How Salesforce is REthinking the role of real estate

Michele Schnieder, Senior Vice President of Workplace Services for Salesforce, joins Bold Founder, Caleb Parker to share insight into their recently launched “success from anywhere” program and how her team, who is responsible for the workplace experience for 57,000 employees across more than 100 offices globally, are rethinking the role of their real estate.

Salesforce is a massive customer of office real estate.

In this episode we learn that Salesforce has hired and onboarded 10,000 people throughout the pandemic who haven’t even been into an office yet. 

Michele explains how they are using data, and their own Work.com platform to inform how best to make hybrid working seamless for everyone.

Post-pandemic up to 65% of their workforce will work in a hybrid capacity, and 20% of the workforce will work from home permanently (up to 85% NOT working in an office every day). 

We find out what impact this has on their global real estate portfolio, and how they’re repurposing their spaces for new ways of working. 

Connect with Michele on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheleschneider/ 

Connect with Caleb on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebparker/ 

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

Value Bombs

Remimaging the office

• Salesforce recently launched “Success from anywhere” as they begin opening their offices around the globe
• This enables their teams to choose where they work by making hybrid working seamless for everyone
• This new approach was created after asking their teams what capacity they want to return to the office
• 20% of the workforce will work from home permanently
• Up to 65% of the workforce will work in a hybrid capacity
• They’re currently learning in real-time using data from their Australia and New Zealand offices who have returned to the office to inform other markets best practice when opening their offices
• Most people want to use the office to collaborate and work cross functionally
• Type of work in the office: Collaboration, customer meetings, presentations in person
• Type of work at home: Private one on ones chats, focused work
• But the actual use case is job or role related; for example sales and marketing teams have different requirements than engineering teams
• Salesforce expects to reduce desk space and increase collaborative space to host more meetings
• But they do not expect to reduce their overall real estate footprint
• Their forecasted growth in team count offsets any reduction in demand for space, so on aggregate they won’t shrink their office footprint
• WFA policy has been great for increasing access to talent
• Have hired 10,000 people who haven’t even been to an office yet
• The company culture has been an in person culture, so they’ve modified their onboarding process to put more emphasis on introducing people to colleagues quickly

Questions we must ask when enabling Hybrid working

• How do we repurpose space and what tech do we need so teams get the most out of their time in the office
• How can we create equality between in office and distributed team members
• What can we do to enable everyone to feel part of the team

Tips

• Test running all staff meetings virtually
• Meet quarterly in person
• The office becomes the event venue and replaces what used to be offsite events

Resources

1. Global Return to the Office: The Salesforce Approach:
   https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/global-return-to-the-office-the-salesforce-approach/
   
2. Creating a Best Workplace from Anywhere, for Everyone
   https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/creating-a-best-workplace-from-anywhere/ 
   

About Michele Schneider

Michele oversees Guest Services, Internal Hospitality & Events, and Building Operations within Salesforce's Global Real Estate organization. 

As a physical expression of the company's culture, her team is responsible for delivering world-class workplace experiences, day-in, and day-out for over 57,000 employees across more than 100 offices. Today, she's focused on Salesforce's return to the office strategy and the future of work.

A Salesforce veteran of over 12 years, Michele was previously the Vice President of Strategic Events where she led the company's World Tour, Connections and Salesforce Essentials event programming. (Shout out to my fellow EventProfs out there)

Ad before joining the company, she held marketing and events positions at Cisco and BEA Systems (Oracle). Michele holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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