What Do People Want From The Office Today?

...and the data to back it up

Esme Banks Marr Strategy Director at Architecture BVN joins Bold Founder Caleb Parker for the 10th episode of Season 6 to discuss Change in the Workplace. 

They discuss what people want from their workplace, if corporate real estate needs to change how they communicate the benefits of the office and how buildings are accommodating the change that's happening.

Esme shares insight into office customer preferences, workplace needing to offer employees better than what they have at home, and that an inclusive workplace now means looking at your age groups and understanding the differences. 

Connect with Esme Banks Marr

https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmebanksmarr/?originalSubdomain=uk#experience-section

https://twitter.com/esmebanksmarr

Connect with Caleb Parker on LinkedIn 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebparker/

If you have any questions or feedback on this episode, email podcast@workbold.co

Value Bombs:

• The average home supports the average employee better than the average office. - Esme
• 71% of employees actually prefer working from home. - Esme
• Some organisations are pretty fixated on trying to create offices that tick every single box but that's an almost an impossible task because across the board we have had the taste of freedom and flexibility. - Esme
• There's a power shift from employers to employees. - Caleb
• Employees need a workplace that's on offer to them to be better than what they have at home. They need it to support the things that the other doesn't. - Esme
• Employees want more than anything to be taken on the journey, or at least have the option to be part of any change that's about to happen or is happening. - Esme
• Media is to blame for putting the office against home. - Esme
• We in commercial real estate need to be the champions of good company culture. - Caleb
• The future is flexible. - Caleb

Resources:

• Podcast: WorkingIt

Shout Outs:

 

• Leesman

• Alejandro Stevens Legos

 

• Daniel Kahneman 
• Richard Thaler

Keywords: Workplace, Office, BVN, Leesman, Future of Work, Caleb Parker, Esme Banks Marr

About Our Guests: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmebanksmarr/?originalSubdomain=uk#experience-section

https://twitter.com/esmebanksmarr 

Esme Banks Marr, Strategy Director at Architecture BVN 

Esme is a critical thinker whose expertise lies in interpreting multi-layered evidence. When it comes to workplace performance, employee experience, design, and wider business intelligence, she joined BVN last year as strategy director of work in place to support their growth in Europe.  Starting her career in communication, specializing in the built environment as me supported service providers on their brand, within the wider workplace ecosystem.

This gave her insight into the entire workplace change life cycle and a multitude of disciplines. Her main interests are in how data can inform design and how communication plays a role in workplace change. Very important, considering the change that's happening today. Esme keeps herself at the forefront of the global workspace discussion and has been a regular commentator on the future of work, both writing and presenting.

She ran the communications for global employee workplace experience, assessor Leesman, which we'll hear more about in a little bit. She did that for several years before moving in-house to support content and client-side projects. She's a board member of the emerging workplace leaders' group in London and has collaborated with a number of industry publications, the work tech academy and the World Economic Forum.

About Our Host:

Caleb Parker

https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebparker/

Caleb Parker is an American entrepreneur in London, and Founder of Bold (acquired by Newable/NewFlex in 2019).

He believes in "challenging the status quo" and is a champion for entrepreneurial and innovative thinking.

Caleb has served as founder, Board member, advisor, investor and consultant to numerous startups and small businesses, and has a keen focus on innovation and technology, with interests in the MICE market, Space-as-a-Service, and the future of work.

Caleb has been a guest lecturer, speaker, and moderator for topics such as entrepreneurship, the sharing economy, the future of work and commercial real estate at academic institutions and large corporations. He regularly takes the stage at numerous trade conferences as keynote speaker, MC, host or facilitator.

Earlier in his career, Caleb was named one of Savannah, Georgia's “40 under 40” business leaders" in 2006 after launching two successful small businesses in the city's booming hospitality industry. A year later he moved to Washington, DC to join the The Regus Group DC management team. In 2009, Caleb co-founded a flexible workspace consulting firm where he brokered flexible workspace and advised businesses on agile working strategies.

Caleb is one of the first licensed commercial real estate agents to speak on the flexible working trends and the rise of flexible workspace, and has been quoted in numerous publications.

Timestamps

[05:30] You've had an impressive resume and clearly a unique perspective on the change that's happening in the workplace and its effect on demand for office real estate. I want to set the stage for this conversation by discussing Leesman. What is Leesman? 

