Parkin, Partner – Global Head of Acoustics, Cundall, Vidhi Sharma, Creative Director, Future Workspaces Group.
The complete speaking programme at Workspace Design Show will cover a range of unmissable topics around workplace design and strategy featuring speakers with a diverse range of perspectives.
Workspace Design Show, 27th & 28th February 2023, Business Design Centre, London. Click here to register FREE.
WDS 2023 speaker line-up announcement covered by Workplace Insight
Our friends over at Workplace Insight recently published an article detailing the Workspace Design Show UK's 2023 speaker line-up - an extract from which can be read below;
"The Workspace Design Show returns for the second time, unveiling an exciting speaker line-up as part of its 2023 edition. Taking place once again at London’s Business Design Centre, the show brings together the UK’s workplace interiors community to explore the experience of tomorrow’s workspaces.
The show will take place from 27- 28 February 2023, with the theme being Destination Workplace: Places Where People Want To Be. One of the highlights from the inaugural 2022 edition was the Show’s talks programme, which was well received by the workplace design community.
Confirmed speakers for 2023 hail from a raft of stakeholder groups, from developers to architects and their blue-chip clients. These include architects and designers such as Collin Burry, Design Principal with Gensler; Christos Passas, Director, Zaha Hadid Architects, Katrina Kostic Samen, Director and Head of Workplace Strategy & Design, KKS Savills, and Grant Kanik, Partner, Foster + Partners. Other industry professionals speaking include Kate Smith, Executive Director, Head of Workplace Strategy at CBRE, Scott Rominger, Creative Director at WeWork, Kael Gillam, Principal Lighting Designer at Hoare Lea and June Koh, Total Workplace, Partner, Workplace Strategy Lead EMEA, Cushman & Wakefield."
Click here to read the article in full.
The hugely successful Workspace Design Show returns for 2023 after its inaugural edition last year
Workspace Design Show will be taking place at the Business Design Centre, London, on 27-28 February, and is getting ready to host a whole range of creatives from the UK’s workplace industry. With the theme of this year’s show being ‘Destination Workplace’ there will be over 3,000 workplace professionals looking to source the latest furniture, lighting, acoustics, surfaces, storage, materials, tech and biophilic products and solutions to transform their office interiors.
Gensler, the worldwide integrated architecture, design, planning, and consulting firm will be designing the Show entrance, with the theme ‘Destination Workplace Rebirth’. Becky Spenceley, Design Director at Gensler, who is leading the project, says ‘It feels like there has never been a more exciting and yet equally unknown time in the future of workplace design. We are inspired by this synergy between a new era of workplace and a new outlook on how we can care for our planet, and how we as designers can affect that through pioneering and sustainable design. It’s about fresh perspectives to enable new ways of working and create unique and tailored destinations for people, hence the overarching theme of Rebirth.’
Over the course of the event there will be a diverse range of speakers, within an enticing talks programme, providing three Talks theatres which attendees can choose from. Refreshing, post-Covid opinions will be discussed in the Talks Lounge, beautifully curated by The Furniture Practice. In addition, attendees will be able to listen to the leading lights from architecture and design, and end-users talking about the latest trends, challenges and innovations in the workplace sector.
New to this year is the Bio Materials exhibition, designed by BIOHM, with biological systems at the heart of it’s inspiration. This will combine ideologies of the circular economy and human-centred design with future-tech, representing an exciting opportunity for visitors to discover advanced materials, that will be crucial to the future of design.
Major international architecture practice BDP is responsible for ‘Change by Design’ a lounge space concept for the 2023 Workspace Design Show. This will provide a discussion piece surrounding the current climate crisis, and will question the impact of workplace design on the natural environment. It represents a problem-solving approach that will demonstrate how the use of recycled, reused and bio materials in design projects can help to shape a low-carbon future.
The FIS, (Finishes & Interiors Sector) Innovation awards will also take place at the show, recognising outstanding innovation in the finishes and interiors sector across various categories.
