Empowering flexibility: using data insights to meet new expectations
The landscape of workplace technology is shifting, and the importance of aligning tech solutions with employee expectations is coming to the fore
Offices today face significant challenges in the evolving landscape of work. Employees are opting to work from alternative locations and large real estate portfolios are bound by legacy lease commitments with little flexibility, leading to workplaces that feel cavernous and static. A drastic transformation is needed – but it requires a comprehensive understanding of how people use, behave in and experience space.
To understand how workplaces are performing, organisations need data. From sensor technology to workplace apps, insights from data are helping organisations to understand collaboration patterns and behaviours to effectively adjust their workspaces. This journey has been mapped in a series of articles from data collection to yielding actionable insights and transforming workplace experiences. This fourth and final instalment of the series will explore the changing expectations of the workforce, and the role data plays in delivering dynamic, agile workplaces.
A strategy for success
Successful data driven strategies need a clear purpose or business objective. Accessing data-insights on-demand is a critical element to creating workspaces that are effective and offer a great experience. Data should offer insights into workplace occupancy, employee work behaviours and collaboration patterns to best understand the spaces and resources employees need to work most effectively. It should work to ensure that visits to the office are valuable for employees, providing them with the insights needed to make decisions about how and where to best spend their days.
‘Successful data driven strategies need a clear purpose or business objective’
Whilst companies often have vast amounts of data available to them, yielding valuable insights from the information remains a challenge. According to a study by EY, only 36 per cent of leaders say that they are investing in data infrastructure fully and at scale, meaning that crucial information could be being neglected.
Navigating new expectations
Employee expectations are changing and organisations that don’t meet the needs of their workforce will be the ones that fall behind. Employees expect greater flexibility, inclusivity and customisation of their workplace. The traditional office space no longer fully aligns with the diverse needs of today’s workforce and employees increasingly value environments that adapt to their ways of working. The expectation is for workplaces to offer not just a physical location but a holistic experience that enhances productivity and personal fulfilment. Organisations must work to bridge the gap between working from home and working from the office, making use of digital technologies to ensure that comfort is improved and employees have access to a range of resources.
To meet these changing demands, companies are turning to data to guide workspace design and experience strategies. Collecting real-time data from workplace technologies allows organisations to understand how employees interact with spaces and identify where improvements can be made. This insight not only enables companies to optimise resource allocations and streamline operational efficiency, but also to enhance the overall workplace experience. Data-driven insights into patterns of occupancy, space utilisation and collaboration within the office empower companies to create dynamic environments that can adjust to evolving needs.
The evolving tech landscape
There are various technologies available to organisations that provide the necessary insights for creating more efficient and enjoyable workplaces. The most impactful technologies are those that promote productivity, taking into account the diverse needs of the workforce. Good workplace technology should function unobtrusively, without interrupting workflows.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2024, suggests that organisations will become more resilient by using security and privacy techniques that contribute to a culture of mutual trust and awareness between teams, bringing into focus an understanding of how different teams work. When employees can see the tangible benefits of the data they are sharing, their willingness to participate in data-sharing initiatives grows, strengthening the partnership between them and the organisation.
Shaping a flexible working environment
With hybrid work increasingly common, employees are drawn to the workplace for activities that require collaboration, team building and access to resources they may not have at home. However, traditional offices can often fail to support these dynamic needs, leaving employees without the spaces that facilitate their primary reasons for coming into the office in the first place.
‘Data insights enable dynamic environments that are adaptable and responsive to employee behaviours’
The overlay of data insights can enable companies to create dynamic environments that are adaptable and responsive to shifting employee behaviours. Sensor technologies play a big role, enabling organisations to understand the frequency with which employees use specific spaces and allowing organisations to reconfigure offices to meet workforce needs.
Aligning data with expectations
Workplace experience technology company Accessia has developed an app that combines mobile-first access control with location data from employees’ devices, enabling workplaces to use in-depth insights for smarter, more responsive operations. By merging security and workplace experience, Accessia makes the time spent in offices more purposeful, empowering employees and workplace teams with insights that support their daily choices and ensure the changes their data contributes to are genuinely impactful, creating an environment that evolves in line with employee needs. Accessia puts employee data back into the hands of the individuals so that they can make informed choices about when to come into the office based on factors such as which colleagues are also intending to be on-site, and once there, easily see which spaces are available for collaboration.
Purposeful workplaces look different for every organisation. Each company has unique needs shaped by factors including size, industry and employee roles. To create a workplace that truly adds value, companies must carefully assess their workforce’s specific requirements and align these with their broader goals.
As employees seek greater flexibility and personalisation, it’s clear that static, one-size-fits-all offices are no longer sufficient. By strategically integrating technology and implementing improvements based on the insight that technology delivers, companies can transform workplaces into adaptable, dynamic environments that foster both productivity and purpose. This requires understanding and aligning with unique organisational goals and workforce needs. The balance of data-driven insights, adaptability, and responsiveness will enable workplaces to meet the evolving expectations of today’s workforce while supporting a culture of continuous improvement.
Sources:
Gartner (2024), Gartner 2024 hype cycle for emerging technologies highlights developer productivity, total experience, AI and security
