Insights from the forefront of future of work thought leadership

The workplace has changed forever and is continuing to evolve after the rapid transformation generated by the pandemic. Whether employees are working in the office or remotely, a successful workplace now needs to be a digitally inclusive workplace. But what does this actually mean, and what needs to be done? 

We posed these questions, and more, to John Corbett, Cisco Workplace and Real Estate Strategist. Our discussion uncovered how offices need to change for a new working world and revealed how Cisco is creating an immersive experience that levels the playing field for all employees – regardless of their location.

The challenges of the hybrid workplace

“We’re starting to notice that working from home has become the norm, and going into the office is ‘extraordinary’” says John.

He says that this in itself throws up some interesting observations. 

“Digital environments are frictionless – the transition between activities and engagement is smooth. By comparison, the office of old was rather clunky. The traditional office is architected to be fixed and time-bound and thus dynamically opposed to digital workflows. The office of now and into the future needs to catch up and we need to be smart at how we go about that.”

So if the traditional office is ‘hard’, how do we make the new workplace as ‘frictionless’ as the digital environment we’ve become accustomed to? 

John explains that this now means a reversal of what we saw 18 months ago, when we first got our stay at home orders. That is, looking at what we’re doing seamlessly and quickly online, and figuring out how we can replicate that speed and seamless efficiency in the office.  

“We’ve become very attracted to working in a dynamic digital-only environment. Meeting with ten people online is easy, but traditionally, at the office, it is complicated. So let’s make connecting the office, to the people in the office and the people outside the office, easy, on-demand and seamless.

“Let’s get the office to become an active contributor to our continuously evolving and transitioning workflow, rather than having to slow down workflow in response to the time bound, fixed nature of the office. 

“Why should we have to book a room to meet with someone? Do we book a laptop at home when we meet with someone? No. So the office should not be any different in our ability to seamlessly connect with other people or resources.”

This has been the focus at Cisco: seamless transitions and ensuring the built environment supports interaction in all its forms.

What does this look like in practice?  

“Say I want to have a video conversation with two of my colleagues. One is with me in the office and the other is remote. Traditionally, I would have to book a room to do that, and in doing, so I would roll around in Outlook, etc in order to do that. If we decided to have this meeting on-demand, I might hop into a room and then connect my laptop with a cable, or dial in and enter passwords, etc. What if I could just walk into the room, click the green button on my laptop to start my meeting like I usually would from home, and the equipment in the room automatically connected with me? What if it was fully automated, without touching a thing? 

“My environment should work for me, connecting to me, not me having to put all this effort into connecting to it. This is similar to you navigating across a digital workflow on your laptop. All the applications on your laptop know it’s you. You don’t have to tell them, and those software applications intuitively respond to your demands. The office workflow experience should be no different,”

Another challenge of the hybrid work environment is a lack of visibility. Whereas companies have a thorough understanding of their office’s physical space, they generally don’t have that same understanding of the workspace outside of that.

John says that “the physical office distributes a subliminal service that we take for granted. I.e. Your desk has an ergonomically assessed chair,  power, and competent network connectivity. 

“The distribution of this subliminal service needs to extend beyond the physical office. With 100 of your staff having to work remotely overnight, your office just went from one to 101 offices. If they were in the office you would have line of sight of the ability of the office and its infrastructure to serve your staff in order to help them get their work done. We need to be able to deliver the same level of service beyond the boundaries of a physical office and satisfy ourselves that our company is capable of intuitively servicing our employees’ workflow needs at a hardware and software level, at any time, anywhere.”

At Cisco, this means they are “levelling the playing field” by creating a digitally inclusive workplace

What is digital equality or inclusivity?

“It’s our responsibility to provide [our employees with] a first-class workplace experience whatever their location. And this creates a more inclusive environment,” John emphasises. 

