The Proworking Roadmap: The Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy

The Proworking RoadmapThe Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy


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In today’s increasingly-mobile and cost-conscious world, corporate real estate executives are faced with unprecedented challenges as they strive to find the right balance between business demands and worker enablement. Pressures are mounting, as noted in Jones Lang LaSalle’s biannual Corporate Real Estate Trends report 2013, which cited 72 percent of global companies now expect real estate to drive workplace productivity and 61 percent of companies look to real estate to drive people productivity.

With the “weight of the workplace” squarely on the shoulders of the company’s real estate team, executives are turning toward innovative space curation and consumption models to enhance business performance. “Workplace” has taken on new meaning, as it now refers to workplaces both within and outside of a company’s portfolio of leased or owned properties. Companies are embracing a mix of solutions that include space both inside and outside the office, which reduce fixed-space commitments for the corporation while providing workers with greater choice as to where they can work.

Worker enablement is now a key driver of both people and real estate asset productivity, but it can be challenging to optimize a real estate portfolio while meeting the needs of a distributed, mobile workforce. Technology is fuelling a mobile workforce that prefers flexibility and choice. An estimated 1.3 billion mobile workers conduct work outside of a traditional office today. The question is where does a corporation place its employees to best capture collaboration and innovation?

The emergence of coworking environments serves a transitional consumer need, but don’t fit as an enterprise solution where security and reliability are paramount. Enter proworking, a new approach to improving corporate productivity by dynamically balancing the changing needs of the workforce and the portfolio. Proworking is a natural extension of coworking at the enterprise level, consistently providing professional and well-maintained work environments to mobile workers by owners of real estate. Businesses can now overcome the barriers presented by traditional real estate models and achieve greater

flexibility inside and outside of their portfolios.

Forward-thinking corporate environments are beginning to take note of how proworking can support their overall business goals. Proworking can suit the needs of large enterprises by matching the workplace supply and demand equation in the following four steps:

• Align the workforce• Match people to place• Create engaging environments• Expand boundaries

Watch Jones Lang LaSalle’s proworking approach come to life in an interactive video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz2Loidzxtg&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLDCD450FCF0D98B5B






In this collection of executive opinions, Jones Lang LaSalle outlines the proworking approach and its implications for large enterprises. Industry thought leaders shared their insights on the future of the workplace and how enterprises unlock people and asset productivity by moving outside of their four walls:

Mark Gilbreath, CEO, LiquidSpace: Next-Generation Sharing Economies: The Consumerization of the Workplace

John Hampton, Senior Vice President, Innovation & Product Development, Jones Lang LaSalle: Proworking: Redefining the Workplace and the Role of Corporate Real Estate

Bernice Boucher, Managing Director, Workplace Strategy Lead in the Americas, Jones Lang LaSalle: Productivity Begins with Workplace Strategy

Steve Hargis, Executive Vice President, National Director, Jones Lang LaSalle: Characteristics of a High-Performance Workplace

John Hampton Senior Vice President Innovation and Product Development Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc. +1 214 438 6383 [email protected]

We encourage you to use this piece to start a proworking dialogue. Join the movement. For more information, contact:

mailto:[email protected]

Next-Generation Sharing Economies: The Consumerization of the WorkplaceBy Mark Gilbreath, CEO, LiquidSpace


History suggests that what our generation is going through right now is much more than a hangover from a period of excess. Across the sweep of recorded history, there have been four “mother” moments — periods of economic revolution where everything changed. In every one of these periods, there have been two conspicuous factors present: the emergence of a new energy paradigm, and the adoption of a new communication paradigm.

So let’s take a quick walk through history. 8,000 years ago, the first revolution took place. What caused it and what changed?

Stored grain represented a new energy paradigm as society moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Communities were for the first time able to anchor and organize in place, rather than following the food supply. Written language emerged as the new communication paradigm, transforming the ability to chronicle and disseminate ideas and histories. Physical communities formed, structures were built, diets improved. Culture was shaped and reshaped in quick waves.

Fast-forward to the mid 1700’s: a new energy paradigm was ushered in by the steam engine, and the communication leap came in the form of the printing press.

As a result, the first Industrial Revolution took hold, and the locus of human economic endeavor moved to factories,

while people and materials were transported more efficiently. Relatively Meanwhile, the printing press made the wide dissemination of diverse ideas a reality. Governments and religions evolved, and were eventually overthrown. The known world was explored and documented.

