Lauren Pollack
Strongly agree, slightly agree, or subtly agree?
Engaging with employees has gotten a bad rap. The usual mix of pulse surveys, chair fairs, and off-the-cuff comments from the squeakiest wheel can make us wonder if there is any value in engaging employees in workplace projects.
Insights from employee knowledge are foundational to developing a workplace strategy and ultimately a final design that is attuned to the employees' and company's goals. Still, we hear a lot of hesitation about "opening pandora’s box" by soliciting employee opinions. An overload of chaotic information doesn't need to be your reality.
With an effective structure, knowledge shared by employees can be synthesized into a valuable resource of insight and information specific to your company. The outcome of successful engagement can enhance acceptance of change initiatives and forecast the most impactful workplace investments.
If you’re saying it’s too early to involve your people- you have likely waited too long.
Here are the top myths about engaging employees in workplace projects:
Myth 1 | It creates unattainable expectations.
“If I engage them, they’ll expect something I can’t give them.”
“People will be frustrated if their suggestion isn’t selected.”
Engagement Reality - The themes discussed should align with the scope and desired outcomes of the project. This is not a free for all or a time to make selections.
Myth 2 | Surface level input is sufficient.
“I’ll wait and engage employees in picking finishes and selecting task chairs.”
“If we can’t really cater to their needs, what’s the point of asking for additional input.”
Engagement Reality - Employees are likely to be more emotional about surface level input when their core needs have not been met or asked for.
Myth 3 | Too many individual needs will surface.
“There are too many opinions, I can’t accommodate every voice we’d have a million different projects.”
“I don’t want to open a can of worms!”
Engagement Reality - Input from employee engagement is sorted into trends and themes uncovering deeper needs and information that will benefit the organization and employees. Employees benefit from being able to share meaningful information productively in a structured environment.
Myth 4 | The project will be slowed down or blocked.
“Engaging employees will slow down the process- needing to find time to meet and get approval from everyone.”
“I know what their feedback will be, and it’s crazy, it doesn’t feel worth my time.”
Engagement Reality - Engagement processes can be run quickly at scale in an organization. The goal is not approval but to be informed. The process should make decisions easier, more effective, and reduce buy-in delays.
Myth 5 | The project should be well defined before employees are engaged.
“I’m just getting the project underway- I’m not ready to engage anyone.”
"The project is two years' out."
Engagement Reality - Information from employees through structured early engagement is critical to defining a project. Engaging too late creates some of the challenges stated in the myths above.
Let’s be clear, engagement is not a free for all.
Connecting with your employees in preparation for workplace projects should be focused and structured to align with the desired outcomes. As an example, high performance workplace projects contain a selection of questions around likes, dislikes, and "less and more" of what they have already. Questions of this nature provide a framework to collect tangible information while leaving opportunities for facilitators to take in the "between the lines" commentary that is often just as informative.
Engagement processes can include workshops, interviews, and analytic platforms. The information gained will provide opportunities to discover more about employees' roles, activities, and interactions, as well as the types of work settings that will be most supportive. In this way, the guide rails of information sharing prevent overwhelm and unattainable employee expectations.
Workplace specialists can support your company in a methodical process that quickly gains information from across the organization. Engagement processes can be targeted around key information, providing guidance to identify and implement the right projects to support your business in long term success.
Communicating and learning from your employees has the power to help your company be a place that people want to be- a place you want to be.
Lauren Pollack
Updated: Oct 13, 2023
Thank you for following our Key Trends in 2023 Series! See the five trends and articles here!
Are the processes, practices, and places that served your company in the past contributing to stress in the present?
We hear a lot about “Burnout” in the media. The World Health Organization classified burnout as a “syndrome” that is caused by “chronic workplace stress,” in 2019. This heightened level of stress has become pervasive among employees, growing most steeply in numbers since the onset of the pandemic.
Burnout is a bottom-line issue with drastic effects on employee performance and culture. Somewhere between experiencing stress and achieving full burnout, organizations have an opportunity to support their employees while creating new ways of working.
A Culture of Over Availability
In 2020, many employees filled the time previously spent commuting, with additional work hours. Schedules became filled with back-to-back engagements utilizing new capabilities for virtual meeting. As in-person interactions have become more prevalent, there is a need to create new etiquettes for meeting schedules.
Clients have expressed that untamed virtual collaboration schedules have added stress on top of already stressful commutes, as they must adjust their train schedule to adhere to meeting requirements.
In-office days are still work-from-home days as employees often compensate for time “lost” to commuting by allowing virtual meetings and focus work to spill into personal hours. Without time to recuperate these work practices become unsustainable.