John’s definition of digital equality has two primary components:

“One part is physical. You’ll often find pockets of competency in an office – so good tech in a boardroom, or large meeting rooms but nowhere else for example. It is inevitable that people will gravitate towards “better”, thus creating false economies resulting in uneven demand bottlenecks. A broader, more distributed delivery of seamless, consistent, and easy-to-use competency, in smaller sizes, increases supply elasticity and helps to balance out uneven consumption demand.

“The other part is equity beyond the physical environment. It used to be that if you couldn’t be in the office, you couldn’t work. And while we’ve seen this change during the pandemic, it’s still not good enough. We need to level the playing field further so that those who work from home aren’t viewed as passengers, but active members of the group. Why should a woman who has decided to start a family, be burdened with the uncomfortable choice of a potentially inferior place in the workplace, because she is not physically in the office?.

“For example, equitable equipment, such as the Webex’s background noise suppression AI, removes barriers to communication such as needing to mute and unmute yourself during a call. Therefore, the external environment now no longer impairs or disadvantages the external participant.”

How technology is levelling the playing field

We spoke with John about how technology is helping to overcome the challenges of the hybrid workplace and create a digitally inclusive environment for all employees. 

AI translation

“Instant translation tools are helping us manage differences that arise from cross-cultural connections and workplaces across geographies.”

Searchable meeting recordings

“I frequently work with people on the East Coast of the US who are having meetings at 2am my time. While we have a recording of that meeting, I don’t need to hear the whole thing, if I choose not to. I just need the snippets relevant to me. I can now search keywords and the technology takes me to each place within the meeting, where that topic was discussed… I can also see other areas of the meeting that were considered important to the meeting host, during that meeting. Additionally, I can also raise questions after the fact, too. This technology means, I can manage my time investments as I consider appropriate and I am not having to crumble my own work time boundaries to be an active participant in a global team while still remaining an active member.”

Smart tech used to diagnose connection issues

“Webex, Cisco’s collaboration platform, uses innovative technology to interrogate data and identify why you might be incurring an inferior meeting experience. It “sees” every bit of equipment (and related data) that is contributing to the engagement and can determine if, for example, it’s your headset that’s causing the problem, or something else.”

A look to the future 

What does John see on the horizon of the future of work?

Smart tech in the home office

“Smart devices, such as the Webex Video Endpoint, can continually collect intelligence to pick up on factors that create fatigue such as heat, air quality, or even environmental dangers like carbon monoxide for example.  All of a sudden, something as simple as a Webex video endpoint for the home could be used to help improve the environmental quality of a “workplace beyond the office”.  

Scaling digitally by leveraging the tech we already have

“We need to scale digitally. Technology needs to be distributable and singularly scalable across multiple platforms, devices and locations, including  the physical environment and “lean out” operational processes. We should be looking at how we architect this so we can leverage the technology we already have, and scale more on the “back end” rather than the front end, as an iPhone does for example.”

John concludes that you should “think of your office as one big device that connects people. Just because people are not there doesn’t mean they can’t be connected.”

With remote working now the norm for many workers in Australia, employers are facing the challenge of how to encourage their employees to return to the office space that they still own or lease. But when everyone has a desk at home, how do you convince people to make the commute?

While there’s much talk about ‘enticing’ people back to the office with incentives and perks, many of these short-term solutions fail to acknowledge that both the way we work and the role of the office have fundamentally changed. A new value proposition for office working is required, one that involves a rethink of the modern workplace and the future of work, complete with increased virtualisation for hybrid workforces.

Many experts in workplace design are calling this The Era of the Destination Workplace. In this article, we’ll explore what this means and how you can start creating a destination workplace today.

What is a destination workplace?

Now that coming into the office is no longer compulsory, most traditional offices hold very little appeal for many employees. If you want to entice your people back to the office, a Destination Workplace is what you’ll need.   

The Destination Workplace is a place where employees actually want to be. It’s not simply desks in an office that people are required to be at from 9 to 5, a few days a week. They’re work environments that use concepts of placemaking, that is, paying attention to physical, cultural and social needs to add genuine value to your teams’ lives while enabling their work product. And the widespread adoption of flexible and hybrid working practices has driven a steep incline in popularity.