Step forward another hundred years to the second Industrial Revolution in 1870, and you’ll see another wave of massive change. The discovery and refinement of oil and the invention of the internal combustion engine were the new energy paradigm. The advent

of the telegraph opened the era of electronic communications. Once again, in a relatively short period of time these advancements caused massive change. The wide use of oil as a fuel enabled the combustion engine and portable power, and the invention of the telephone, offered real-time communication.

Right now, we’re experiencing a fourth wave of massive change.


Today’s new energy paradigm is renewables and post-fossil fuel. Renewable energy and newly efficient green technologies promise independence form a fossil fuel-based economy.

Perhaps more importantly, such innovations have changed expectations for everything from building (LEED certification) to lighting (CFL’s as a global standard, supplanting incandescent light) to cars (hybrids and plug-in electrics).

The communications paradigm is third-generation electronic communications. Smartphones bring us ubiquitous, mobile connectivity to third-generation Web technologies that range from Telepresence services to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. As the Arab Spring demonstrated, the effects are profound. Meanwhile, YouTube allows anyone in the world to broadcast themselves. LinkedIn has made virtual business networks,

and their many uses — sales, business development, and recruiting.

But this is all just the tip of the iceberg.

The fabric of society was rewoven during each of these periods of revolution. In building practice, we’ve gone from mud to stone to steel. We’ve gone from using grain to steam to create energy and drive consumption, and steam to oil. Now we’re focused on renewables as the smart way forward. Transportation has evolved from foot to train, to ship, to the automobile. Now, virtual technologies like Telepresence and Skype supplant physical travel. The model of ownership and job creation has

gone from chieftain to king, robber baron, and then executive. Now we have the entrepreneur.

Most important for your purposes, work has changed through these revolutions: farmers, laborers, and eventually, office drones. Today, we’re a nation of knowledge workers.

Accordingly, the workplace has evolved. We used to work on the farm, and eventually we moved to the factory. Then came the office. Today, work is anywhere you are.

Enter the Fourth Economic Revolution


Where are the biggest opportunities?It’s an exciting time, but one in flux.

There will be big winners and big losers. Above all else, real estate is under great duress, and as a result, it’s where some of the best opportunities for innovation in today’s economy present themselves.

Corporations are rethinking their facilities strategies across the board—adapting to new work patterns and cultural norms, and grappling with economic and environmental sustainability mandates. “Space as a service” has emerged as the next-generation model for real estate fueled by an explosion of third places offering space to “work on the go”: coworking spaces, office business centers, hotels,

and libraries. The corporate campus has dissolved as a standard.

In parallel, the activity that gets done our workspaces changes at an even faster pace. Knowledge work is moving from individual work to networked work, towards constant collaboration and mobility as a core competency.

What does this all amount to if you’re interested in sharing economies, and the future of work?

It amounts to the fact that the “workplace” industry is transforming. It’s an incredibly hard time to be in the old workplace business—developing buildings and office campuses. On the other hand it’s

a wonderful time to be in the business of “Workspace”.

The Consumerization of Real EstateA year ago the association formerly known as the Office Business Center Association International (or OBCAI for not-so-short) threw off its boat anchor of a name and adopted a new moniker, the Global Workspace Association (GWA). That move was about more than creating a pocket-sized acronym. With that change, the organization’s leadership sought to raise a big tent with enough room to welcome the wide array of places where working professionals go to get stuff done as well as the service providers that support them.

What we’re witnessing is the Consumerization of Real Estate unleashed. WorkPLACE is becoming the real-time choice of the employee, rather than a dictate of the employer. And given the choice, you can expect people to eat off the full menu.

On the road with a report due? Check in for an hour at the hotel business center. Interview with a must-get job candidate? Impress with the polished business center boardroom. Looking for a bit of soul in your environment while you brainstorm next year’s product strategy? Spend the day at the nearest Coworking space.


The past 10 years have seen a dramatic shift in the landscape of work. A perfect storm of factors have set “the office” on a new course. Among them:

• light-weight tech and ubiquitous wifi are freeing workers from their desks;

• the digital generation is bringing a different attitude about the life/work balance and social engagement;

• employers are awakening to the economic burden of under-utilized real estate assets and;

• new players are emerging to provide solutions that meet the growing demands of a workforce on the move.

The impact of this game-changing shift will be massive, and will include:

• Quality of life and productivity wins for the individual.

• Dramatic cost reductions and increased workspace agility for corporations.

