Why you need to make office time meaningful - Allison English Deputy CEO Leesman

As many organisations try to figure out how and when to use their office space, we thought it would be great to hear from the experts!
 
Sam and Vic are delighted to be joined by Allison English, Deputy CEO at Leesman, to talk about the Leesman Index and super relevant work Leesman are doing to measure and analyse employees workplace experience.

This podcast is very timely as on the 21st March 2023 Leesman are about to announce fresh new insights from more than a million respondents, and we are lucky that Allison is able to give us a sneak peek.

Here is the link to the upcoming webinar we mention, and all of their research is available here on their website.

Book Recommendation

Allison's book recommendation is the brilliant book, The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/

Transcript

Sam 0:09

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, bringing you stories to help leaders in the tech industry execute at speed through the power of working together. I'm at home, as usual, in slightly drizzly, gloomy Buckinghamshire. Vicki's over in Deepest, Darkest, and presumably also drizzly and gloomy Oxfordshire. So, Vicki, who have we got on the podcast today?

Vic 0:31

Thank you for that, Sam. Yes, I am, and it is drizzly and gloomy over here in Oxfordshire. Today we have a guest, Alison English, and Alison is from Leisman, and she is going to share with us the very, very critical work that they are doing at the moment, looking at employee experience as it relates to the workplace. And as we know that organizations are really struggling to get their people back into the office. And from our perspective, that is having a real knock-on effect on collaboration and teams, and not necessarily teams and how individual teams are working together, but how that cross-collaboration is working. And we're seeing silos forming even more so because that collaboration isn't there because people aren't meeting in the office as they were. So it's a real honor and pleasure to have you on the podcast today, Alison. Thank you very much for making the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Thanks. Thanks to you, Vicky and Sam, for having me. I am delighted to be here.

Sam 1:41

You're most welcome. Perhaps, Alison, if you wouldn't mind, giving us a bit of your bit of your background, a potted career history, if you will.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Absolutely. So I started out in the US, that's where my accent is from, as you may have guessed. And actually a completely different field. So looking at uh printing and packaging and kind of lots of different things, the nuances and science that comes along with that. I was there for a number of years, moving around in different roles. I was working actually as an ERP implementation lead, which then brought me to Asia to doing a tech project and then relocated there, lived in Hong Kong and Singapore for a few years, doing again different things with clients, some on the tech side, some on the packaging graphics side. But then I came to London about six years ago and found Leasman five years ago. So that's been a completely different change. I went from working with lots of different cultures, lots of different organizations, with a number of different clients. And so having kind of an outsider perspective and view on how those things come together to then working for Leasman and what we do is measure employee experience in the workplace. So then I started to understand how we can actually quantify a lot of what I was seeing and experiencing from my roles before in that very different world. So again, I've been with Leasman for the last five years. I started here as client services director, uh, moved into a deputy CEO role about three years ago, um, right as COVID was was coming to us, actually. So um it's been quite interesting. And I can uh yeah. Yeah, I'll talk more about our data in a bit.

Sam 3:13

Yeah, yeah, no, great. So yeah, it'd be great to hear more about the the leasman in index. And I guess, you know, you mentioned COVID. Um you know it seems that this is particularly relevant in the COVID context.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Absolutely. Um, so so Leesman was started in 2010, and um the founder's vision was, you know, trying to trying to quantify and understand how workplaces impact employees. So what is their experience? And then how can you really measure and benchmark that so you can help organizations create better places for their employees to work? And I think before COVID, particularly, when we thought about workplaces, we thought about a corporate office for most employees. That's where they were. Um, three of us are dialing in from our home today, and COVID has has changed a lot of that for uh for employees. And so what we did differently in COVID, you know, we we had this benchmark with hundreds of thousands of employee responses for an office setting and what's happening in the office world. But in COVID, when everybody was working home, um, there was a shift, and organizations wanted to know what's happening in the home environment. Um, and of course, we wanted to know too, because we help organizations by giving them their data. But again, we're benchmarking that back to a global database and then doing research on that database. So we publish insights um to the broader community. Everything is available freely on our website. Um, so everyone can.

