DYNAMIC IMPACT

Amid all the dire predictions on the ‘death’ of the o ice which dominated the headlines last year, JLL’s Global Future of Work Survey(i) a irmed that nearly three quarters of decision makers still believe the o ice is critical to doing business. This goes to show, says Sue Asprey Price, JLL’s CEO for EMEA Work Dynamics that while the purpose of the o ice has been redefined it still forms the hub of organisational culture and plays a central role in the employee value proposition.

With nearly 30 years of experience in property consultancy, Asprey Price really knows the sector. She took up the CEO position last summer from her previous role as Head of Work Dynamics for the UK and Ireland, but began her career in her native Canada where, a er a degree in economics and a masters in finance and architecture she entered the property consultancy sector, working on development projects and urban planning.

She was soon – rather to her surprise - made Head of Data Centres when her development company boss encouraged her to take the role. This led to working across Canada and the US and eventually brought her over to the UK in 2000. She explains: “My career in Europe has been mostly on the workplace consultancy side. I did step out at one point and set up a data centre advisory company, right around the time I was having children. I sold that business and moved back into the workplace advisory side and joined JLL’s Work Dynamics business around six years ago.”

She describes her new role as: “A dream come true to have a greater global remit, ranging from Africa to the Middle East where we help occupiers solve complex workforce and workplace challenges and drive the sustainability agenda. Europe alone is a diverse playground of cultures and languages and what I love about working in this region is that you do need to have a level of agility, as we come up with some incredible ideas and technologies but have to tweak them to suit the individual regional nuances.

“We do the full lifecycle of real estate – not just through an occupier lens but also help investors make their assets relevant for occupiers. In particular, with our project development and management services, we do as much work with investors as we do with occupiers.

“Our services and expertise have expanded significantly from when I started when the main focus was primarily on the location. We do much more now - including advising businesses on managing their workforce, with the assistance of our team of behavioural scientists and of course, ensuring sustainability is thoroughly embedded into the consultancy projects.” A large part of the business is on the FM side where she argues the term facilities management as a scope has expanded significantly. “Here, we talk about human experience right through to how we deliver on health and safety, but also make sure we’re optimising assets. The exciting part of all our jobs is the scope of what we do and the skills and talent we need to be able to do that e ectively.”

Hybrid Working

This expertise is sorely needed in a landscape which has changed dramatically since the pandemic, and where the very purpose of the o ice has been challenged. According to JLL data, while the o ice is still very much part of businessremote working is part of the overall working model, with the work environment being almost retail like, as the ‘shop window’ of an organisation.

“We’re evolving as an industry to help managers with hybrid work patterns provide a place for mentoring, training, and all those things that we struggle to get right over a zoom call,” she says. “This means the purpose of the o ice is being crystallised and where some roles are fully remote, the stats we’re getting back on employees who work in that way isn’t positive, with first year attrition rates up in the 25 per cent range. When you conduct exit interviews with those employees there is a lack of feeling engaged with the organisation and how they have not felt they were part of any culture.”

She explains that with agile space being created to encourage teams to work and socialise together; and a reliance on heavy desking being reduced, an increasingly important part of JLL’s workforce function is to advise managers on how to help their teams adapt to new working patterns.

“When you look at the diversity of companies that we work with, from life sciences to the tech sector and new emerging start-ups, having the ability to help managers embrace di erent ways is one of the key areas where we see we have a responsibility.

“At the same time, company culture is being completely redefined and has moved from encompassing the whole organisation to being more individual and team orientated. But a lot of the work done pre-pandemic still holds true, that is, creating destination spaces that support productivity.

“There is also a revival of food and other amenities as a way of drawing people together in the o ice. Prior to the pandemic that practice of installing internal staircases with ‘bump zones’ took o and post-pandemic the ‘casual bump’ is even more relevant. There is an e iciency element too in having informal conversations, not structured zoom calls. And of course, those interpersonal moments make you feel much more of a part of the organisation.”

Corporate Solutions

According to JLL’s Workforce Preferences Barometer(ii), working somewhere other than the o ice has become the norm for over half of corporate employees, while the Future of Work survey found that 53 per cent of organisations were planning to make remote working permanently available to all employees by 2025. Given these stats, Asprey Price stresses the need for workplace strategists to guard against the emergence of a two-tier workforce, where those at the headquarters are based in an ideal location which is amenities and services-rich, compared to those based in smaller o ices that don’t o er the same level of amenities.

She explains: “Some secondary o ice markets where the quality of the space may not be as great are struggling to attract the talent in. Fewer employees will want to go to an o ice that feels half empty and doesn’t have the amenities.