• Abundant opportunities for new entrepreneurs and existing companies to innovate and build new businesses to support this shift.

In addition to all these great benefits, we have the potential to alter the planet’s carbon trajectory. With more happy people,

working in fewer buildings, the planet smiles.

Real Estate In CrisisWe have more commercial real estate inventory than we will need for the rest of our lives.

There are two drivers behind this sobering fact: Firstly, commercial real estate operated for too long as a supply-driven marketplace, turbocharged by cheap capital and complex financial instruments that created a bubble of value still in the process of venting.

Up until three years ago, supply steadily outgrew demand. Today, over one billion square feet of commercial workspace inventory sits empty. The supply curve actually surpassed the current level of demand twenty years ago, but we kept on building as demand flat-lined.

The second factor at play here is the changing nature of work at a very basic level, from “me” to “we”. This is demonstrated by the dominant trend towards more collaborative and more distributed work. There is a drop in space being allocated to each employee in workspace environments across the board. The norm of 250+ square feet per employee, typical from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, is plummeting to below 100 square feet per employee at many progressive companies. This evolution in the allocation of space serves to add even more inventory to the excess of supply.

The net impact of these two factors is an effective workspace vacancy of over 50% —more space than we will likely absorb in our lifetimes, even factoring in aggressive estimates for population growth.

There is, quite simply, an overabundance of supply in corporate real estate. Why this is the case could fill another post, but in short, it’s because new supply was continually brought online long after the demand curve flattened.

With the emergence of third places and transactional workspaces like coworking spaces and office business centers, we are transitioning to a demand-driven economy. It’s one that will naturally result in the more efficient utilization of assets.

The norm of 250+ square feet per employee, typical from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, is plummeting to below 100 square feet per employee at many progressive companies.


As it matures, the driving force of the sharing economy will become time, and the companies that can do business in real-time will occupy a more strategic, and profitable, place in the ecosystem.

Fresh off its $1 billion valuation, Airbnb is the most common reference point for all manner of “this for that” pitches bouncing around the Valley right now, with many new ventures proposing to be the “the Airbnb of X.”

But Airbnb is only one species of the sharing economy genus—a genus that will stratify over the next few quarters.

Real-time makes your brand a heroHotel Tonight is a great example of the flip side of the Airbnb coin. It focuses on real-time reservations, and the real-time use of latent capacity.

Airbnb’s transactions typically take place five or more days in advance of a stay,

and any requests inside that window are put on a standby list. In contrast, Hotel Tonight only offers rooms for the current night, with a cutoff of 2 a.m. local time. It’s a fascinating constraint, and one that has propelled their business forward. When people need a room immediately and you’re able to provide them one, they will remember you.

Real-time can command premiums, not just discountsOf course, different markets and different kinds of capacity have unique sensitivities to time.

Uber’s car service business is incredibly time-sensitive. One of its most common use cases is trips to and from the airport, which usually involves a high-stakes deadline on at least one end of the journey.

Other popular uses are travel on a busy holiday (think Halloween or New Year’s Eve in New York City during a public transportation strike).

The more time-sensitive a market becomes for buyers and sellers, the more lucrative the corresponding business opportunity.

This is an old lesson—price and revenue optimization wizards hold time in the highest regard. And as the time-sensitivity of a situation increases, the number of parties we’re willing to entrust with our affairs dwindles to a small handful.

Real-time puts coveted data in your pocketWhat Hotel Tonight, Uber and my company LiquidSpace have in common is that we all know a lot about our customers’ travel patterns.

Additionally, we can extrapolate a ton of information about preferences—from who customers are likely to collaborate with to where they like to work or hang out.

With this real-time data, we’re primed to find other ways to make your stay, ride or meeting that much more enjoyable. We can quickly provide add-ons that customers need, such as snacks or printing, or partner with other vendors who can.

The sharing economy


Leveraging analytics Whether by offering new services or opening up this powerful real-time data, we are exposing new revenue streams that the sharing economy enables.

With enough time, any latent capacity can be utilized. Each year at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, we see twelve month’s worth of planning make use of every nook and cranny.

On short notice, sharing economies are harder to organize, and they involve more risk. Real-time capabilities mean that you sit closer to purchasing decisions, closer to strategic imperatives, closer to profit and loss, closer to sealed deals and averted crises.

Real-time is difficult, and precisely because it is so challenging to do real-time well, and safely, the market will reward those who invest in making the “here and now” a priority. In short, you’re closer to risk, and closer to reward.

