Sanjay Rishi - The Workplace You Need Now

The new spaces at Microsoft are designed to spark innovation and creativity, taking collaboration to new heights, leveraging digital capabilities to harmonize lives in and around work. No surprise, of course, that Microsoft is employing its extensive digital and cloud technologies acumen to make work and workplaces effective and easy to traverse, occupy, configure, and engage. Workplace apps will enable employees to reserve workspaces; personalize their workdays, work groups, and spaces; and seamlessly access transit and rideshare applications. Easy access to health and wellness data and amenities will afford employees time and resources for rejuvenation and recharging. Wayfinding tools will help guests and employees efficiently locate spaces and people for interactions. As the Microsoft ecosystem fuels the brain, apps will help employees fuel their bodies with easy access to food, exercise, yoga, and light-filled spaces.

Microsoft is using its own Microsoft Azure platform to manage a portion of the buildings at its headquarters campus and at locations around the world. Incorporating Azure Digital Twins technology, facility managers can digitally model physical space layers, with real-time data anonymization, to learn about the spaces people are using and how they are using them, informing data-driven space planning and allocation. The Azure platform also ensures that buildings operate efficiently to minimize energy and waste, and optimize indoor air quality.

You can’t miss the towering presence of Capital One, a global brand that is considered a leader in innovation and banking, as you drive down the Washington, DC, beltway. The landmark campus attracts employees and the community to the promise and ambition of this bank that has embraced digital capabilities to differentiate itself, redefining brand and customer intimacy.

Live-work-play is coming together seamlessly in the Capital One headquarters, encompassing an amphitheater, a biergarten, hotel rooms, a 1,600-seat corporate events and performing arts center, retail, and workspaces that all flow fluidly to enable the next waves of innovation and growth. Easy access to the Metro, ample smart parking, and a design that embraces all modes of traveling to and within the campus, including footpaths and bicycle trails, makes access to and from the buildings efficient. Once again, experience is central to the significant capital investment, and the value of a differentiated workplace is clearly embraced in Capital One’s goal of attracting and retaining top talent.

As guests arrive at Capital One’s seventh-floor sky lobby, the experience is more akin to visiting a world-class hotel or restaurant than a leading bank. Each floor is connected with interior stairs, alternating on either side of the building, to make employees on each level feel connected. Open seating areas around each staircase allow for impromptu meetings. Art and sculptures line the walls and halls are strategically placed to inspire associates and create a sense of connectedness to surrounding communities.

A world leader in technology and research, Leidos stands apart in the complex industries it serves, which include defense, intelligence, and health care. One of the largest government contractors on the planet, Leidos manages complex challenges on a daily basis as it operates across the globe – and its workplaces mirror that complexity. Few organizations anywhere in the world have facilities that manufacture the next lunar lander, precision-guided munitions, under- and over-water combat vehicles, while also operating wet labs for cancer research and other facilities that produce and distribute vaccines – including those used to combat Ebola. Add to this diverse portfolio the highly regulated government and intelligence agency facilities where Leidos employees provide expertise.

Leidos’s new headquarters opened just as the world was shutting down in 2020. The sparkling new facility in Reston, Virginia, was not vacant for long, however. Leidos’s mission-critical work brought people into the office spaces designed to promote a sense of belonging, teaming, and energy. Digital technologies deployed across the offices allow seamless, touchless, productive connectivity and navigation across the airy, bright spaces.

What makes these organizations stand out is that their workplaces reflect their distinct brands. Their real estate portfolios are designed to add value by attracting and retaining scarce talent in a time of unprecedented demographic shifts. Their workplaces transcend the simple function of a place to work.

The undeniable reality in this postpandemic world is that workplaces as we know them are on the verge of unprecedented transformation. The pandemic shattered long-accepted individual, business, and societal norms, and unleashed uncertainty at an unforeseen pace and magnitude. Demographic shifts, health and safety, and digital disruption are among the drivers of these accelerating trends.

These three organizations are by no means exceptions of foresight, and the following pages unravel many such stories of innovation and differentiation. Enterprises large and small, public and private, are grappling today with challenges, as well as opportunities, shaping their pursuits of success. Industry sectors and communities are assessing cyclical versus structural shifts as the post-COVID-19 world takes shape. Corporate C-suites are adapting to new realities and uncertainties.

These trends have been clearly evident over the last few years. Never before in history, however, has the topic of workplace been top-of-mind for the C-suites and leaders of organizations. Likewise, never before have individuals challenged the nature of work.

The pandemic shall pass, as pandemics always do, but the learnings and experiences of a year-long world of virtual work will remain. The monumental change that organizations and their workforces had to endure also surfaced a number of questions that companies must now grapple with.

What are workplaces of tomorrow going to look like? Is a virtual work environment truly conducive to productivity, innovation, culture, and collaboration over the long term? How will organizations attract and retain talent in the future, and drive performance and culture for their people? How will work evolve? How must capital be deployed to harness the promise of tomorrow? What is the right balance of work from home and work from work? And, most important, how can we optimize our work, workforce, and workplace?

From a workforce perspective, personal desires, preferences, needs, and wants dominate employee desire to contribute to success today. Workers are asking themselves, “Where should I live? Where should I work? How do I work? When do I commute and how do I collaborate?” With the untethering of work from an official workspace, the individual is exercising the “I” at work.

The good news is that the next few years hold the very real promise of being judged by history as the inflection point of innovation and growth. Now is the launching point for a new approach to work, workforce, and workplace.

Harnessing today’s and tomorrow’s digital capabilities will unleash the creativity and ability of individuals and workgroups to tailor the way ideas proliferate and responsibilities are executed. The very real drive toward a better world is becoming manifest through multiple dimensions influencing workplace strategies. Sustainability and social responsibility deliver economic benefits, while also addressing the more altruistic goals of a healthier planet.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of the workplace of today and its various influences. It provides a window into the probable and a glimpse into the possible. A personalized, responsible, experiential workplace emerges (see Figure I.1).