The Human Case of Return to Workplace
Syndics of the Drapers' Guild, Rembrandt, 1662, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
I took part in a presentation and Q&A session with Manchester based property management company, All+ Management and many of their customers. Here is the text of my opening summary presentation. The full one is circa 35 minutes.
I’d just like to set the scene about where we are on Planet Office today. In particular I’d like to outline what has changed, what are the new realities of our world, what are the consequences of these new realities and then what to do about them. Just in brief, then we can dive in deeper.
Starting with the new realities, of which I think there are three: two are directly the result of Covid and one is an acceleration of a trend that was occurring anyway.
First off we are now very aware that being together, en masse, in badly ventilated areas, in the presence of a highly contagious airborne virus, can kill us. Actually we already knew, and had known for decades, that bad environmental conditions, are not at all good for our health. But largely we had chosen to ignore this, with no real urgency applied to improving them. We now know that this has to change.
Secondly, when 95% of office based knowledge workers moved, over the course of just a few weeks, to working from home, the world did not collapse. Over two years we have learnt that, by and large, remote working works.
And thirdly, going in to the pandemic there was already a rising groundswell of interest in sustainability, in ESG. Government was regulating for it, investors were demanding it, and occupiers insisted on it. But now, we have the horrendous situation in Ukraine making it crystal clear that the energy component of ESG at least needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
So we have three very powerful drivers of change. Three genies that cannot be put back in the bottle.
So what? What are the consequences of these forces.
First off, we need to ensure the real estate we spend 90% of our time in, is not harming us. We need to pay attention to, monitor and optimise the environmental conditions of the space around us.
Secondly, we need to accept the reality of working away from the office. For most people, under most circumstances, it works well. But for some people it absolutely does not, and for almost all people there are certain tasks and objectives that can be performed better, more efficiently, more effectively, and more enjoyably, from an office. But we also need to accept that there are big issues to be addressed around culture, management and ‘the way we work’.
And thirdly, we need to use renewable energy wherever possible and we need to use as little energy as we can. The cost of energy is skyrocketing like at no time since the great energy shock of the 1970’s. And that crashed western economies.
Now, what do we do about this?
Well the answers are different but interlinked. To solve each one we actually need to solve all three. Think of it as one problem.
The first point is to realise this is a ‘Human + Machine’ problem. The solutions required are partly going to be provided by technology and partly by humans. We need quantitative and qualitative inputs. We need thinkers, feelers and doers.
And the central output is human centric. What we are aiming to do is enable people to be as happy, healthy and productive as possible. If you want supper productive people you need to help make them happy and healthy.
Fundamentally no company wants an office, they want a productive workforce.
So we need to start with the customer, which is our people, and work back to the real estate.
What physical spaces and places do we need to provide to enable our people to be as happy, healthy and productive as they are capable of being?
Think of it like an iPhone. A product that owns 25% of its market but commands 75% of all the profit. Why? Because it provides a user experience created by curating hardware, software and services.
What would the iPhone of workplace look like?
And what would you need to know to create it?
You’d need to know how your building was actually performing, in terms of all its capabilities acting in concert and operating at an optimum level. In a granular, real time and ongoing way. You’d need to know how your spaces were actually being used, again at a granular level, and you’d need to know what were people using the space for. What were the ‘jobs to be done’ that people were using the space to achieve. At an individual level, what were the wants, needs and desires of people in this building.
Historically our offices have been utilised circa 50% of the time. Half the space was unused at any time. On top of which, based on data from the Leesman Index, roughly 40% of office users said that their workplaces did not enable them to be productive. The current circumstances give us an opportunity, nay an obligation and necessity, to fix this.
If we can create safe and healthy buildings, that are low energy users and long term sustainable, AND are places that our people WANT to be in, then we will have done a good job.
With real estate hats on there is only so much we can do. We cannot make bad companies good, but we can help make good companies better. We can enable people to be in environments that maximise their cognitive function, and do nothing to add friction to their working lives. What we are yet to know, but which I suspect to be true, is to what extent doubling down on creating and curating intensely human centric workplaces, that are tailored to the individual, actually can raise the bar as to what constitutes a great company.
What I am certain about though is that the most talented people will want to work for companies that take all of this seriously, are cognisant of the new realities, and focus on providing the conditions in which individuals can do great work.
Here is the video of me presenting the above.
The full presentation is circa 35 minutes.