Consumers want real-time access, and businesses demand it. The sharing economy is not only online, it’s also picking up speed.

The path forwardThe thing to focus on from here on out is actually pretty obvious to even the casual observer. People are leaving work to get work done.

In some scenarios, we tell employees to leave work to get work done— we give them pink slips, or ask them to work from home.

In other cases, alternative workplace strategies mean that you don’t need a desk any more—instead, workers have access to a wide array of contexts and collaborative spaces that better match their real needs. 82% of Fortune’s “Best Places to Work” have implemented strategies like this, and actively market their innovations as a recruiting tool.

Downsizing has also created an America of freelancers, where project work accomplished by expert contractors rules the day. The “contingent workforce” will double to 40 million people by 2020, representing almost half of all US workers.

Today’s working millennials also have a big hand in this transition—they see flexibility and new work lifestyles as a right, not a privilege. It’s what they expect.

Finally, we leave work to get work done because technology lets us. Laptops, tablets, better battery life, cell phones, Mi-fi cards, easy-to-access public Wi-Fi networks, and online connectivity on planes have made it possible to literally work on the beach.

As a result, whether you’re working at an office business center, a plane, a train, an automobile, or even if at home, work is indeed where you are.

This fourth economic revolution will be distinguished by the proliferation of the Sharing Economy and the harvesting of perishable inventory of all flavors — beds, cars, household tools, and yes, great spaces to work.

We are midway through an economic revolution, and everything is changing.

Proworking: Redefining the Workplace and the Role of Corporate Real EstateBy John Hampton, Senior Vice President, Innovation & Product Development, Jones Lang LaSalle


The global financial crisis, rapid technological advances, globalization and changing workforce demographics are changing where and how work is performed. For corporate real estate executives, portfolio management has become extraordinarily complex, as the workplace evolves and requires spaces far beyond traditional corporate environments. These trends have led to the emergence of a new approach, known as “proworking,” in which some forward-looking companies are increasingly focused on worker enablement as a driver of people and real estate asset productivity. “Workplace” has taken on new meaning, as it now refers to workplaces both within and outside of a company’s portfolio of leased or owned properties.

Using the proworking perspective, a company adopts a holistic approach to its use of real estate and commits to offering multiple options for employees to be at their most productive, in the places that best support achieving business results. Delivering that environment means re-envisioning how and where workers access the space and resources they need. Based on a deeper understanding of the workforce and occupancy needs—including improved support resources, expanded access and more choice of locations—proworking empowers employees to work efficiently in diverse business environments that boost productivity and business performance.

Proworking is a natural extension of coworking at the enterprise level, in consistently providing professional and well-maintained work environments to mobile professionals by owners of real estate. Businesses need a way to overcome the barriers presented by traditional real estate models and achieve greater flexibility.

Proworking can help companies stay nimble in an unpredictable environment by combining the best practices of workplace strategy with the underlying driver of the corporate mission and culture. In a fast-moving, ever-changing economy, the organizations that can adapt to market and economic forces will succeed—and those that are built on a flexible workspace model have the advantage because their cultures will be wired for fluidity.

The essential problem of space: Where are the workers? Traditionally, companies have, of course, leased or acquired space to house their workers, with the goal of maximum utilization to avoid excess expense. However, traditional own-or-lease arrangements can limit a company’s ability to respond to changing conditions.

Whether a company is growing rapidly or reshaping its global footprint, corporate real estate can present barriers to growth and flexibility. It constrains capital in long-term lease or mortgage commitments, interferes with monetization of unused space, and creates inflexible structures for both landlords and their corporate tenants.

The world of work is undergoing a continuing transformation.


The traditional model is also inefficient. In a typical U.S. or European company, only 50 to 60 percent of desks are occupied on any given workday. Not surprisingly, 79 percent of U.S. corporations have or plan to implement mobility programs. More than 37 percent of the total global workforce, or 1.3 billion people, is predicted to work away from assigned offices at least two days a week by 2015.

Market data indicates that this mismatch of workers and work locations is a growing trend. In the United States alone, approximately 95 million square feet of sublease space was on the market as of August 2013. Within the U.S. portfolios of Jones Lang LaSalle’s corporate real estate clients, comprising some of the largest corporations in the world, 200 million square feet of space is underutilized.

