FRONT DESK / ANALYSIS
M E ASURING WO RKPLACE VALU E
How can data be analysed to make workers feel better? By Herpreet Kaur Grewal
C
omedian Stewart Lee has a joke about arguing with a cab driver, only to be silenced by the driver’s retort: “You can prove anthing with facts.” While the joke is more about the era of post-truth, it’s a valuable reminder that without data, we can’t prove anything. So when Steelcase consultants Anisha Patel and Cara Sugrue told the audience at Workplace Trends Research Summit that an attractive office matters to employees and, globally, 87% of people want an office to go to, they had analysed data from 12 primary studies, 11 countries and 57,000 responses to prove it.
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Equally, creating the type of attractive workplace that people want to visit, requires access to reliable and real-time data. A recent survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed that refining how the sector uses data in buildings would improve energy use and inform decision-making. Yet, more than 75% of respondents – facilities managers, service providers and consultancies – said data was not being used effectively. This has long been a complaint: we know data is important but we need to do more with it. Even as the industry gears up to acquire more data and use it more effectively, public concern
over the capture, storage and use of data, as well as data privacy regulations are ramping up.
The ‘holy grail‘
Data is already a big deal and will only grow in importance – especially if the workplace and facilities management profession wants to deliver an attractive workplace and enhanced employee experience. These desires are why Ian Ellison, co-founder of consultancy, 3edges Workplace Ltd, set out with his colleagues to develop another new framework with the aim of “assessing workplace experience holistically, with respect to people, spaces, technology and business impacts”. Ellison, also at Workplace Trends Research Summit, presented the model to the audience, and mentioned that a peer-reviewed article is soon to be published in the Corporate Real Estate Journal. The model, Ellison told Facilitate, is based on gathering data to reveal how a worker feels. “We are trying to demonstrate that the workplace especially is about more than just space.”
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