Sam 4:36

So you sit in aggregate as well as in one particular interest.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly what we do. And then we've got a team of PhDs who dive into that data to understand kind of what what are the trends, what are we seeing, and how have things changed. So COVID really caused us to look also at the home environment and using the same methodology as as the office survey, we created the survey to understand what's the employee experience like working from home. And now we've got two powerful data sets. The home data set has over 400,000 responses, um, our office data set has 1.1 million responses. So we can compare those two and see what's the home environment doing better or worse, and how how are employees being supported in offices and how do those the two things really meet?

Sam 5:20

I think that makes sense. I think that you know the point about cross-collaboration between teams is a really interesting one. I have, I'm sure Vicky, you'll talk talk about this later, but that that actually hadn't occurred to me. I think within your own team, you probably make a real effort to keep the communication levels up. But what you don't get is the the random conversations with your peers or your opposite number in a in a different team while you're both making a cup of coffee or a slice of toast or something like that. I guess that is is that what's missing, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 5:54

That's definitely one of the things that we've seen in the data. I mean, if you think about a manager's role, their role generally is to look down, right? They're looking, if you think of them on an org chart, they're responsible for what's below them. So they're going to try to do teen thing um uh things to foster conversations and collaboration within their team. But yeah, it's it's that looking left and right piece that can certainly be missing. Um, informal social interaction is one of the things that we ask employees about in our survey. Um and what we've seen since COVID is um that's a workplace activity that's increased in importance because interesting. I think it was something that was taken for granted. It wasn't necessarily something employee, if you're in the office every day, yeah, is that is that important to you? Maybe, maybe for some employees, maybe not for all. But I think as soon as people didn't have it, um, they realized they actually wanted it. So it's it's it, yeah, whether or not it's supported or not an organization um varies by organization, but we've definitely seen overall an increase in importance in that.

Sam 6:51

So Vic, why is this such an important topic for for you and for Amplified Group?

Vic 6:56

I think I've kind of said this already, but it really is what we what you just hit on there, which is the it's that cross-team collaboration. And as what I think I just heard you say then was that it's it's now not being taken for granted and it is being seen as critically important. I'm not sure yet that organizations have really worked out how to make it effective, but I'm really keen to know what questions aren't we asking you? What do you know that you think our our audience would be really interested to hear?

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Yeah, Vicky, you're you're absolutely right. I think um one of the things this has caused everybody to pause and take a look and try and assess, okay, why do we have an office? Before it was just a given, everybody had an office because that's where you went to do work. Um and work now is not necessarily a place that you go. People recognize it as something that you do. And there are different environments that can support employees. One of the things we've actually seen in the data is we ask about collaboration and how well that's supported. And the home environment actually supports collaboration pretty well and things like planned meetings. Um, because when everybody was at home, you you could we use Zoom, so you can look on, see who's got a little green dot next to them, who's available, I can call them, or you can schedule meetings if you can see calendar availability. So when everybody was kind of confined to their homes, it was quite easy to plan for for that type of collaboration. But then what you miss is exactly what you said, the spontaneous stuff. So you're not running into people and you're not, you know, unless you hit a button and call them, um, you're not having that, again, that informal social interaction or interaction, some of those discussions, you're not overhearing things that other teams are working on that might impact what you're doing. Um, so so there's there's some sort of balance that's different for different people, for different organizations. Um, and one of the things our clients are having um challenges with is figuring out a program um that that can foster that within the organization. So some of you seen it's been in the headlines, they've been mandating. Okay, everybody's going back to the office. But many organizations, after making that that claim, have have kind of stepped back from that. Or when you peel back the layers of the union and talk to other leadership members, they're saying, well, that's what we want to do in theory, but we're being a little bit flexible and we're leaving it kind of with some of the managers. Um, because I think they've realized that that the um the some of the challenges just logistically with with trying to do that.