One Size Fits Few
Everyone has different levels of comfort in a workplace. Many workplaces have been designed to fit the fictitious average person, causing the majority of people to payout some level of energy to compensate for the psychological and physical stress of the workplace. Everything from lighting and ergonomics to seating placement and noise levels can reduce the effectiveness of your workforce.
Reduced environmental choice and control, hinder a person or team’s ability to perform at optimum levels. This can also be true for the home office, as many workers are seeking to complement their home experience with new places and people.
Is your workplace the reason for burnout or the remedy?
Many employers are calling their workforce back to the office, but without adequate reflection, this move is poised to create more challenges than it solves. Returning to an outdated office can reduce productivity, innovation, and increase stress levels.
Here are some factors that contribute to stress in an outdated office:
Connections | Employees often report high levels of stress with finding and connecting to technology in individual and collaborative spaces. Delays created by locating IT support for setups or a cable to bridge incompatible technology creates frustration and hinders productivity.
Noise Levels | Noise levels have long been a challenge in open offices. With the influx of virtual meetings, most spaces have not been optimized to support increased calls. Lack of sound masking and sound absorbent materials contribute to distraction and high levels of stress.
Isolation | Employees express feeling isolated in their workplaces due to low attendance in their area or the perception of low attendance due to the quantity of unused workstations. Relationships are dwindling as it has become more challenging to casually see co-workers outside of direct teams. Fearing isolation, employees are more likely to choose to work at home when it is difficult to book spots directly with their teammates.
Adjacencies | Delayed meeting starts are often the result of a workplace that is not optimized for collaboration. Transitioning between team neighborhoods for interactions with key collaborators can include long internal commutes.
Privacy | Places that provide audio and/or visual privacy are limited for the average worker to utilize. Opportunities to focus in low sensory spaces or feel comfortable having a sensitive conversation, are minimal.
Design & Location | Many offices have not been designed for developments in moveable technology or hybrid and in-person collaboration. All or nothing locations miss out on new operating models that might be a better fit for your workforce.
Between inconsistent technology connections, long internal commutes, and noisy or lonely offices, your workplace is likely contributing to stress levels. Bringing awareness to sources of strain for employees creates a roadmap to enhance engagement and efficiencies. Reevaluating your systems will ensure they are serving the future of your organization and creating appropriate boundaries to support your people.
Supporting Change
People-first approaches to change management are attuned to the impact of change on employees. Involving employees in the process and making adjustments along the way can ensure success. When engaging with a workplace change manager, office design projects receive higher levels of employee buy-in and employees express more comfort with the pace of change.
Company supported boundaries for meeting availability and workloads are helpful to employees, especially in times of organizational change. Reigning in over availability, in the interest of quality and longevity, can be institutionalized through team agreements.
Team Agreements
Team agreements, which give employees a platform to define best practices for working together are a useful tool in reducing employees’ stress levels. Formalizing new practices can restore employee focus on the areas that matter.
Through aligning on everything from expectations and etiquettes to operating practices, team agreements can alleviate strain and ensure organizational values are present in all levels of interaction. Cross-functional relationships can be mapped by workplace specialists to ensure all collaborative interactions are supported.
Time Flexibility
Flexible work practices, supported by team agreements, allow certain types of work and communication to be completed asynchronously. Asynchronous platforms and tools can open schedules, reducing meeting frequency, providing more opportunities for deep focus, and elevating work quality. In addition to enhancing employee performance, time flexibility can reduce stress levels by providing balance for caregiving or beneficial self-care practices such as mid-day walks.
Taking Action
Workplace specialists can create efficiencies and maximize the relevance of your processes, practices, and places. Interviews, workshops, and analytic platforms, provide a wealth of data that workplace consultants can use to uncover stress contributors and provide remedies.
This data can also be interpreted by workplace strategists resulting in effective layouts and spatial allocations that alleviate key sources of strain. Workplace consultants support your organization in creating ease and improved function for employees.
Through change, many of us are carrying outdated relics. It is time to assess when we do things, how we do things, and why.
David George
It is no longer a rumor that we are in an economically challenging environment.
As real estate leases expire, opportunities for optimization arise.
We’re in uncertain times as inflation influences consumer spending, offices are less than half full, and the threat of a recession still looms over us all. These factors are high on the Boardroom agenda for most companies.
To thrive in this difficult period, businesses are looking to make efficiencies in terms of how they trade. Caring employers, keen to retain their most important asset, their people, look to other options for finding savings.
As the impact of the pandemic fades away, more flexible ways of working have become the new normal, office occupation remains well below pre-pandemic levels as they no longer meet employee’s needs, organizations are compelled to consider their future real estate needs.