The Workspace Design Show party will also be making a welcome return, this time bigger, bolder and better.
The show will also provide visitors with the chance to explore the latest product launches that are transforming the employee experience in our workplaces, creating spaces for people to harbour creativity and enjoy working in.
Surprise! Youngest Workers Need The Office More
Research shows Gen Z values being at work more than experienced counterparts, but they need the office to better fit their needs.
Throughout the talent crisis that’s emerged during the pandemic, one coveted demographic has seemed like a moving target: Gen Z. The youngest generation is the most willing to uproot for greener pastures. According to a recent survey* of nearly 5,000 employees, Gen Z respondents were nearly twice as likely to say they could be leaving their jobs in the next six months, 24% compared to only 13% of Boomers.
So the big question is how do you entice – and keep – the all-important younger wave of workers? That same global research holds some insights. Developing a better understanding of what younger generations are seeking may help us improve the work experience for everyone.
Value Add
From the start, Gen Z values the office more now than before the pandemic. We found that, across the board, younger generations have a comparatively more favorable view of the workplace, what it can provide, and why they feel the need to be there.
They look to the workplace as a resource: a place with the proper tools, higher level of technology access and the best place to be recognized for possible advancement. Gen Z workers believe the place to be seen and heard is at the office, and they want to be heard. Corporate alignment on topics surrounding social innovation and environmental issues are important to most employees, but research shows it becomes especially personal for Gen Z. They want a stake in the company’s points of view on social issues and they believe the office is the best place to exercise their voice.
Gen Z is more tech-proficient and uses it in a more integrated way in their daily lives. They are the first generation to be raised completely in the tech era, so having usable tech to make their lives easier is an important attribute to the in-office experience. But it’s critical that the tools are not only available, they also have to work seamlessly.
Beyond the social and tech benefits to the office, the space needs to change as well. Gen Z wants areas for social connection. They need a variety of team or collaboration spaces to work on projects together and they want focus areas that can be arranged to offer varying levels of acoustic and visual privacy.
What that new workplace looks like will vary, but our research uncovered five things younger workers say are most important in their office space now. All of these rated significantly higher among younger generations.
- 75%: Privacy
- 68%: Collaboration stations that support virtual work collaboration
- 66%: Stand-alone workstations (Enclaves/Pods)
- 66%: Single person enclaves that support remote meetings
- 63%: Workstations that can be reserved
Why It Matters
Research finds that overall those who like working from their office are significantly less likely to leave and are significantly more engaged, productive and connected to their company culture, regardless of generational differences. Gen Z is the fastest growing segment in the workplace, so it stands to reason that companies are seeking to understand how to provide the culture and space needed to attract, retain and grow those key performers. Research shows Gen Z is the most excited about the possibilities of working in person, but the office has to live up to those expectations.
*Steelcase Global Research, conducted Fall 2021, 4,986 employees in 11 countries
**Originally posted on Work Design.
How Will We View Today’s Transformation Of The Workplace In Twenty Years?
Ryan Anderson of MillerKnoll explores how and why the workplace is transforming to become what employees want it to be.
Few would dispute that the workplace is in a time of significant post-pandemic transformation, but how will we describe this transformation in, say, twenty years?
While we might be tempted to say, “this is the rise of the hybrid era of workplace” we should remember that hybrid strategies are a response to other fundamental changes in work, not the root of them. Instead, we should understand that at the core the transformation underway is a fundamental re-evaluation of the purpose of the workplace, and if we had to speculate as to the clearest explanation of how we might look back on this era, it should be this: the workplace is becoming what the employees want it to be.
Call it the consumerization of workplace or the recognition that employees are actually customers of our office environments, organizations along the full spectrum of workplace strategy – from office-first to hybrid to remote-first – are recognizing that if their investment in corporate real estate doesn’t serve the needs of its employees then it’s a waste of money. This is a seismic shift in the conceptualization of the workplace. While this type of thinking wasn’t entirely absent from the pre-pandemic business world, it was the exception rather than the rule. For most organizations, the workplace was synonymous with the office, and the design of offices was based upon a clearly recognizable template that has its roots from over a century ago.
Let’s acknowledge that the early origins of the office were based on the needs of management (more likely called “bosses” back in those times), not the workforce. As offices began to develop adjacent to manufacturing facilities and storefronts in the mid-to-late 1800s, they were designed to bring the bosses into close proximity with their top employees and the clerks who kept the books and managed the logistics of the business. These clerks, it should be noted, typically wore heavily starched white collared shirts, from which we later derived the term “white collar work.” Over the hundred years that followed, variances occurred in how offices were designed but most still resembled rows of open desks within view of large private offices, driven by the needs of bosses to supervise work, commiserate with each other, and impress clients.
There was a brief reprisal of this approach in the 1950’s postwar Germany when two brothers with the surname Quickborner began promoting the concept of Bürolandschaft, or “office landscape”, as a more spacious, navigable space design to promote employee choice and movement, and the idea slowly began to spread. However, any hopes for choice and movement were put on hold for thirty years with the rise of the desktop computer, which tethered employees to a given location and forced office design to be based upon the location of computers, the need to route power and data cabling to them, and the ergonomic support of the employees who sat in front of them for most of their working lives. It’s not an exaggeration to say that from 1980 to 2010 it was IT networks rather than human networks that drove the design of office space.
However, when mobile technologies, WiFi and the cloud began to converge between 2010 and 2020, we entered into a transitional state that set the stage for the transition we’re currently experiencing. The work became distributed – it spread out – across floorplates, cities and the world, and office utilization rates declined significantly year over year. Some organizations, particularly those in Europe and Australia, embraced activity-based working (ABW) and other alternative workplace strategies, while most other organizations around the world simply densified their floor plans with smaller and more generic desks. In other words, the pre-pandemic workplace for all of its advances still heavily resembled ones from a century before. However, with the onset of the pandemic and years of sustained remote working, leaders finally began to question not just the design of their spaces, but the fundamental purposes of them.
For most organizations, their historic investment in corporate real estate was only second to their investment in people. In today’s economy these same organizations recognize that finding and keeping the right people is much more costly than it once was while the cost of real estate is less so. A softening of the economy may provide some relief to the rising costs associated with getting and keeping talent, but investments in corporate real estate will still be viewed with a new lens – it’s either an investment in accelerating the impact of their people or it’s a cost that should be reduced to make room for increases in compensation. There’s no point in simply paying for offices for the sake of keeping them. Either they work for the employees or they don’t.
So where does this leave us? Perhaps the most important takeaway is this: the processes associated with planning and managing spaces need to be fundamentally redesigned to capture the voice of the employees rather than the leaders. We need to move beyond typical program development processes and post-occupancy satisfaction surveys and find new ways to conceptualize the workplace as a product that is driven by the voice of its customers – the employees.
As I wrote in Work Design back in December of 2020, we can take inspiration from other spaces such as restaurants. Much like working from home, people are free to cook from home, but we still value – cherish, even – the experience of dining out, and many of us do so in some capacity several times per week. But for a restauranteur to be successful, they must take many factors into account. Who are their customers? What type of experiences do the customers seek? How can the space and the experience fit well into the local culture while connecting the customers to something beyond their locale? Ultimately, the experience in the space is a product, and the restauranteur must determine if it’s desirable and valuable or how it must shift as demand patterns change.
These are the same types of questions that must be applied to the office. With this new customer-centricity, we must consider the full breadth of user needs, recognize that our typical user isn’t actually typical at all, and that through a well-curated choice of work settings spaces can become more desirable, inclusive, and adaptable. In this way we’ll accelerate the transformation underway and see greater returns on real estate investments, transforming the office from a platform of management to an empowering employee resource. In other words, we can transform the spaces into what the employees want them to be.
*Originally posted on Work Design.