Sam 9:37

People don't want to be back in in the office full time. People that I talk to. You know, clearly there are some jobs where you need to be physically there, you know, nursing, doctors, whatever. Well, doctors less so, it's gonna go all go remote, isn't it? But um you know, there's plenty of jobs where you physically have to be there, but you know, talking to the you know, people that I still keep in touch with from SoftCat, it's yeah, it's a it seems to be a very flexible regime these days, very much encouragement about coming to the office when it's appropriate, rather than mandated to be in the office. Um yeah, SoftCat's always had the most wonderful, magnificent, fun offices to be in, and it's never never been a chore to be in there. But people have kids and lives and stuff around work, and that's a really important thing to take into account these days, I think, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Yeah, the blurring of lines between work and life, right? You know, people there there's been a lot of talk about work-life balance, but then there's where the two blend together and they overlap so much. And a lot of what people thought they couldn't do, um, you know, some employees didn't have laptops before uh COVID happened. And there was again, they thought, well, our our organization, we are office-based, this is our culture. But then when employees prove that they could work from home, it's a bit of a struggle to say, yeah, but now we want you back all the time. Yeah.

Vic 11:08

Yeah, that mandate is not being well received, I don't think, at all. But yeah, we need people in the office some of the time, but they need to be encouraged into the office, don't they? And yeah, and and see a benefit for being there. Not, you know, um, I know somebody who said, I'm being told I need to go into the office on on a Wednesday, and I go into the office and I'm on back-to-back Zooms all day. So I'm not getting any interaction. I mean, that is it's a point, pointless presenteism.

Sam 11:40

Yeah, you you know, you actually don't want to go into the office to do meetings, you want to go into the office to have accidental meetings.

Vic 11:50

All face-to-face meetings, because I do think the energy is different. I mean, even at the Amplify group, our small team, we get together, we get together in person. We we have now decided this year that we're going to do it more regularly because magic happens when we do. So I do think I do think it's important to do that. But it's it's the actually, what is the reason for people to use their office space? So I, you know, Scott Heron, the CFO of Cisco, who we've had on the podcast, he was on Yahoo Finance, I think he was on uh recently, and he was they they were talking about the office and how Cisco are using their office now. He says, You don't use an office to come in and sit at your desk and do work, you come in to collaborate. And it and and I know Alison, you've got some more insights in how offices and how office space is being used that I really like to get into, but I do think it's it's a change, but just mandating, you have to be in the office without a person. I agree with that.

Sam 12:54

That's really interesting actually, because you know, that does mean that our offices need to be shaped differently. You know, because if if you you don't want cubicle, cube cubicle, cubicle farms or rows and rows of desks. I mean, you know, in in in my soft gap days, I would typically set up camp in the breakout area and spend the day, you know, meet people would come in and come out, and I'd meet vendors, uh, you know, distributors, services partners, internal people, whatever, and often not see my desk from nine o'clock till six o'clock. And actually, that's quite a healthy way of doing things, isn't it? It certainly, you know, it worked for me. If it was something, you know, something confidential, of course I'd do it in a meeting room somewhere. But for general catch-ups and strategizing and thinking about the way the world should look, I felt it was more productive to do that over a coffee in a casual seating environment. How much does the environment drive the way in which we behave, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Oh, Sam, hugely. And everything you just said is is what, you know, we're finding that that it's about connection with people, right? So that that kind of environment you described would probably be challenging to work in five days a week because you don't want to connect eight hours a day, five days a week. But if you're only going into the office for a couple of days and that enables you to to have those touch points with various colleagues, some that you might have planned to have seen there, some that you didn't begin. So it kind of gives that to you and it gives you that option. Um, but absolutely the the way that space is utilized and the way that it's designed, it it absolutely drives how the space is used, as will the culture of the organization. Um, so we're talking to a lot of clients who are really rethinking that because you know our our kind of call to action and our challenge has been for corporate real estate leaders around the world, define why you have a workplace before. You didn't need to justify it in the past. It was because that's where people went to work, but now outside of mandates. So what is it that's going to bring people um to bring people back in? Um, and and Vicky, to your point, you know, getting even even small businesses and small teams together and having those moments that matter. Um, you know, manufacturing that and saying, okay, everyone gets free lunch on Thursday is probably not gonna get some people. If you if you've got a day of back-to-back Zoom meetings, you're probably not gonna leave your house, commute to the office, sit there on seven hours of Zoom just to get a free lunch. So it's something more than that. Yeah.