“We need to reconstruct a workplace to be really valuable to people – to provide functionality that enables us to work in the way we want,” said Cassandra Kirk, Head of Design and Strategy at Axiom Workplaces.

This now also means creating workplaces that offer what cannot be experienced at home – such as spaces that are great for innovation, collaboration, socialisation, and events.

“We’re now coming to the office to do things that are only relevant to being in the office. If we can do an activity at home, then we can choose to do so,” said Cassandra.

By creating a destination workplace that complements the advantages of remote work with the unique benefits of office work, you’ll draw your workforce back to the workplace – not necessarily full-time, but in a regular, purposeful and productive way.

So how do you do this?

4 steps to create a destination workplace:

1. Reallocate spaces

Now that we no longer need large spaces to provide everyone with a desk, business owners can use their square meterage more creatively – or even downsize to save money.

“There’s an opportunity for employers to add varied workspaces that they always wanted. Now they’re no longer limited by their space or financial means and have more flexibility, many can achieve this dream,” said Cassandra.

So if you’ve always wanted a tailored event space with a full kitchen for catering, or break-out collaboration spaces with soft chairs and whiteboards, or even a library for quiet work or inspiration … Now’s the perfect time! 

2. Create more engaging spaces

Placemaking has long been associated with creating a sense of community, and new workplace design trends are being heavily influenced by this, according to Peter Black, one of Axiom’s Workplace Strategy Consultants.

“Towns generally have a heart area – a hive of activity – and then quieter spaces that radiate out from that,” explained Peter. “They’re centred around a particular attraction, such as fine food.”

In destination workplaces, this may look like a social centre that has a cafe vibe, or an innovation hub with the best interactive whiteboards and relaxed, comfortable seating.

“It’s not only about functionality,” added Cassandra. “It’s also about creating a wow experience – a magnetic appeal that draws people in.”

The benefits are not just for employees. As people talk about their workplaces and find them enjoyable places to be, this creates an energy that is associated with your business and can attract new talent, benefit your brand and encourage potential leavers to stay. 

3. Create more inclusive workplaces

No two employees are the same, but our work environments have typically not catered well for these differences – whether related to geography, working style, caring responsibilities, disability, or illness. However, when you give your workers more choice in where, when, and how they work, you create a more inclusive workplace.

“The ability to structure your day – to work in the way you want – is great. It’s inclusive and opens up roles to more people,” said Peter. “But it does mean that placemaking is a really important part of the office in order to create a purposeful space that people want to be in.”

This is where destination workplaces come in – as a complement to remote work, offering its own unique benefits. By creating an office that people want to be in and that enables different types of productivity, you actually provide your employees (and potential employees) with more options to choose work conditions that suit their daily needs.

So whether it’s dedicated rooms for team collaboration, sound-proofed phone booths for video calls, or breakout spaces for those needing 10 minutes to clear their heads, ensure that your destination workplace can inspire and expand the ways people can work, rather than limiting them.

4. Don’t forget virtualisation

Lastly, don’t forget to cater for the increased virtualisation we’re seeing in work. Even if employees are coming into the office, they will likely still have colleagues who are working remotely. So ensuring that your new destination workplace caters to this with increased spaces for video calls, screens and speakers in all meeting rooms, is critical.

If you’d like to learn more about the new role of the office in the future of work, read the Future of Work: A Progressive Leaders Guide To Staying Ahead.

Axis Communications is an integrated technology solution provider that manufactures network cameras for the physical security and video surveillance industries. They offer solutions based on sight, sound and analytics to improve security and optimise business performance for their customers.

Before Axiom…

Axis is in the process of shifting their brand from being a security hardware provider to a company that provides integrated technology solutions. With a 10-year lease in their large space, Axis was ready to transform their workplace to align with their new vision and direction.

The brief was a high-energy workplace that seamlessly connected staff inside and outside the local office with collaboration spaces and best-in-class communications technology. All of this was to happen within an expansive, yet personalised, experiential environment. 

The business had a unique opportunity to create an Experience Centre, a multi-purpose space that showcases leading-edge technology to clients as an experiential journey. The brief was to use design to finely balance seemingly opposing constructs of cutting-edge technology with a welcoming, friendly feel.

After Axiom…

With the journey as the central design concept, we designed the Axis Experience Centre as a sequence of client experiences that visually guided clients. 

The experience begins with the arrival – an energetic welcome, with a dramatic and tech-inspired back-lit foyer. As the explorer proceeds throughout, they find the showcased technology embedded in softened colours, textures, and environmental graphics. The Experience Centre enjoys natural light and the space features a prominent social gathering area, instilling an immediate connection with both people and the outside environment. 

“The Axis team wanted its front-of-house showcase to be experienced as a journey – one that finely balanced the seemingly opposing constructs of cutting edge technology with a welcoming, friendly feel”. – Annelie Xenofontos, Senior Associate Strategy

Based on the concept of The Golden Mile, we deployed a range of integrated design techniques to guide the journey including colour-blocking to highlight different aspects of the narrative, backlighting for visual effect, angled linear lighting for dramatic effect, reflective finishes and textural play for interest and energy, as well as 3d wayfinding.

An equally inspiring journey has been created for staff. The team space features a large break-out space that capitalises on the view (with the hallowed MCG to the left and Port Phillip Bay to the right) and offers ample amenities while featuring varied work points, focus spaces and collaboration spaces. 

“Meanwhile, back-of-house was endowed with diverse yet well-connected work points, multiple collaboration areas as well as access to the view and all amenities”. – Annelie Xenofontos, Senior Associate Strategy

This was a job of balance and connection, bringing function and design together into a seamless journey for both clients and staff. 

At a glance

• Two spaces, distinct, yet connected, technologically enabled, yet welcoming
• Simple Scandi-style design, consistent and complementary to their headquarters in Lund, Sweden
• Longevity and low maintenance in both design and materials
• Used sustainable products and materials to complement their  6-star green building and a 5-star NABERS rating

Ready for Axiom to work their workplace strategy and design magic on your current or new office space? Book a free virtual consultation today to see what we can do for you.

Axiom Workplaces combines your commercial fitout and workplace design goals with our experience and expertise in evidence-based office design to create a thriving workplace for you and your workforce.

As people begin returning and spending more time in the office, employers have to make sure that the physical workspace keeps everyone engaged and productive. They not only need to create a company culture that is safe and supportive, but one that also aligns with the company’s purpose and values. 

In this blog post, we look at how you can design a workplace that effectively communicates your values to your team, clients and customers, and why this is important.

How your workplace design can communicate company values

Company values are more important than ever—they set the tone for how employees communicate with their clients and each other and more—but if they’re not communicated well, businesses won’t be able to realise the benefits they bring.

The office is not just a physical space to do work. It’s not just an area with walls, desks, rooms and windows. An office is a place where people can collaborate, socialise and share ideas, views and aspirations. And the actual design of your workplace can have a significant impact in creating a supportive, engaging and productive culture. 

Workplace design creates an environment that supports your brand and tells your story. Each design element can communicate to employees, clients and customers the core values that represent who you are as a company. 

Here are some steps to make your workplace design reflect company values.

1. Define your company values

The workplace design process doesn’t start with choosing the right colours, lighting or layout. It begins with defining and establishing your core values. This is an opportunity for your business to refocus on your mission as a company, determine your ‘why’, and review the values and principles that are essential for both management and staff.

This is a critical step in the process – and should not be skipped. It builds the foundation that guides the way forward. So, take the time to re-examine and define your company values before you start thinking about how to translate them into the physical workplace.

2. Design the workplace to reflect your values

When you have defined and established your core company values, it’s important to communicate them across the whole business. Conduct company-wide presentations and team workshops. Email your values to each employee, and have team managers lead the way in practising those values. 

One important aspect in this step of the process is to have a look around the office and review the physical workspace. Does your office interior design reflect your company values? If not, you’ve missed an important opportunity to communicate your values internally and externally.

Let’s take a set of example values and talk about how we could create a workspace to align and promote them. 

Company values: Empowerment, Real People, Innovation and Customer-Centric.

• Create a front of house area that is prominent and purposely designed to host clients and external visitors to ensure being customer-centric is clear to all. Continue on with this theme by choosing a higher level of finish and furnishing and mood lighting, artwork to emphasise the importance of visitors. More specifically, the choice and style of furnishings also need to portray the appropriate tone and language to anyone who visits your office, e.g. timber veneers and the use of a reasonable amount of glazing reinforces trust and transparency, but also may delineate front of house from back of house, assuring your clients that their IP protected when you work for them.
• Using seamless technology connections focuses on the values of customer-centric, innovation and making the design for real people. How does this work in practice? By designing a workplace where employees can drop into unbookable spaces to accommodate a client that has arrived unannounced and needs a quick meeting. The employee can book the space at the door of the room for 30 minutes with no fuss and hassle, making the experience great for the client. Need to connect to the AV and dial in a virtual team member? No problem. It’s all done at the touch of a button and intended to accommodate and facilitate the client’s needs empowering everyone to collaborate efficiently.
• Include ‘experience centres’ to address innovation and customer-centric needs by facilitating a curated experience for people. How? Design for creative sessions, change the lighting, allow writing and sticking onto all walls, use modular furniture and a variety of settings within a room to create a sense of innovation when combined with high tech solutions in lighting and VC/AV equipment.
• Include right-sized, placed and styled collaboration, entertainment and social spaces to empower employees to host client-centric meetings and workshops that treat everyone like real people.
• Design social spaces that accommodate employee activities – keeping it real for them in how they connect their support services, reinforcing that real people connect with their real needs being met. It might be as simple as a functional kitchen layout with enough recycling bins, sufficient microwaves placed correctly and free access to the filtered water tap without having to impede the packing of the dishwasher.
• Provide choice in work settings i.e. flexibility about when you are in the office to choose the most productive work setting in order to empower and enable customer-centric responses by cutting down response time.
• Include sufficient focus and quiet spaces – this again means real people are getting their real needs met and enables high performance.

3. Consider employee habits and work preferences

Building a values-based workplace and culture would not be successful without the input and support of your employees. Engage them in the workplace design process. Ask them what works, what doesn’t, if the workspace communicates the right mood or perception, and how to best implement any changes. It’s also important to consider work habits and how teams collaborate and work together. 

Designing the best physical space where employees feel comfortable and energised, can do wonders in enhancing work performance and productivity in the long run.

4. Partner with workplace design experts

Let’s face it – creating an environment that reflects your values would require a lot of time planning, coordinating and building. Consider working with workplace strategy and design experts to help you do the job properly and efficiently. Companies like Axiom can help you strategise, design and build a physical workspace that reflects your culture, communicates your core values, and improves staff well-being and performance.  

Why company values are important

Now that we’ve seen how to make your workplace design reflect company values, it’s essential to understand why your core values matter in the first place.

Your company values matter especially in these times of uncertainty and change. They build the foundation of your company culture and serve as a guiding force for both management and employees. Here are a few reasons why company values are important:

Values keep your business unique

Core values not only create the culture within the organisation but also stay consistent with the company’s overall identity. They help communicate the brand story and build on the ‘why’ of the business – why you do what you do, why you’re different from the competition, and why the company was established in the first place.

They unite staff with a common purpose

People want to be inspired. They want to know that their work contributes to something bigger than themselves. Company values can help create that bond between individuals and teams to work together to achieve common goals and fulfil a shared mission or purpose.

They drive team performance

When employees are working together for a common purpose, they feel more engaged with their work; more energised and motivated. Team productivity and performance, therefore, significantly improve. 

Want to learn more about creating the best workplace that reflects your company values? Read our Future of Work guide and see what’s in store for employees, employers and workplaces in 2021 and beyond.

When the world was flung into a mass work-from-home experiment in 2020, American Express Global Business Travel’s employees didn’t lack the tech or training to make it work. In fact, 70 to 80 percent of the 500 strong Australian workforce already worked from home. 

We spoke with Kate Witenden, Head of Human Resources at AMEX Global Business Travel during 2020, about how their virtual-first workforce handled the crisis almost seamlessly. We also explored what shifts still need to occur and what other companies can learn from their business model and company culture. Finally, we talked about what Kate sees as the future of the office.

A snapshot of the business pre-COVID

Pre-COVID, AMEX Global Business Travel had offices in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, but around 70-80 per cent of staff were designated as ‘virtual employees’ (i.e. not attached in any permanent capacity to a physical office). These virtual employees were fully set up to work from home 100 per cent of the time. They were equipped with the technology and processes to service customers and collaborate with their colleagues remotely.

Kate said this working model was one of the things that attracted her to the business in the first place: “I was intrigued from an HR perspective. Does it actually work? And it did.”

“This is a highly collaborative global organisation that works over many time zones. So they innately built this model so that people could be set up to work from home at the hours required.”

Even those employees who did regularly work from an office were ultimately enabled to also work remotely. 

“We all had the equipment to be able to work from home already because the chances were that nine out of 10 of those people who still chose to turn up to the office had to be on calls with the UK out of normal business hours at home. The work required us to be flexible.”

The AMEX response to the crisis

In March 2020, when Australian office workers were advised to work from home by the government, the AMEX Global Business Travel team didn’t miss a beat. Kate told us there were only five (out of 500!) employees that weren’t ready.

“They were brand new recruits going through training in the office with seasoned consultants or team leaders. While we had the technology to train people remotely, it took some quick thinking from the team to get these ‘newbies’ up and running at home,” Kate explained. 

“But the reality is that’s how quick we were to be able to move with the crisis to 100 percent of employees working from home – and WFH continued throughout the entire year of 2020.”

What needed to evolve

Pre-COVID, AMEX Global Business Travel had town hall-style meetings to provide business updates from the leadership team. But during the pandemic, this level and amount of communication couldn’t keep up with the rapid changes and shifting business landscape – especially in a hard-hit industry like business travel. Instead, town halls started happening more regularly and evolved into a two-way communication channel, with employees able to ask questions of their leaders.

With many employees stood down and a lot of uncertainty, though, more needed to be done. “The leadership team created their own WhatsApp groups so they could pass on messages,” explained Kate.

“It was about adapting and using the right medium for the situation rather than a more traditional corporate channel. So, although the WhatsApp groups won’t be a permanent fixture, they disseminated information quickly and got the job done.”

Although the outlook for the business travel sector is uncertain, Kate said, “Out of horrible adversity came something quite miraculous – it permitted people to act with speed.”

“It’s going to be a long recovery, but having been through it will put the business in such an amazing standing for when lights switch back on in business travel.”

The future of the office

Kate noted that “the danger of going completely virtual is that nothing replaces that face-to-face collaboration, the feeling of energy being created.”

“I think it’s very, very difficult to sustain [100 percent virtual] unless you’ve got excellent tools and practices and discipline. That said, we had a lot of those foundations already in place in our business, which set us up for success.”

We were curious to know what Kate thought the office of the future might look like:

“The office of the future is about collaboration. The rest of the stuff, your emails and solo work, you can do that from home in peace and quiet much more productively. 

“So if you’re going to be in the office, you need to be present. You need to be available, you need to be open, and you need to be there to give something back. Turning up to bring your laptop in for the sake of sitting in the office is not what the office of the future is about.”

If you’d like to explore more about what the future holds for the office, take a look at Leading the Future of Work in Australia: Insights and Strategies. It’s our one-stop resource for all things future of work-related.

Thank you to Kate Witenden for this interview. You can connect with Kate on LinkedIn.