The proworking approach Worker enablement has trumped facilities management as a priority for corporate real estate professionals, with 72 percent experiencing high expectations to deliver clear enhancement in workplace productivity. Seventy-two percent anticipate the transformation of their workplaces in terms of quantity, quality, utilization and density over the next three years.4 Clearly, many companies are eager to change their current workplace strategies in search of more collaboration

and innovation, greater productivity, employee satisfaction and talent retention. This need requires a different approach, one that uses technology as an enabler of workplace strategy rather than the driver.

Ongoing pressure on operating costs has already compelled more than two-thirds of CRE executives to increase the utilization rate of space on a global basis. Many corporate real estate footprints are shrinking, with 31 percent of CRE executives reporting a reduction in the size of their real estate portfolio over the last three years. The majority, 79 percent, says that space utilization will increase further over the next three years, with only 42 percent forecasting that the real estate portfolio will increase in size over this period.

Sixty-seven percent of CRE executives maintain that the quality of their workplace has improved during the last three years, demonstrating a focus on quality over pure space utilization metrics. Two thirds of CRE executives point to improvements in the workplace from either a design or environmental point of view.

While these trends are encouraging, the transformative pressures that have been felt by CRE will only intensify in the coming years. CRE teams will be faced with the challenge of further increasing densities and utilization rates without negatively impacting quality or worker experience. The need will grow for modern, flexible, densely occupied high-quality space that supports creative and collaborative work and enables talent attraction and retention. Most critically, these workplaces may not

necessarily be within the walls of a company’s own facilities.

Whether the workplace is physical or virtual, temporary or permanent, creating a self-sustaining, highly productive community of workers today requires an expanded vision of corporate real

estate. Like a city, a community of workers needs certain elements in order to be productive—no matter where the work is being done—and corporate real estate executives are challenged to provide these critical workspace elements.

The need for a more holistic approach to corporate real estate has led to the emergence of proworking, a new approach to workforce productivity that changes

Many corporate real estate footprints are shrinking, with 31 percent of CRE executives reporting a reduction in the size of their real estate portfolio over the last three years.


how businesses share, access, lease and conduct transactions involving corporate real estate. It is based on the Scandinavian ProWork Project, a long-term study aimed

at understanding the requirements of productive knowledge work in physical, virtual and social work settings, and how to manage the workplace change processes.

In essence, the study concluded that work is what workers do, not the place where workers go.

Proworking encompasses the diverse workspaces that already are part of the knowledge worker landscape. More and more work is being done in “third places,” or on-demand spaces outside of company facilities. These third places may include an employee’s home, a neighborhood coffee shop, the library or other social hubs in a community. Some forward-looking companies are creating satellite offices to provide a workplace and social hub for mobile workers who rarely need “face time” at the primary corporate campus.

Proworking provides a new alternative model for dealing underutilized corporate real estate spaces. New technology is now available to help mobile workers locate workspace for use by the hour, the day, the week or more. A corporation can use a matchmaking Web application to connect its excess space with mobile employees or even make the space available for other companies to use. This flexible model speeds and simplifies the process of finding a workplace for mobile workers, and expands the universe of options available. This process of thoughtfully selecting, preparing and maintaining spaces is essential to providing highly productive “prolocations.”


The workplace as a thriving city

Proworking requires not only available and supportive workplace environments, but all the elements required for productivity as well. It should not be a surprise that employees see a clear link between the physical work environment and personal productivity, and that the work environment is very important to job satisfaction.8 And so, companies continue to search for the right combination of workplace elements to drive performance.

Consider the analogy of a thriving city. A workplace can be considered a microcosm of a community, with the same five requirements for a vibrant, productive society. A city’s residents live and work in communities, including physical neighborhoods and affinity groups. Residents need resources, including retail centers, grocery stores, restaurants and services, and they need access to resources via transportation and Internet connectivity. The capacity for commerce, or the exchange of goods and services, drives economic activity, while safety and security, in the form of public and private safety measures, allow residents to focus on work and leisure rather than on self-protection.

Applying the prosperous city metaphor to the workplace, parallels emerge. Like a city, a company comprises communities, but of work teams, whether ad hoc or formal departments, who need resources, which can include capital, colleagues,

a whiteboard, meeting space, wireless Internet access and a place to sit. For commerce—the exchange of knowledge and skills to accomplish the work—workers need convenient access to community resources. Safety and security are also required, in the form of physical safety and the virtual security of an Internet firewall.