“This ‘flight to quality’ is very real and by rightsizing portfolios, businesses have the money to spend on spaces that are really critical. A lot of the questions our advisory teams are asking is: ‘what is the shape of the portfolio that supports your hybrid work model, that allows you to have those amenity rich assets that really attract people?’”

She adds that with the cost of living crisis, while we might be moving into a more cost-conscious business environment, at the same time, real estate decision makers are realising that there is a correlation between space and talent attraction and that the purpose of a company is reflected through its real estate.

“COVID brought real estate to the forefront, and it is now core to the value proposition of a business. The workplace isn’t just a place for people to show up but has a fundamental purpose, not only for employees to perform roles more e iciently but its social aspect is a reflection of a company’s brand.”

There is also an opportunity for organisations to create a welcoming and diverse workplace, where managers take a more collaborative, empathetic approach to leading their teams. This is an area which Asprey Price has been championing throughout her career.

“I am proud of what all of us have done in this sector to raise the profile of diversity over the past few years. But there is still more to be done. We still have challenges of keeping female talent, especially those with young children.

“We still see this in peer to peer dynamic where young women who’ve taken time out with maternity leave may not be at the same professional level as their male colleagues. But I’m delighted to see paternity leave take up is growing. It truly shows how we’re changing family leave by making it more acceptable to all. In terms of diversity however, we must keep checking our approach to ensure equality across the board.”

To help meet these challenges, JLL has developed a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standard which, coupled with its Workforce Advisory EMEA o ering, aims to support clients across the region in helping build diverse and inclusive workplaces.

Says Asprey Price: “Changes are not always costly, you might need to retrofit space, but it also can simply be changing policy, reconfiguring space or the facilities to support that. At JLL, the topic of sustainability is very diverse, moving from a macro level focusing on the world economy all the way through to what can you do within a meeting room for an individual.”

The wider sustainability agenda of course remains critical, and as Asprey Price points out, with 60 per cent of emissions in cities coming from real estate, is something that needs to be addressed as a sector – with advisors, investors and occupiers playing a key role in achieving a net zero carbon future.

“Retrofitting is a key challenge,” she says. “Knocking down buildings and creating new ones is not the way to achieve our targets and with an aggressive schedule to meet carbon commitments, we’ve got a lot of work to do to achieve this in a slightly capital constrained market.

“This is something into which JLL is putting a lot of time and e ort - as our circular economy Water Street o ice in Canary Wharf(iii) demonstrates. There, even the furniture is upcycled but looks and feels incredible and that’s important to demonstrate that when we say circular economy we don’t mean a fall in quality.

“This also incorporates the ESG elements, the environmental, equality and adopting D&I around neurodiversity so, for example in Water Street, we utilise di erent tones of colours, as research suggests the traditional JLL red is not so suited to some neurodiverse colleagues. We’ve also got all gender toilets to support that culture of inclusivity.”

Asprey Price employs her former international rugby credentials to make her own societal contribution as a trustee with London Youth(iv) which o ers kids join a group of like-minded people in playing sport.

“I’ve also had the opportunity to meet young people and talk to them about working in the property industry. When so many people don’t know what we do, education and attraction of talent to our sector is important, so engagement at a young age is critical.”

Challenges In 2023

Looking at the challenges ahead this year, she advises that managing constrained budgets, meeting sustainability goals and solving the hybrid working conundrum will require a lot of strategic thinking.

“When it comes to hybrid working, the biggest opportunity will be how to make it work and manage it e ectively. How workplace managers manage to overcome this will be key and that includes managing ine iciencies, particularly when assets aren’t being used.

“Technology will continue to play a key role in the new world of work. We’re going back to basics with the use of sensors that monitor which space is being used and o ering colleague apps to help connect people. But all these solutions require workplace managers who can help people work e iciently and o er them the tools required to do that.

“In 2023 the purpose of the o ice and the fact it is a key part of doing business remains true, but how we do that and ensure it remains relevant for us all is going to be the biggest challenge.”

For her she concludes: “I feel very privileged to work in JLL where you get such a wide perspective and in my new role seeing some of that cultural diversity from across the regions is fascinating. If you’re a curious person this is an amazing sector to be in, for instance, ‘why is our Paris o ice so busy compared to many others?’ It’s all about the why?”

(i) www.us.jll.com/en/trends-and-insights/ research/jll-future-of-work-survey-2022

(ii) www.us.jll.com/en/trends-and-insights/ research/workforce-preferences-barometer

(iii) www.jll.co.uk/en/newsroom/jll-opensnew-o ice-at-20-water-street

(iv) https://londonyouth.org/