CREJ

/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / JUNE 2017

Align Behavioral Norms with Strategic Initiatives

e all know that workplace strategy fa-

cilitates the intentional alignment of an

organization’s environment with cultur-

al work patterns to amplify peak business perfor-

mance – all while appropriating cost and increas-

ing innovation to fit both the current condition

and future state.

As you may have experienced, these two select

phrases “cultural work patterns” and “peak busi-

ness performance” may occasionally be progressing

in varying directions. An organization’s behavioral

norms must be in alignment with strategic initiatives,

as Wayne Gretzky puts it: “Skate to where the puck is

going.”

Workplace strategy conversations often are sparked

when the business at hand is either running out of

work space, has too much real estate or wants to in-

troduce organizational evolution through the envi-

ronment.

Peak business performance is uniquely defined by a

spectrum of business objectives, ranging from tactical

needs like minimize cost and maximize space utili-

zation, to increasingly strategic goals such as support

effective collaboration, communicate brand and sup-

port innovation. As you may expect, a broad range of

diverse disciplines (both internal and external to the

organization) contribute to define what “successful

criteria” means to them at the time. While it is likely

quite clear where an organization is headed through

ongoing executive level business planning sessions,

another salient factor of work often is amorphic in na-

ture with less controlled measurement and structured

prediction efforts: work patterns.

There are many tactics for organizations to detan-

gle and analyze their own work patterns to predict a

better future. To glean learning from local, national

and global organizations, here are some broad ideas

to consider when analyzing your own organization’s

cultural norms.

As a workplace professional, you have valid insights

into what is working within your own organization

and how the work experience might need to evolve.

But beyond your intuition and personal experiences,

how do organizations capture an authentic voice of

their employee base to better inform their workplace

strategy?

Workplace assessment methodologies that contrib-

ute meaningful data to the conversation can include

space observations and in-person interviews, camera

journal assignments, employee surveys, utilization

studies, change readiness analysis, pre- and post-oc-

cupancy surveys, workforce forecasting and organiza-

tional analysis. With experienced professionals from

real estate, strategy and design consultancies, you can

start with creating a “workplace balanced scoreboard”

of metrics.

These metrics should be relevant to the intentions

of the design and the organization’s business objec-

tives that reflect financial, behavioral, work process,

health or other outcomes pertinent to the business.

Best Practices for a Successful

Workplace Assessment

“Less is more.”

Select the fewest, highest-impact

KPI (key performance indicators) possible. Similar

to a well-written survey, be prepared to do some-

thing with the results. Do not collect data unless you

know in advance exactly how you plan to use it.

Establish baseline measures.

Baseline measures estab-

lish a reference point against which you can assess

the success of changes made to the workplace over

time.

Use survey data collection and in-person interviews

measure employees’ perceptions of behaviors relat-

ed to project goals, such as comfort, degree of collab-

oration, quality of group decision-making, etc. Gath-

er data in a way that keeps responses confidential,

yet can be evaluated by satisfaction level, by teams

or departments, new hires vs. tenured staff, etc.

Collect objective benchmarks

from other sources,

such

as HR databases for attraction and retention rates,

health claims rates and costs, or other metrics that

are related to financial outcomes.

Collect data on an ongoing basis

(quarterly or semi-

annually). This will provide an ongoing stream of

objective information that can keep the workplace

design aligned with employee needs and business

goals.

Keep the reports simple.

This will enable everyone to

understand the results and thus be able to act on

them.

Remember to manage the “human side” of the project.

technically successful assessment program can still

fail if people don’t buy in to the effort. Ensure that

Moving Forward

Jenny West,

LEED AP ID+C

Business De-

velopment

Manager,

Knoll

Participants ranked the importance of 11 business/

facilities goals