Vic 15:26

But then we've I've also heard examples of where people have gone, I'm gonna go into the office, but when I get there, there's nobody else there. So there's no point me being there. And I'm like, well, are you not coordinating with your teammates that they're gonna be in at the same time?

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Yeah, technology can absolutely help with that. I mean, we've got a very simple system. Um, and if you're gonna be in the office and you book in and you can see who's planning to be in there, are they planning to use a desk? Are they planning to just be kind of agile? We're in we've got an office within a co-working space, so we can use a common area on our floor, the common area on the ground floor or the basement. So we've got kind of people floating throughout when you go in. But it's nice for those kind of random, random moments that you were mentioning. You're you can kind of almost always run into people, but you can check before and see who's planning to be in. So again, that's a that is the most rudimentary system, but there are ways that technology can support uh and enable that.

Sam 16:16

One one thing that strikes me is and it's gonna depend on a particular organization and their particular workforce demographics and so on. But one of the reasons that I made such an effort to be in the office as much as possible in my soft cat days was because we had a lot of younglings, a lot of graduates, who yes, there was a formal training program that they went through and they had you know classroom-based stuff and coaching and mentoring and you know, technology training and sales training and you know, all business training and all of that kind of stuff. But what was really valuable valuable was sort of question and answer stuff, you know, appearing at my desk and saying, Sam, can I get your advice on this? Can I help you with that? And being as a senior member of the organization as I was then, being open and available as a sort of a you know a representative of the organization, yes, to educate people when they needed and wanted it, but also that so that people knew that there weren't barriers between you and the you know the top brass, as the phrase goes. Um I don't I don't see how you handle that without people being physically around and in the office. You know, I know Martin, who was CEO at the time, and Colin, who was MD, you know, they would make a point of going having breakfast and they might sit with somebody from sales, they might sit with somebody from purchasing. It didn't matter, you know, who the communal table, bowl of cereal, slice of toast, and just chat. That stuff's mega important, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:53

It is, and that's the kind of stuff that you you can't uh easily, I'll say, um, if you can do it at all, manufacture that when everybody's sitting at home. There, it's the it's the intangible stuff that you can't quantify that helps young people in their career. It it's probably someone would probably be hard pressed to say, oh, there was a pivotal moment because I came in on a Wednesday when I wasn't supposed to be in and ran into this person. But it's the as you start building up um those those kind of interactions, then it's gonna it, that's what can lead to great things, right? And I think one one thing you've pointed out is it's it's not just reliant on um the younger or newer employees to come to the office. If they want to learn from others, and that's one of the things we also ask about the survey, understanding the importance and support of learning from others. But if they want to learn from others, then the others have to be there too. So the people that they um and one of the things that we saw over COVID in our in the homeworking data and the homeworking survey, you know, we we ask, where are you working from home? Like what's your homework setting? Are you um I was living in central London when COVID happened. So my husband and I were sharing uh the dining room table, and our six-month-old was around. So that wasn't the best work experience. Um, but I've since moved, you know, we moved out of London because of lockdown was such a challenge. Um and you know, we've got more space, and now we each have our own office. So again, our our work environment is completely different. So people who have their own office, who have their own workspace, um, have a better experience at home than someone who's sitting at a dining room table, or maybe you know, you've got four or five flatmates who are also working from home.