Within this analogy of the thriving city, the provision of work-enabling features is more important than the physical location of the work. Both the company and its employees benefit, as employees are empowered to choose the space that is most productive for the task at hand, while companies gain flexibility and lower costs.

The proworking approach can transform the role of the corporate real estate department from its historical focus

on portfolio optimization and facilities management to creating engaging work environments. Fulfilling this role, however, requires corporate real estate executives to leverage assets outside the corporate real estate portfolio as readily as owned or leased assets.

Implementing the proworking approachIdeally, the proworking approach compels corporate real estate departments to evolve into what CoreNet Global calls “strategic enablers” for the work of employees, working with human resources, information technology and finance to create engaging workplaces. Corporate real estate professionals can become facilitators for a network of distributed activity nodes, whether owned or borrowed (in the surrounding community), where knowledge workers from multiple sectors


can convene to collaborate across the globe, around the clock. Corporate real estate can provide not just the facilities, but also a menu of services and capabilities, from small group meeting rooms and private spaces to technology for virtual meetings, to support productivity.

Align the workforce with business goals. The role of strategic enabler requires a broad set of capabilities and a deep understanding of the business strategy and corporate culture. How and where is work performed? How do different employee groups use their workspaces—or not use them?

For example, product development work may comprise a mixed group of employees and contractors collaborating in 12- to 18-month cycles. The sales force may need “touchdown” office space near clients or, in a new market, near prospective clients. Training staff may require meeting space with large presentation screens.

Match people to the places in which they are most effective. Combined with an understanding of the workforce and workflow, an analysis of a company’s current real estate footprint and usage patterns will reveal possibilities for different work experiences. Core corporate real estate competencies such as portfolio and location strategy occupancy planning and portfolio optimization can be used to gain an understanding of supply and demand.

For example, frequency-of-use occupancy data may indicate peaks and valleys in the workflow. Onsite headcount may vary at different times of the year, suggesting that the company needs on-demand space rather than a fixed expense that is underutilized during non-peak times. Business intelligence data may indicate a future need for a large collaborative space for a particular project, and it may indicate that workers prefer offsite meeting space, even though onsite space is available.

Looking far and wide for real estate usage patterns may underscore the need for alternative spaces in which employees can gather to collaborate or simply share the social experience that a workplace can provide. Ideally, data aggregation and usage studies will enable the corporate real estate team to determine where and when employees need to interact.

Create engaging work environments. With the continued transformation of work and the growth of the mobile workforce, corporate real estate must expand to include a range of flexible workplace options. Today’s effective workplace strategies focus on culture, connectivity, collaboration and choice of workplace rather than on specific corporate facilities.

In the proworking mindset, an engaging environment involves membership rather than ownership. The traditional one-person-per-desk model no longer

serves knowledge workers best, and the most productive workplaces create non-territorial neighborhoods by function. These workplaces provide a wide range of environments—formal meeting zones, casual brainstorming spots, IT stations, private spaces, third space—for different kinds of work.

Nor is the “ownership model” of one seat-per-worker sustainable, given the relatively low utilization levels on an average day in a typical company. In North America and Europe, for example, job sharing, telecommuting and virtual meetings continue to decrease traditional office space usage.

Proworking charges the corporate real estate department with finding the right balance between supporting individual and team productivity. When employees have greater control over how and where they work, they are empowered to choose


the space that is most productive for the task at hand. With spaces that support quiet or confidential work, as well as virtual or face-to-face collaboration, the workplace can drive cross-pollination of ideas, employee engagement and foster a sense of community. It may sound counter-intuitive, but employees who are given greater autonomy are often more engaged and loyal to an organization, even without personal desks.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, the organizations that attract and retain the most effective talent share attributes that consistently foster innovation, drive productivity and grow revenues—even with highly varying corporate cultures. A high-functioning organization creates a shared culture and an environment that supports its people, accurately reflects the way people work in the 21st century and aligns the physical workplace with business goals.

Expand the boundaries of the corporate real estate portfolio. The proworking approach means that corporate real estate includes anywhere that work is being performed—and that means moving beyond conventional thinking and traditional space to improve business performance. The workplace may be a home office, a corporate facility, a satellite office, a hotel or airport lounge, or any number of “third places” that provide

cultural and environmental advantages for productivity.

Forty percent of workers report coming to the office regardless of telecommuting options because of the tools and technology available in the corporate facility. Proworking proposes that, as strategic enablers, corporate real estate departments consider how to make tools and technology available outside the office.

