Space has the ability to transform a company’s culture and provide an engaging employee experience vital to success in today’s competitive market. Delivering this experience can be enhanced with a multitude of technology and data sources, all promising the answer to workplace success. However, without a reliable inventory of space and occupancy data, organizations struggle to get a handle on their workplace strategy.
“There are many exciting innovations available today to achieve a deeper level of understanding about the workplace. When we look at the evolution of these technologies, we see data dependencies in place that must be considered to maximize value,” says Gensler Space and Occupancy Co-Director Christi Van Maanen. “New opportunities for data integrations still depend on core datasets, such as space and HR data.”
Today, Integrated Workplace Management is less about a single software system and more about integrating relevant tools and datasets at the right time to support a holistic life cycle of data-informed workplace strategies. With the pace of innovative technologies emerging each day, it’s challenging to know where to start or what to fold into the workplace technology stack.
A floor plan from Gensler’s Wisp® tool depicts colorizers representing different data sources and findings. Graphic © Gensler.
“Real estate teams have a combination of missing and disorganized data,” says Gensler Workplace Sector Leader Gervais Tompkin. “Companies want data, but they’re struggling with a lack of time and resources to keep information managed.”
Space and occupancy continue to be foundational datasets for understanding inventory and measuring demand on space. Maintaining a central repository of floor plans as a sole source of truth throughout the real estate life cycle creates flexibility for layering a multitude of additional qualitative and quantitative datasets to inform and measure the effectiveness of workplace strategies. “Tie in the financial impact of these metrics and a case for change has been built,” says Gensler La Crosse Managing Director Joan Meyers in her blog post, “Using Data to Build a Case for Change.”