Sam 19:28

Well, absolutely, you know, I think that, you know, with the the the younglings, as I call them, that's exactly the problem. You know, in a house chair or a flat share, yeah. If you've got five, five or six people working from home in a relatively small building, it's it's got to be a nightmare. Noise, you know, people wanting to get some lunch when you're trying to work on the kitchen table, you know, not not enough broadband for everybody. You know, that must have been mad, really challenging.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Absolutely. And if and for anyone still living, you know, if you're still young and sharing in those circumstances, then um the office might be more appealing to you. But then again, absolutely. Jickie, to your point, if you go in and there's no one else around, then it's you're not gonna have the same experience. Um your colleagues were around and it was kind of a buzzing place, and you're having, you know, you're getting your work done, but you're also able to have some of those informal chats and the that informal learning.

Vic 20:22

So yeah, and fun, I think.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Absolutely.

Vic 20:26

Yeah, absolutely, fun. Yeah, because um, so in your research, do you see, do you look at the demographics from an age perspective?

SPEAKER_03 20:37

We do, we look at age bands. Um yeah, so yeah, so we we've done a little bit to go ahead.

Vic 20:42

No, I was just gonna say because it's it's just been interesting thinking about the younger generation and how you know Sam was talking about, you know, our our peers, we've got family, our priorities are slightly different. If I think myself in my early 30s, I wanted that buzz at the office and the going out afterwards and and all of the social interaction. So do do you see that?

Sam 21:07

Whereas nowadays you can't think of anything worse. No, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

It's true. It's true. I was talking to a colleague, um, or excuse me, a client uh a couple of weeks ago. Um, and she pointed out, you know, they're they basically have a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday kind of mandate, but Friday ends up being their most popular day in the office um because the average age in a particular office is around 24 and everyone wants to go out afterwards.

Vic 21:31

Friday night. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

So they're so they're going into the office to work that day so they can um go out after makes lots of sense. Yeah, the sense of but then they're feeling a little bit, hey, wait, why are you doing a three-day mandate of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday when we're all choosing to come in on a Friday, right? So you wouldn't there's some friction points because they're saying, well, you have a three-day mandate, but we're actually choosing to come in four. So how how can you kind of balance that? Because a lot of a lot of employers have the other challenge, you know, Friday's Friday's at ghost town. Well, yeah, I guess it depends on it.

Vic 22:00

The location are they located in London by any chance? Yeah, see that makes a difference, doesn't it, as well? Because you know, commuting over to Reading, for example, on a Friday.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Absolutely.

Vic 22:11

And that traffic isn't fun. Part of what I picked up in doing some research for this um podcast was about whether people have the free will to choose to go into the office and they're being enticed in versus being mandated to go in. Can you give us any more insights around that?

SPEAKER_03 22:33

It's not something we specifically ask about. We we ask about that a bit in our well-being module with some extra questions being afterwards. Um, I think that I can speak kind of anecdotally from uh from clients. I the the issue, one of the challenges with mandates is that uh, you know, as humans, we all want free will and control. You know, I've got a three and a half year old and he doesn't like me to mandate anything. So you have to gamify things and you have to figure out how to get just wait to wait till they're a teenager. Yeah, I I hear it only gets more fun. Not the same fun Vicky was talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Um but no one wants to be told what to do, right? Because it it it immediately there's a sense of again friction and kind of conflict there. So employee mandates by nature um start to kind of make people bristle and they go, Well, just that company. Well, I don't want to go in maybe on Wednesdays because I'm gonna come in on Friday anyway. And doesn't that take the box for three days? So you start having kind of some of these really, really basic conflicts that are it's a distraction. It's a distraction from managers who need to manage, leaders who need to lead, and employees who need to do their roles. So all of that it ends up, it ends up, I think, becoming a bit of a friction point. Um, and then organizations struggle because if people do it are and they're just complying to kind of take the box, how long are they going to do that? You know, you risk disfranchising them. Um and then and there's there's been lots of publication um about the the four-day week and how a lot of the companies who trialed that are continuing to do that in the UK. Um, so I think that the grass is always greener, but when you can see kind of stark differences like that, going, hey, wait, I could try and work for a company during four days, um, or you know, my company's making me do this, you know, they I think they there's there's going to be a sense um of more people leaving. And they talked about the great resignation a lot um during COVID. Um, but I think employees do feel even even in an economy where we've seen lots of um of layoffs over the last few months, particularly in tech, um, I think employees still feel a level of empowerment and um and and kind of more more choice than than they had previously.