Many forms of third places have emerged as mobile knowledge workers have grown as a proportion of the workforce. Such venues include co-owned/leased facilities, satellite corporate offices, hybrid facilities housing both resident and mobile employees, or even in-house lounges that provide a space for formal and informal

collaboration and socializing. Coworking facilities have become increasingly available, although targeted primarily at self-employed workers and entrepreneurs.

Incorporating alternative workspace into the corporate real estate strategy is evolving to a new level with the development of service providers offering on-demand models of office space and technology to serve mobile workers and knowledge work as a whole. Flexible working strategies will become pervasive as a real estate solution to meet business needs, as the work force of 2020 demands it. These offerings place productivity back in the hands of businesses through a network of trusted, flexible work environments tailored to help companies and individuals flourish.

Several services have emerged to match workplaces with workers on an hourly, weekly or monthly basis in lieu of a traditional lease or sublease. For corporate real estate owners with underutilized space and mobile workforces, a new service offering has recently become available for corporate real estate executives specifically to streamline the matchmaking of surplus space and workers in need of a work environment. It is executed with a real-time online marketplace and coupled with services to help companies assess workforce space requirements; align people and venues; make underutilized space ready for productive use; connect corporations with a vetted network of professional locations outside of a company’s portfolio; and manage those locations on an ongoing basis.

As a secure, online marketplace for short and medium-term needs, such a service provides immediately available workplaces that offer convenient, secure and professional environments. Workforce applications are limitless, particularly for short-term project teams in need of temporary in-person collaboration; “touchdown locations” near corporate or client offices; flexible sales offices in new markets; or collaboration space for suppliers, vendors and consultants. These spaces become trusted third places for companies with close affinity to the venue host.

ConclusionLong a strategic vision for many companies, workplace transformation is taking on a new resonance in many countries as senior business leaders respond to an improving economic environment. Facing increased pressure to improve the productivity of the workplace, the workforce, the business and the underlying real estate assets, corporate real estate executives must reinvent their role to encompass all the elements of the community that is the workplace.

Companies applying the proworking approach recognize its potential for increasing productivity—and the very way corporations and their employees relate to one another. From a business perspective, proworking has the potential to improve space utilization and flexibility while possibly reducing overall real estate costs. For workers, the proworking approach offers what many are already pursuing through informal means: opportunities to collaborate and to choose where they can be most productive.

Rather than resisting this reinvention, CRE executives can choose to embrace the proworking concept and become collaborative change agents within their organizations. Proworking demands collaboration among CRE, human resources, information technology and finance in providing the resources that workers need wherever they are working. CRE teams have an opportunity to play a leadership role with their functional peers to deliver positive change across their organizations where workplace productivity is concerned.


Productivity Begins with Workplace StrategyBy Bernice Boucher, Managing Director, Workplace Strategy Lead in the Americas, Jones Lang LaSalle


Knowledge workers are often most productive in workplaces that support collaboration and creativity—but how do managers ensure the environment in which those key professionals work delivers on its promise? Companies typically have focused on facilities costs rather than real estate’s potential to support employee performance and results, so many times there are hurdles to overcome.

A typical knowledge-oriented organization spends significantly more on its workers than its space. For these companies, productivity is not about presence—that is, sitting at a desk—it is about performance. The right workplace strategy can help increase shareholder value, achieve business goals and create a high-performance, cohesive corporate culture.

This tension between cost and the need to invest in strategies that create value is a shared challenge for corporate real estate executives around the world. According to JLL’s Global Corporate Real Estate Trends 2013 survey, 72% of corporate real estate executives face high expectations to deliver clear enhancement in workplace productivity and 65% are charged with transforming the quality of the workplace.

The JLL workplace strategy team has identified five workplace principles that support increased shareholder value, improved business performance, a cohesive corporate culture and other corporate objectives:

1 Work is what employees do, not where they sit. The focus of work and workplace is no longer about square-footage per person, but about revenue per person.

2 Think membership, not ownership. The traditional one-person-per-desk model does not best serve knowledge workers. The most productive workplaces create non-territorial neighborhoods by function. These workplaces provide a wide range of environments—formal meeting zones, casual brainstorming spots, IT stations, private spaces—for different kinds of work.

3 Do more with less. The “ownership model” of assigning a seat to every employee is no longer sustainable, given that 50% of desks are vacant on an average day in a typical company. In North America and Europe, for example, job sharing, telecommuting and virtual meetings have significantly decreased office space usage. Vacancy translates into underutilized real estate and a less-productive environment.