• Leesman is the world's leading independent assessor of workplace experience.
• They got this status by measuring the experience of close to a million employees in their places of work and since the onset of the pandemic, more than quarter of a million employees in their homework.

[06:30] Considering the time you spent there, you have a lot of insight into office customer preferences therefore there's a lot that we can glean from that data, including some conflicting bits of data. What do people want from the office?

• Leesman assessment uncovers; what employees do in their roles, the activities that are important to them in those roles and how well each of those activities is supported, but it also looks at the physical and service that are most important to that employee experience. The collective data is then aggregated into a database and it's mined for research purposes and it's all open source.
• The average home supports the average employee better than the average office. There's a 20-percentage point difference when it comes to an employee feeling productive in those respective spaces.
• Research that came out from YouGov released a similar figure of 71% of employees actually prefer working from home.
• 39% said they wanted to work from home forever.  

[10:50] If the average is happy working from home, why are they going to come into the office? 

• They need a workplace that's on offer to them to be better than what they have at home. They need it to support the things that the other doesn't. 
• Some organizations are pretty fixated on trying to create offices that tick every single box but that's an almost an impossible task because across the board we have had the taste of freedom and flexibility. 
• What is lacking the most for employees when working from home relate to things like connection to colleagues and connection to the actual organization itself, and the ability to learn from each other. 
• Being inclusive in terms of workplace now means looking at your age groups and understanding the differences. For example, the younger generation has suffered the most with working from home. They've suffered the most with feeling connected, they've suffered the most with the ability to be physically active while homeworking and they're the group who are the least likely to have a dedicated workspace at home. 

[13:00] I know how important communication is to you. It's been your career. Do you think corporate real estate needs to change how we communicate the benefits of the office?  

• Media is to blame for putting the office against home.
• If we're to change for the better as an industry, we need to look at this together collectively.
• I wonder if commercial real estate has as an opportunity here to come in and save the day. If they're prepared to talk differently and act differently, it's going to be easier for corporate real estate and our kind of workplace that falls within that to truly kind of change and innovate.
• People are going to have to do something different and unconventional with the industry and with their spaces if building occupancy fluctuates as much as we all expected to.

[17:45] In your role at BVN, you're working with a lot of developers and a lot of landlords. Are there any trends that you can talk about and how do these buildings need to change to accommodate the change that's happening?

• Many developers are carving space in almost all of their buildings to do something flexible with it that not one tenant is necessarily going to take.
• BVN have such an approach to sustainability that I really just haven't seen on that scale here yet.

[18:50] Can you tell everyone who BVN is? 

• BVN are an architectural practice that is based in Australia. They have a studio in New York and one in London. The headquarters are in Sydney but there are is a studio in Brisbane as well. 
• They've been at the forefront of a lot of workplace projects in that part of the world for many years. They think far wider than workplace and a lot of their projects are actually in defence and in healthcare education.
• What I have loved so far is the collaboration across teams who look after those different types of projects. 

[20:35] Quickfire Questions 

Who do you go to for inspiration? 

• Financial Times launched a podcast called WorkingIt 
• Old behavioural economics theories - Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler 

If you could wave a magic wand to change anything, when it comes to our industry right now, what would you change?

• For everyone to remember that good culture does take time to build and become to be authentic and it truly needs to reflect the people who make up your organisation.
•  Appreciate that this might have shifted the past two years.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

• Any European city - Paris 
• I'm big on kind of a quick refresh and quick kind of experience with something a tiny bit different, not too far.
• I like those kinds of four- or five-day trips. I get a little crazy sometimes when I've been in the same place for too long. 

Sponsors

Headline Sponsor: TSK

TSK creates inspiring workplaces for some of the world’s biggest brands across the UK and Ireland, They’ve been working for 25 years to deliver the best employee experiences and the vision of their clients. Not only do they create great places to work, TSK share workplace content every week from the latest data to inspiring spaces they’ve designed and built. You can read their latest insights at www.tskgroup.co.uk or check out their LinkedIn and Instagram pages to become a follower, fan and friend.

Fortune Favours the Bold

Bold merges property management & Space-as-a-Service to drive asset value and help office customers grow faster. Now part of NewFlex (www.workbold.co) 

Future Proof Your Portfolio with NewFlex

NewFlex delivers and manages a range of branded solutions for every type of building, in every type of location, for every type of occupier. Including the flexibility to develop your own brand. All enabled by flexible management contracts where we are invested in making money for you. (www.newflex.com)

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