How can we create an office that truly moves people? At JLL, we asked ourselves this question in 2014, when lease expiration was looming on our headquarters. We opted to stay in Chicago’s iconic Aon Center with a catch: We needed to completely overhaul the office in order to create a workplace that was truly fit for the future.
Today, as I walk through the now completely revitalized 200,000-square-foot, six-floor renovation, I believe we have found our answer. To inspire humans to do great work, we need to ensure that the places where we gather, think and do, are blended in a way that directly supports the human experience and not the other way around. Too often in corporate real estate, the focus has been on how to fit people into a workplace. In this remodel, we turned that on its head, ensuring the place would fit our people, driving their quality of life, well-being and a sense of community.
Why focus on the human experience? The office opened its new doors recently, but already, we have strong anecdotal evidence that people are more likely to go the extra mile, to take pride in their work and feel like their personal success aligns with ours. That in turn feeds productivity, collective responsibility and ultimately improved client service.
The notion of designing around human experience is garnering lots of interest outside our own office too. In a recent global research project on human experience, part of JLL’s recently launched Future of Work outlook, we surveyed more than 7,000 corporate employees from across 12 countries and found that overwhelmingly, workplaces focused on human happiness and experience are the most engaging and effective.
So, how did we get where we are today?