4 Provide choices to enhance productivity. Companies must find the right balance between supporting individual and team productivity. When employees have greater control over how and where they work, they are empowered to choose the space that is most productive for the task at hand. With spaces that support quiet or confidential work, as well as virtual or face-to-face collaboration, the workplace can drive cross-pollination of ideas, employee engagement and foster a sense of community. It may sound counter-intuitive, but employees who are given greater autonomy are often more engaged and loyal to an organization, even without personal desks.

5 Flexible workspaces translate into agility. In a fast-moving, ever-changing economy, the organizations that can adapt to the market and economic forces succeed—and those that are built on a flexible workspace model have the advantage because their culture is wired for fluidity. People and technology are in the right place at the right time, which drives innovation.


The most productive workplaces create non-territorial neighborhoods by function.


A version of this article originally appeared in GlobeSt.com.

Productivity depends on the ability of a company to get the most out of its employees in line with the organization’s objectives. The right workplace can shape culture, promote collaboration, inspire ideas, respond to trends, improve performance, build retention and grow the bottom line.

Conclusion

Characteristics of A High-Performance WorkplaceBy Steve Hargis, Executive Vice President, National Director, Jones Lang LaSalle


Companies known for high-performing workplace environments share eight characteristics, regardless of industry. By focusing on the goal of workplace productivity, the proworking approach compels a company to look beyond its traditional facilities to provide places that engage workers with each other and the company as a whole.

An effective workplace comprise the following characteristics:

Collaborative community. Creating a collaborative community of cross-functional workers who want to interact together to solve challenges is fundamental. Collaboration brings people out of silos, shifts the organization from “me” to “we” and promotes a lively cross-pollination of ideas that pays dividends in workforce retention, employee productivity and innovation.

Alignment with corporate brand and values. A shared mission—not specific policies—creates a resilient, high-performance organization. When culture is a strong reflection of the CEO’s vision, it creates an underlying bond and fosters a sense of identity. Productivity drivers naturally flow from shared values, generate revenue and achieving savings.


Increased choice and autonomy. When people have greater choice about how and where they work, they are empowered to choose the most productive space for the task at hand. This can happen by shifting from an ownership to a membership model featuring non-territorial neighborhoods comprising a variety of work areas, both individual and group, concentrative and collaborative.

Agility. In a fast-moving, ever-changing economy, the organizations that can adapt to market and economic forces succeed—and those that are built on a flexible workspace model have the advantage because their culture is wired into fluidity. People and technology are in the right place at the right time, and this drives innovation where and when you need it.

Technology adaptation. Organizations need to ensure that they have the appropriate infrastructure, offering the ability to continually upgrade without interruption to the business. As workers increasingly prefer “BYOD,” or bring your own device, the enterprise must support their networks, integrate data and implement appropriate security.

Destinations of choice. Shaping corporate culture through workplace destinations can protect the organization’s cultural identity and sense of community. While virtual workplaces will always be required, they do not provide the cultural boost and connectivity of a shared physical space. Great workplaces embrace paradoxes: balancing concentration spaces with collaboration areas, formal meeting spaces with social interaction, and security with accessibility.

A high-quality experience for its employees. If workplaces are dull, monotonous and uninspiring, people won’t want to come to the office, and consequently may balk at policies that require face time. By creating environments where people want to work, employee satisfaction rises, turnover drops and behaviors change—in turn driving productivity and revenue.

Integration of people, technology and space. When these three elements work together toward common goals, great things can happen. Integrated teams provide a smooth flow of information, shared decision-making and an appropriate allocation of resources. This translates into the right people in the right space with the right tools available at the right time: a formula for success.

Jones Lang LaSalle is a financial and professional services firm specializing in commercial real estate services and investment management. Our more than 40,000 people in 1,000 locations in 70 countries serve the local, regional and global real estate needs of those clients, growing our company in the process. In response to changing client expectations and market conditions, we assemble teams of expert s who deliver integrated commercial real estate services built on insight and foresight, sound market research and relevant knowledge. We attract, develop and reward the best, and most diverse, people in our industry, challenging them to develop enduring client relationships built on quality service, collaboration and trust. For further information, visit www.jll.com.

The Proworking Roadmap: The Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy

Business

Transcript of The Proworking Roadmap: The Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy