6 Takeaways from Winter Workplace Connect: London, NYC and San Francisco Editions

Workplace Connect has gone international! 

On January 30th, February 4th and February 6th we hosted our third round table dinner in London and our first ever events in NYC and San Francisco. Over drinks and dinner, our attendees discussed the future of hybrid work and the biggest challenges facing workplace leaders today. 

Our attendees in each city brought perspectives from CRE, Workplace Experience, IT, HR and more, with discussion topics submitted in advance. 

And while topics had a different flavour in each city, some things were consistent. 

Here are our top six takeaways from the London, NYC and San Francisco editions of Workplace Connect. 

1. Intentionality creates better workplace experiences. 

The challenge facing workplace leaders is figuring out what people want to achieve in the office, and then design the workplace around those objectives. 

A great workplace experience isn’t just the perks, but about setting an intent for the day and then having that intent fulfilled without any headaches or logistical nightmares.

Attendees noted the parallels between Workplace Connect and intentionality in the workplace. Sure, the food and drinks are great, but that’s not the real reason workplace leaders in three cities came together. The intent was to connect in-person and hear other people’s takes on the future of hybrid work. So while that free lunch might be a nice plus in the office, intentionality in the workplace goes deeper and is more fundamental. 

Some companies are experimenting with having executive teams in the office Monday through Friday to draw in people looking for mentorship opportunities. 

Ultimately, intentionality is an experimental approach. Trial different things, measure the outcome, and then scale. 

2. Hybrid schedule coordination sometimes creates a Bermuda Triangle where collaboration goes missing. 

Almost half of employees surveyed by Slack report that the feeling of being closely monitored at work gives them anxiety. So giving employees the autonomy to decide how and where to get their work done doesn’t just improve wellbeing, but also trust and accountability. But one big drawback is the difficulty of coordinating your in-office days with someone else’s. Setting up a team day or time slot to get something done in-person  can get pushed back for weeks, despite how much people actually want to meet up.

Cue the Bermuda Triangle scenario. 

Giving autonomy is the right thing to do, both for employees and for organizational performance, as multiple studies have shown. But it also creates uneven occupancy patterns, where some days are so rammed that no one can find a seat and others are completely empty. Whichever way you look at it, the result is a not-so-great workplace experience. 

Our attendees agreed that designated team office days, events and scheduling technology are ways to successfully navigate out of the hybrid coordinatioon Bermuda Triangle without any shipwrecks or mysterious vanishing meetings. These are also the best ways to get all the benefits of in-person work without forcing employees to pay the hybrid coordination tax – aka putting the onus on employees to sort everything out themselves. 

3. The Real Impact of Return-to-Office Mandates

The debate over RTO mandates still rages on, despite growing evidence on the damage they do on productivity, retention, profit and culture. 

Research by Mark Ma found that although RTO mandates damage employee satisfaction levels and cause brain drain, they have no positive impact on organizational performance or values. They slow hiring by 23% and increase churn by 14%, according to data from three million LinkedIn profiles. 

So what’s the point? 

Our attendees narrowed down the real and slightly nefarious reasons behind RTO mandates to: 

• Sunk costs of leases – Many mandates are financially driven, as companies with long-term real estate leases want something to show for it
• Comfort with traditional management – Many managers still measure productivity and performance from in-person attendance rather than outcomes
• Incentives Tied to Attendance – Some organizations link bonuses to office attendance, altering employee behavior despite broader flexibility trends

4. HR and Corporate Real Estate teams need to break down their silos. 

Our attendees commented on how much more common it’s become to see CRE and FM teams reporting into HR teams. And it makes sense – HR is responsible for employee experience while CRE teams are more responsible for  workplace experience. 

But despite this being true in practice, there’s still a disconnect. And it’s slowing things down. HR sets policies and CRE enforces them, but even before that dynamic, these two teams spoke different languages and often still do. HR operates in the policy world, while CRE tends to be concerned with costs and keeping things ticking along smoothly. To improve the workplace for everyone these two teams need to find a middle ground. 

5. AI’s impact on the future of the workplace: less grunt work, more strategizing.

It wouldn’t be a discussion about the future of work without bringing up AI. As far as the office goes, AI definitely has the potential to automate the transactional tasks like workplace documentation.The result would be an office focused on relationship building and human interactions.   

AI is also making its entrance into space planning, particularly with analyzing reams of occupancy data and pulling out patterns and insights. That means more effective space plans that become better workplaces. Another consequence, though, is that organizations will have to think much further ahead about their long-term office needs. 

There’s already a mismatch in office availability, with older real estate sitting vacant and newer, top-tier ESG compliant buildings being pre-leased for years into the future. 

Will AI narrow or widen the flight to quality gap? Time will tell. 

6. Workplace tech is a facilitator, but the thinking behind it matters too. 

Workplace tech can make the office more accessible, collaborative and productive for everyone. But without the right intent behind it, tech is just a band aid fix. Before rolling out shiny new-fangled tech, workplace leaders need to be aligned in how they think about people, culture and the purpose of spaces. This is often easier said than done. 

However, our attendees identified a few pathways for tech to improve everyone’s workplace experience, like; 

• Equity in hybrid meetings: tech can help to even out the playing field between remote and in-person attendees, so everyone has an equal chance to speak up and contribute

• Repurposing spaces: tech can help workplace leaders pinpoint which spaces need a revamp, specifically through integrating occupancy data from sensors, WiFi signals and scheduling systems

• Measuring employee engagement: tracking usage and adoption rates of tech like video conferencing tools, workplace experience platforms and scheduling in the long term signals how engaged people are with the workplace and with each other. 

But still, as helpful as tech can be, its role is that of a facilitator. What’s next for workplace leaders and innovators is figuring out the values and experiences we want tech to be a facilitator of.