Office Rework
An assessment of an HR team's work culture and office space leading to a spatial and cultural design concept in line with the team's business goals
Project Overview
How might we make HR a place employees want to visit?
The HR team of a 13,000-employee company I engaged with for this project had been living in the same stale offices for decades. With a change in leadership, the team was ready for the space to reflect the change in their practice, from complianced-based to human-centered. Rather than a cloistered, inaccessible team, they wanted to invite employees in and support them. They wanted a global team to feel unified and pointed towards the same goals of increasing operational efficiency, adopting design thinking methodologies, and achieving work/life balance for its staff.
Approach
Research
+ implemented multinational work experience survey that outperformed the average employee survey response rate by 109%
+ created survey to assess employees' preferred modes of work to determine in-person vs. remote office needs
+ synthesized and codified employee experience into detailed journey maps
Facilitation and Sharing
Designed and led collaborative sessions for
+ VP of Global Talent and her direct reports
+ Managers
+ Employees
In Order to
+ collect and synthesize the vision for their new space and team culture
+ understand the existing relationships between teams
+ Understand current painpoints in the work experience
Outcomes
This work resulted in a conceptual design which outlines key work zones and team adjacencies that support the team's strategic intent. This will be handed off to interior designers for implementation.
This project also delivered Work Experience Principles that suggest ways to imbue not just the architecture and the furniture, but the habits, rituals, and protocols with the desired intent.
Learnings
In this project, I leveraged existing research practices, such as vetted surveys, but also created new methodologies to make latent knowledge or views visible. For example, I designed an activity called "Spatial Metaphors" wherein I ask participants to post pictures that represent their ideal future work experience. This surfaced unrealized needs in greater specificity than words could have provided. Two participants voice a desire for a "relaxed" space, but one adds a picture of a plant-filled caféwith lots of natural light whereas another posted a dimly lit library-like space. This and other activities gave a new dimension to my understanding of this team's culture.