Three Key Insights for Workplace Design & Strategy from IFMA World Workplace ‘23

Veldhoen + Company’s Kristin Reed breaks down three standout topics from the Workplace Evolutionaries’ sessions at IFMA’s World Workplace.

A vital component for the health and sustainability of our profession, for the businesses & clients we advise, and for the people whom we design work experiences, is this: workplace strategists and designers need a forum for groundbreaking discussions and bold experiments in strategy, design, and the wider built environment.

The International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) 2023 World Workplace conference offered that, and more. More than four thousand workplace and facilities professionals from around the world, including a sizable contingent from the Workplace Evolutionaries’ (WE) global Community of Practice for Workplace Innovation, recently gathered in Denver, CO, from Sept 25-28^th.

Three key insights from the discussion stand out, addressing both the here-and-now and the future evolutions of “what is workplace?”.

1. The Workplace is an essential stakeholder in the reinvention of urban areas and willingness to RTO

Is return-to-office (RTO) becoming a North America problem, compared to rest of globe, due to the way our central business districts are designed?

– Kay Sargent, HOK, at IFMA’s Expert Panel Assessment session

We know from various research that the common reasons why employees resist returning to work in the office include the cost of commuting and the cost/value of flexibility and choice. What would make it more valuable to employees – the return on cost, the time, and the experience – to return to an office in a city center?

Joy Lo Dico recently cited Herbert Lottman’s definition of successful city: “a place where people go more often than is functionally strictly necessary… beyond the need of visiting elements of banks and shops and jobs. It has its own life.”

Consider this: if we can’t redesign the city and transit, how can designers and strategists do more or do better to advise clients in the workplace?

• Still today, many organizations are struggling with a clear problem definition, “what is the return-to-in-person work problem that we are trying to solve for?” Put pressure on leaders and decision makers to clearly define the problem before jumping to a solution.
• Triangulate the many workplace data inputs to build a “when the commute is worth it” roadmap for employees. Copious amounts of people analytics and work activities data exist. With access to data for their own behaviors for collaboration, connection, and individual work, leaders and people can make informed decisions about the return on cost and value for their commute and flexibility.
• Workplaces need community built around them. Workplaces and community need each others’ support. Gensler shared during the WE:Converge session at IFMA from their research, Designing Cities of the Future, to make individuals and the community the focal point. Create public spaces where context and culture become tangible and nourish the senses and encourage social interaction and the shared experiences that sustain local culture. “What is the human relationship to the built environment?”
• Challenge the practice: to what extent do strategists and designers hold responsibility and accountability to collaborate more intently with city planners and decision makers, to lobby for an integrated and holistic approach to work + life in cities?

2. The Workplace is humane, not just human-centered

This isn’t an issue only for Human Resources (HR) to solve. Real Estate and Facilities leaders, too, have an important role and responsibility.

– Kristin Reed, Veldhoen + Company, at Workplace Evolutionaries’ Triple Bottom Line debate session

Unconscious bias in the workplace is a major problem – and a major opportunity. It is not only a diversity, equity, and inclusion issue for HR to solve. It is not only a hybrid/remote/in office policy decision for leaders to solve.

Strategists and designers have a responsibility to create inclusive and equitable opportunities for people to do their best work. This requires a better understand our own biases, to mitigate the practice of designing and cultivating environments that reinforce our own understanding of life, our own values, and our own self-interests, as shared by Bonnie Toland from Gensler during the WE:Converge session.

Consider this: Bonnie challenges strategists and designers to rethink equitable design in these ways:

• Think about your sensory experiences: reactions to noise, scent, light, crowded spaces, privacy, temperature, or colors? How might your sensory threshold bias the way you design these attributes into a space?
• Think about your relationship to object permanence: are you used to furniture being fixed or moveable on casters? Is a bias leading you to design meeting spaces for a fixed number of people, or maximum flexibility for a range of people and postures?
• Think about your relationship to cities designed in grids versus cities designed in a non-linear way? Is a bias leading you to prefer to design offices in grid patterns or non-linear patterns?
• Through greater awareness of design biases and building our own empathy, we are more likely to think critically about how to design spaces that support people to thrive.

3. The Workplace’s “WX” is anyone’s guess if not well integrated

You can’t say you have a workplace experience (WX) if you don’t know what workplace means in your company.

– Leni Rivera, WorkplaceXperience Consulting, at Workplace Evolutionaries’ live WE:Mosh Pit session

Many organizations have or are considering a Workplace Experience (WX) role. The reasons vary, and in many cases it is viewed as a catalyst to increase and improve in-person interactions. In a recent study by Appspace, published in Harvard Business Review, most respondents (93%) feel their organizations could improve on the in-office experience.

But what should a WX role do and be accountable for? A Human Resources professional will define it through the lens of people. A Real Estate/Facilities professional will define it through the lens of place. An Employee might define it through the lens of work activities and interactions. All are correct and important.

Consider this: Leni challenges strategists and designers to rethink WX in these ways:

• WX brings together all workplace functions under a single, unified structure so that it can effectively drive a cohesive experience for employees, across all types of work styles (in office, hybrid, remote).
• WX is the measure by which employees are able to quickly and easily gauge the culture’s authenticity.
• WX is the only element of a culture that can be experienced physically through all the human senses – touch, taste, sound, smell and sight, and so it bears witness to the sincerity of its purpose. That’s why placing a pool table in the office or sleep pods in the corner without having a reason behind their existence will cause more doubt than anything else.

Many important conversations were started and new connections made at World Workplace that we would like to continue to support. Look for these topics and more resources to come from the WE community every month with their WE:binars or follow the lively WE LinkedIn group.

See you this spring at IFMA’s Facility Fusion!