2022 Workplace Experience Ideabook

Keeping systems and teams siloed will only slow people down in a world where being proactive is key to success. Buildings are only getting smarter, and interoperable platforms are essential to increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and building more sustainable operations across any number of users, sites, and locations. Investing in cloud and mobile-first security technology, with providers that design feature-rich, intuitive systems will help improve security posturing and facilitate a more mobile workforce.

Gather employee feedback. It’s all in the numbers. Leverage technology that provides usage insights and allows you to deploy surveys that gauge employee sentiment in real time

Work at Twitter is hybrid and choice-led, and the office will always be an important, but never the only, option in the ecosystem of places where work happens. Choice enables people to become more intentional when coming to the office, thus making it a more meaningful part of their work.

The future of the office won’t be a binary choice between office or no office. Employers must make the office a compelling destination by giving employees the choice and freedom to decide what works best and when. They must create an environment where the office is a thing, but not THE thing.

Pivoting away from traditional office strategies towards more of a destination strategy focusing on the overall employee & human experience where collaboration, innovation and creativity can be enhanced will increase the fundamental interest for employees to return to the office.

Among the challenges that owners and facility managers can look forward to are changes in workplace utilization rates, safety protocols, and use of technology for collaboration; management of a reduced in-person population due to hybrid work; and restoration of employee engagement and culture.

Leaders must transform their offices into the heartbeat of the company and invite their distributed workforce to gather, make meaningful connections, create rituals and celebrate milestones. That means investing in redesigning the office for a purpose-driven community and creating a connected network of “community spaces” for employees to know what’s happening, when and where, so that they’re inspired to visit often.

In corporate real estate, we are seeing the similar need for predictive data. One of the biggest differences I’ve seen between successful and less successful company reactions to the pandemic was real-time data. Companies that knew occupancy, understood cleaning & facilities management trends and quickly polled employee sentiment were able to act quickly to serve employees and make critical real estate decisions. The ones that didn’t struggled mightily.

Every workplace is different, with specific needs, complexities, and culture, and each department operates in its own way. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. The next year will encompass a state of flux as tenants experiment with innovative ideas and new technologies.

While hybrid is a boon for work/life balance for most employees, it inherently makes facilities management more complicated and difficult. And it’s time to invest in tools to help the facilities teams do work in the “dark corners”of the workplace with dedicated tools that are mile-deep vs. mile-wide. This can enhance functions such as equipment management, predictive maintenance, inspections and cleaning compliance.