The challenging economic situation has affected the real estate sector with many believing that there will be a continued reduction in leasing activity, other than for those seeking to downsize their space.
“There are ‘warning signs that leasing in 2023 will be more subdued as some economies move into recession.” [i]
“New requirements are starting to trend down or become contractionary…plus a ‘slowing of momentum is becoming evident in the office market’.” [ii]
As leases have trended towards shorter periods over the past ten years, offering greater flexibility for tenants, there are a significant number of organizations who are going to be able to exercise an option to exit their lease within the next 2 years.
By 2025, 900M SF of office leases nationwide is set to expire. (JLL)
This may sound like a daunting, potentially disruptive, and costly prospect given the economic uncertainty. It is, however, a great opportunity for companies to consider their future needs, reduce overheads through optimization, and adjust their workspace to support more flexible or hybrid ways of working.
Optimizing real estate is going to be a key initiative for many CEOs in 2023.
This process will benefit from careful and timely planning. In our experience, the time necessary to develop requirements, explore options, scenarios and implement them is around 18 months, sometimes longer for larger, more complex requirements. The earlier organizations start to explore their options the greater the opportunity and benefits will be.
If your organization has lease breaks within the next 2 years, now would be a good time to draw up a plan of action.
THESE EIGHT KEY POINTS MAY GUIDE YOU
Plan well ahead
This may seem obvious, but decisions that are necessary to inform a lease event need to be considered many months before the event occurs. This is particularly the case if the current office is of traditional design and the new space is to be designed for new, more flexible ways of working. If the decision is taken to exercise a break, or to leave at the end of a lease, there are a range of activities necessary to put into place such as relocation of your business operations, and potential liabilities such as dilapidations.
The earlier you start to consider these aspects the better informed you will be and more likely to agree better terms with the landlord.
Engage with your business.
When looking to determine your future office needs, it is worth considering that how your people are working today may not be the right model for the future. The pandemic forced new working arrangements on each business, and as we emerge from those forced conditions, many companies have adapted and retained some level of flexibility, yet the workplace design still reflects traditional, pre-pandemic working arrangements. The way we work will continue to evolve over time and the workplace environment plays a significant part in driving our behaviors.
The key to success when moving forward is to engage with all key stakeholders across your business, understand their views on how the space supports them and what needs to change, and capture quantitative data regarding their preferences for activity by location and their needs for collaboration.
Leadership
While the process needs to be led from the top of the business to drive the process, the Board will benefit from qualitative and quantitative data for decision making, and needs to be informed by the voice of the employees, including the D&I networks. Being flexible and prepared to adjust initial real estate and office design expectations to meet the changing needs will help keep the process aligned to the business’s needs.
Data driven modelling.
Using up to date data to inform the decisions that need to be made will provide the evidence needed to gain Board approval for the investment needed.
Understanding cost metrics is important, however, data extends to many other metrics regarding the way that employees use the space, how these impacts on their performance, attrition and ultimately the success of the business. Find out more here
It is not all about space and new furniture.
A change in the workplace also has an impact on organizational behaviors, culture, and happiness. A relocation or reconfiguration of the workplace is like any change program, employees need to be engaged, supported and trained, particularly where new working arrangements come into play. Adjustments to the policies and processes within the business may also be required to reflect the changes.
Technology is an enabler.
There has been a proliferation of new technology that claims to support hybrid/flexible working, so careful research, is necessary after understating your people’s needs, and evaluating any products in live pilot project situations will help reduce risk and user acceptance on implementation. Once the technology has been chosen, it is important that employees are supported and trained regularly so that it is integrated into working processes.
A trusted advisor may help.
Getting the right support from the right experts to help develop the solution, whether driving a workplace change or engaging in lease negotiations, can reduce the program significantly and improve the overall outcome.
And finally….
Whilst a relatively simple concept, implementing a change in working that comes from reconfiguring space or a relocation, can be anything but. The process requires careful coordination of real estate, technology, FM, and HR workstreams, and the development of new protocols.
Without a thoughtful approach to change, the process can often face resistance and a misunderstanding of what it really is, particularly when ’funky’ furniture solutions are thrust upon an unsuspecting workforce.
This is where an experienced, trusted advisor can help. Not only to help define how much space you need and how it should be designed, but also their role in a change program will be to coordinate and manage activities so that the activities are aligned across all workstreams, and achieve an informed, and desired outcome.
When successfully delivered, the benefits to the organization can be significant, not only leading to a reduction in the overall real estate footprint (and therefore costs), but also benefits linked to the workforce and wider business. These include reduced workforce costs (recruitment / attrition and absence), increased productivity, greater wellbeing and improved cross organization collaboration.