Sam 24:44

I can totally see why you might choose to be employed by a company that didn't mandate that you came into the office. You know, working environment does make a difference.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Lots of visual cues um for employees or prospective employees or for clients or for anybody in that space about kind of how the organization feels about them, really.

Sam 25:06

Yeah. I I've I've got a friend who who works full-time hours, but she does it in four days. And she's kind of a bit bored with where she is at the minute, I think, and she, you know, she's looking for a change, but that yeah, there's a level of salary that she needs to come on, but also that flexibility is mega, mega important to her because she's got a you know, a young kid, um, and she you know, being around, being in his life is just the most important thing for her. And that that one day a week give gives her the flexibility to do that, you know, particularly half terms and so on. So um it's really it's it's interesting how that stuff is maybe becoming as important as salary and package and so on.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

I think for a lot of employees it is, and you know, the the younger, younger generations are also looking at they're looking at those things as opportunity to grow, but also then, you know, the net zero and sustainability and those types of things. So I think as um as as different generations come on, they have different priorities, they have different expectations. So um, you know, it's not that's not something we look at necessarily in the survey, but um employers need to understand what are those different touch points, what are different people looking for? Um, and then and then how do you cater to protect and retain that talent?

Vic 26:25

You have done some new research, haven't you? So what what can you what can you share with us?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Um I I can share, I can share that we're releasing all of the research. Um so yeah, we we're gonna share all of the data on the 21st of March. We've got a webinar series, so we'll have three webinars that day where we're we're sharing what those insights are. Um one one little tidbit I can share is we one of the exercises we've been doing is pulling um a set of corporate real estate leaders from around the world. Um so since in the last 18 months, we've we've asked them a few different series of questions. Um, and one of those has asked them about you know where they are with their decision making in the future and where employees will be working. Um we've asked the same question now three times. So we've been able to see kind of how that data, how that data has changed. There are a couple of interesting, I think, facts from from the response. If we look back to um how employees respond, or excuse me, how the um the corporate real estate leaders responded in um 2021, at the beginning of 2021, 9% of them says employees will be predominantly office-based, which to me seems pretty high. Um, but now that's that's dropped to 4%. Um so at the end of last year, it's it's uh yeah, less than half are now thinking that employees are going to be office-based. So we've seen, again, we've seen some of the rhetoric, I think, as as um homeworking and hybrid working has continued, um, despite the fact that um, you know, for the most part, the the fears around the pandemic have have calmed substantially. We've gone back to some sort of quote unquote normal. So too then have more employers been accepting um that the future for most organizations is hybrid. It's hybrid. Yeah, and how they how they do that again, some of the mandates and versus kind of enticing people in, or, or as you said, Sam at SoftCat, just having an awesome workplace that people want to be in. I mean, that's that's the gold standard, right? That's that's your ideal.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

Yeah. It's a choice and people make it willingly because they the senior leaders want to be in there mentoring younger people because they have you know awesome engagement with them, and and that they see that as the future of their business. And then the young people want to come in because they have access to those people, right? So it creates this beautiful pull into the office.

Sam 28:43

And because there's free bit free beer for breakfast. Well, there actually isn't there actually. There is not free beer for breakfast. There's free free breakfast, but it doesn't involve beer.

