Workplace Strategy Report

Executive Summary

Why Your Workplace Strategy Needs a Change

As companies develop an effective workplace strategy that accommodates both the realities of hybrid working and their unique business objectives, they’re facing key questions:

• ​How can accurate, data-driven decisions be made for the workplace?
• ​How can corporate real estate be optimized without sacrificing employee experience?
• ​What does change management mean when everything is changing?

OfficeSpace surveyed over 150 workplace leaders and analyzed thousands of data points across their client base to see how leadership is making strategic choices to improve workplaces without sacrificing the bottom line.

The current workplace is in flux, challenging strategists to accommodate increasingly dynamic use of space. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, some best practices and technologies are emerging to help optimize and continuously improve workspaces for every stakeholder.

Hybrid Work Still Complicates Business Strategies

Strike the Right Balance Between Office and Remote Work

As employees return to the office in larger numbers, companies have discovered that flexible working is easier said than done. Survey analysis and platform data show that despite widespread adoption, getting hybrid work models right isn’t simple—companies are still struggling to find the right balance between on-site and remote work.

Given how much employees value flexibility, leaders are almost evenly split on whether or not to mandate office attendance.

Report key insights:

• ​How many people are currently working in the office?
• ​What days of the week are most popular?
• ​What in-office attendance are companies expecting in 2023?
• ​And more

Workplace Design Can Foster Connections

Create a Work Environment with Purpose

As companies develop a business strategy for hybrid work, they face the challenge of creating an office better suited for collaboration and culture. What initiatives will help realign the office’s role to make it more conducive to in-person activities? How can office space itself improve hybrid approaches while reflecting and enhancing company culture?

Given the fluctuating nature of office use, decision makers are concerned with how to right-size, refit, and redesign offices to meet employee demands and usage. Changes to foster collaboration, socialization, or private work should be intentional to support new behaviors.

Report key insights:

• ​How can the size and purpose of the office better meet employee needs?
• ​How can workplace design help maintain or enhance productivity?
• ​How can company goals around culture and collaboration be addressed in the hybrid workplace?
• ​And more

Data-Driven Agility Is Key

Test, Measure, Learn, and Adapt for Workplace Success

Leaders recognize the importance of leveraging utilization metrics to reduce costs and refine the in-office experience. Traditional ways of measuring office utilization (like occupancy rate) are clumsy or irrelevant in a hybrid scenario. Organizations need a fresh approach to the workplace.

Only one in five workplace leaders currently has clear goals or targets in place for office use. The majority are looking for direction on ways to ensure space utilization aligns with employee needs and company goals.

Trial and error will be a constant in 2023, as companies refine and redesign their hybrid work approaches. This agility requires new thinking, new processes, and, for some, new technology.

Report key insights:

• ​How will leadership know if changes are working as planned?
• ​How can workplace management and office use be measured and improved?
• ​What datasets can workplace leaders collect and analyze to measure success?
• ​And more

2023 Workplace Strategy Report

Discover insights, tactics, and strategies workplace leaders from top brands are leveraging to build a hybrid workplace that works for both employees and employers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a workplace strategy?

A workplace strategy is an organization’s plan for aligning their physical spaces and IT/facilities management infrastructure with company culture, preferred ways of working, and overarching business goals. A good workplace strategy uses data from multiple sources to understand current space utilization and anticipate future needs. The goal is typically to lower costs while keeping employees engaged, productive, and happy.

What is the purpose of a workplace strategy?

The purpose is to ensure physical spaces support long-term business goals while fostering collaboration, company culture, and employee engagement. A data-driven workplace strategy can help employees remain efficient and productive, and lead to more cost-effective use of space over time.

How do you develop a workplace strategy?

To develop a new workplace strategy, companies need to understand how employees currently work by collecting and analyzing real-time data. This helps answer complex questions about current space use (e.g., how hybrid schedules impact productivity and collaboration, when and why employees use the office, and what metrics to track).

From there, companies can define workplace goals and begin implementing and tracking changes. With hybrid working, companies need to strike the right balance between in-office and remote work. Leadership should be willing to experiment with different office configurations (hoteling, hot desking, activity-based working), learn from results, and adjust accordingly. Including employees in the process can help ensure buy-in.

What are the benefits of workplace strategy?

Data-driven workplace strategies help create efficient and engaging physical spaces. A customized, carefully planned strategy can enhance company culture and employee satisfaction, boost collaboration, and support talent retention and attraction. Other benefits include real estate cost savings, easier flexible/hybrid work implementation, improved work-life balance, performance, productivity, and sustainability. A good workplace strategy can future-proof the office by guiding real estate investments and workplace transformations that enhance productivity and efficiency without sacrificing the bottom line.

What are the three strategies in the organization of the workplace?

Strategists and workplace consultants focus on three levels of organization:

1. 1.Top-level/corporate strategies: Real estate decisions impacting entire (or multiple) facilities.
2. 2.Department-level/business strategies: Workplace design decisions impacting floor plans for different departments.
3. 3.Employee-level/tactical strategies: Activity-based working and other flexible configurations impacting employees’ day-to-day lives and productivity.

Every level of workplace strategy is best optimized using robust, real-time data collected from workplace technologies.

How do you balance efficiency and effectiveness?

An efficient workplace keeps costs in check, never spending more resources than necessary. An effective workplace ensures employees have the tools, technology, and resources needed to meet business objectives.

To balance efficiency and effectiveness in a hybrid/flexible environment, decision makers and space planners need to determine their priorities and benchmarks. They should collect and analyze real-time data to see if they’re striking the desired balance. This will likely be an experimental process, as companies test and iterate to find what works best for their unique needs and objectives over time.