Office space is a physical environment in which employees gather to fulfill the goals of the corporation, the most obvious being profit. The way employers use office space has continuously evolved over the years most notably as new technologies emerge. Over the past 2 decades many technologies have been developed that would otherwise enable a significant shift in the way we work, especially in terms of where we work. However, notwithstanding the presence of these technologies, employers have mostly been reluctant to fully embrace their use due to uncertainty around how such changes would affect productivity and culture. The covid-19 pandemic forced everyone to embrace tech, shifting most workers from offices to working from home. Employers have been surprised to find their worst fears unfounded.
Armed with the knowledge the enterprise can survive, occupiers find themselves having a new conversation about workplace solutions. This is among the more valuable corporate undertakings of the past century. Why? Because office space is not really about buildings, location or even cost…it’s about supporting and promoting employee engagement. Engagement can be defined in a variety of ways but the simplest way to think about it is in terms of how well the employee is thriving. A thriving employee understands, is connected to and contributes to the corporate culture. She is healthy and happy. She is loyal and disinclined to seek other opportunities. She is productive. There are many drivers that contribute to employee engagement but the workplace is among the most impactful.
Yet the changing nature of workplace has become a source of confusion for many companies. For while it’s clear the old playbook is no longer reliable, there is a shortage of resources available to help create a new one. Most of the real estate service firms have been caught flat footed, lacking the capabilities necessary to guide customers through a more modern journey. They remain focused on finding space and term negotiation while their clients are seeking guidance on “why”; as in, why have an office in the first place? When we first developed TenantSee, we knew changes were coming but we certainly did not anticipate a dramatic catalyst like the covid-19 pandemic. We believed corporate occupiers were in the early days of a shift in how they view office space, moving from a focus on measuring cost of space to one in which employee engagement became the primary metric by which the workplace is valued. We knew then that incremental increases in employee engagement are worth substantially more than cheaper rent. We set out to give our clients better tools to more fully address their approach to office space. Our thesis was (and remains) that every company should think about office space as a repeating cycle of the following stages.
Stage 1: Create the Office
A deliberate workplace consultation that involves executive sponsorship from HR and Finance. The goal is to create the optimal office solution before going to market to find space. What are the key drivers that enhance employee engagement within your company? How can your office solution support these drivers? Where should the office be located? How should the office be designed? How fluid is this need? How flexible must this solution be?
Stage 2: Define the Strategy
What approach will be taken to get the optimal office you’ve created in Stage 1? What are the strategic considerations that will lead to achieving your goals while maximizing market leverage?
Stage 3: Execute the Strategy
This is the activity typically associated with real estate brokerage. It involves site selection and negotiation of terms and the legal document.
Stage 4: Measure the Efficacy
TenantSee deploys Cushman & Wakefield’s Experience per Square Foot resource to measure employee engagement within the workplace (wherever that may be). It’s important to document where and how the workplace solution is working, how it meets the objectives you set when first creating the optimal outcome.
Stage 5: Manage the Facility
The TenantSee platform facilitates ongoing management of key dates, portfolio analytics and storage + maintenance of all critical data.
These 5 stages represent an evolved tenant service offering that marries teams of subject matter experts with technology to properly address the full spectrum of occupier need. As office solutions rapidly evolve to offer employees greater flexibility and increase engagement, it’s more important than ever for occupiers to have a full-scope resource. This is a time of great change and while change can be difficult, at TenantSee, we believe this is also a time of great opportunity. Opportunity for our clients to craft better solutions that enhance corporate productivity by increasing employee engagement and reducing employee turnover. Please contact us if you’d like to learn more about our modern solutions.