Vic 28:52

So what you just said, if I just um make sure that I understood it correctly, is that the real estate leaders had expected that people would be back in the office full-time, and now they're starting to accept that actually hybrid is more likely going to be the way to go.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Is that more of them had planned for people to be primarily office-based, whereas that that number has dropped and and more organizations are looking at at um at a future that looks more hybrid.

Vic 29:21

Yeah, yeah. Um, we're also um talking to organizations that are now completely homeworking. So they they've been set up to only be remote, and actually they use partners' offices or uh a rented space for a day to bring people together. Have you have you got any insights into any of that? Sorry, I know I've just put you on the spot there.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

No, gosh, don't bother it. No, we've we've um we've talked to a couple of um of prospective clients who are running their business the same way. They basically said, look, talent, talent is everywhere. Um depending on the nature of people's roles, um, if you don't have a particularly collaborative role, and and depending on, and some people don't don't want to go into the office to collaborate anyway, um, there are there are lots of companies and lots of um of roles that are people can be fine doing those remotely. So we talked to one potential client who was saying, yeah, we just if we have an office space, it's gonna be for people to come in and do uh meetings or events and stuff, but but it's not it's not gonna be something, a place where people go to do kind of quote unquote work. Um so we are seeing that. We're seeing it a lot of our clients um, you know, when we when we run our survey, a lot of what um we're generally historically we've tied people back to buildings. So we've said, okay, how do we how does this building performance compare to this building performance? You know, we can cut the data demographics, but but the um the scoring system is is looking at buildings and more clients we're talking to um do have remote employees. So we can survey them and understand their home experience, but they don't have you know a corporate office to to see more of that, um, which which to the point we talked about earlier with kind of inclusivity, it it that that enables people kind of getting back to the workforce. So so Sam, what you were saying with your um your friend who who only wants to do you know four days a week and she's got some kind of specific requirements for work, um remote only jobs or organizations that are willing to look look wider than just who can come to my office, it's got a bigger talent pool, right? Yes, yeah.

Sam 31:32

Yeah. It seems to me the you know, the more flexibility you offer or the more options that you provide, the more compelling your proposition as an employer is.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

I think you're right. I think I think some of the barriers to employers doing that, though, is they also see, oh, it's it it's harder to manage, it's more challenging. It is. It's a lot easier to say, nope, everybody's in the office five days a week. It's back to how we were, and I don't have to worry about the other stuff. So it's definitely, you know, it's it's it's it's much easier for me to tell my toddler, okay, get your shoes on. But then he doesn't. So then we have to be creative about how you do it. And it takes extra energy, but if you're if you're, I guess, are you worried about um the outcome or or are you fixated on kind of on some things?

Vic 32:18

Well, it's the carrot versus the stick or or so in terms of the carrot, are you also seeing organizations reconfigure their office space?

SPEAKER_03 32:31

Definitely. Yes, a lot, you know, I think prior to COVID, a lot of organizations would do some sort of office refurbishment when things started looking a little bit dingy, and then they say, okay, we've done it, it's good for five or 10 years, we'll revisit this office space when it starts to look a little bit dingy again, right? Um, but more clients uh than than I could count have been saying, you know what we've started doing? We started piloting. Um, and and if you think about it, real estate is generally not um it's not thought of as flexible. So or agile, is it? Yeah, that's a much better word. It's not agile. You know, you're in a five, a 10, a 15-year lease. So you've taken on this space with your plans for growth in the future and you've configured it. Um so you know, sometimes people are, or I guess organizations are looking at how do they use different spaces and then how do they start measuring that to understand what's working with employees and what isn't. So we've seen lots and lots of piloting. And again, looking looking more at nuance and and figuring out what what works in central London might not work if you've got an office, you know, a remote somewhere else in the UK or in another country. Um there are there are lots of nuances that it again requires more um more resource, more energy to understand what those are. Um, but if you're if you're trying to maximize what you're gonna get out of the organization and the people doing the work in the organization, then then you've got to take the time, you've got to do the investment, you've got to do the work.

Vic 33:59

Yeah. Yeah, makes loads of sense.

Sam 34:04

Interesting. So is there anywhere that our wonderful listeners can go to read your reports or learn more?

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Absolutely. Yes, everything's available freely on our website. So it's it's leasemanindex.com. Um, everything, all of our research is up there. Um, the event series, the link for that in case anyone wants to hear that that research debrief is there.

Sam 34:26

Um yeah, there's a I heard rumors of a webinar coming up that our uh our our listeners might be able to sign up for.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

Yeah, it's the 21st of March. Um, so we'll be running three sessions, one in the morning, one midday, and one in the afternoon, UK time. Um, because we're covering, we've we've surveyed organizations in 110 countries. Um, so we try and make webinars available to um to perfect.

Vic 34:50

And we'll we'll make all of that available, Alison, in the show notes.

Sam 34:54

Perfect. Fantastic stuff. So we've covered a huge amount of ground. Alison, would you mind giving us maybe some some key takeaways for our listeners, just to sort of summarize?

SPEAKER_03 35:07

Absolutely. Um, I mean, for for organizations out there, it's it's you know, understand, understand and articulate why you have a workplace. Um, so what's what's in it for the employees? Because whether they're asking you directly or not, that's what they want to know. How is their commute worth it? How is their time, you know, the time that they're gonna spend in the office worth it? So um so that's it's such an important relationship between the employer and the employees. So having that um having that that candor and that understanding is crucial. Um and I think the other, if we look at the other side of that for employees, um it's it's try and draw that out of your organization. So if you don't know, um ask ask leaders, right? It's it's not just because they haven't told you, maybe, maybe it's not something they've thought of or they haven't thought to communicate, something else we ask in that corporate real estate leader's poll. Do you have a strategy, you know, and has that been communicated to employees? And you know, we're almost almost to the three-year anniversary of the first lockdown in the UK. And some organizations still haven't communicated that strategy. So challenge, challenge your leaders um to understand kind of what they're thinking and why they're thinking that, because it's again, if you can dial up your empathy either way, um, it's going to be a better journey going forward for both sides.

Sam 36:22

Dial up your empathy. That sounds like advice for more than just the workplace. Advice for life, maybe. True. Well, as we bring this to a conclusion, the last question I've got for you, Alison, you'd be brilliant. So thank you for that. Uh one more question for you while you're with us is would you be so kind as to recommend a book for our our our listeners?

SPEAKER_03 36:45

I'd be happy to. So lately I've been reading The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. And um it's it's an amazing reframe for how we approach business. I mean, you can also equate it to life, right? But it's his take is uh it's it's about staying in the game. So yeah, sustainable business. Definitely. You know, don't you you can't win business, right? Like you can't, if you're the best now, like that that's no one else, like that that's not a real thing, right? If you're the best at something, because the rules haven't been defined, like who's the best at business, who's the best at this or that. Um, it's much more about looking, taking the long-term view. What is what's your mission? Mission? Let's try that again. Mission. What's your mission? That's a combination, combination I just made up of mission and vision.

Sam 37:33

Um, I like that. I'm gonna use that. Consider it, consider it stolen.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Perfect. But but really, like the organization has to stay focused on you know what they're trying to create, what problem they're trying to solve, um, rather than just okay, how do we do this quarter and getting so fixated on some finite target that actually why you're doing business to begin with. So it ties in, of course, to Simon Sid X, start with why. Um, but yeah, it's it's a brilliant kind of reminder of of why of why we do things um and and kind of how businesses need to look at at their business differently.

Vic 38:10

Brilliant. What a great recommendation.

Sam 38:14

Fantastic stuff. Really good. Thank you, Alison. Really enjoyed that. Um there will be a wealth of information for our listeners to follow up on, uh, both your your research and your forthcoming webinar to cover it. Um, so it just remains to me to say thank you very much for joining us today, and thanks to our listeners for joining us as well. Um, this has been Again Amplified from the Amplified Group. Your comments and your subscriptions are as always gratefully received.