4
HR
West
®
Workplace Strategy
F
urthermore HR is in a unique
position to maximize the impact of
workplace development through its
orientation toward talent management and
organizational development.
A Workplace Strategy is a rigorous and intentional
definition of how the work environment – space,
technology and work practices – will be organized
to support achievement of business objectives.
Workplace Strategy is often inaccurately
understood as the prevailing space trend of a
particular period – for instance, telecommuting in
years past and open environments in more recent
times. In reality, Workplace Strategy isn’t about
any one solution. Rather, it is an approach that
takes into account an organization’s current and
evolving work in order to create environments
that optimally support it.
Nearly 20 years of research and practical knowledge
point to Workplace Strategy as an important
contributor to organizational performance.
The right Workplace Strategy can stimulate
collaboration, remove barriers to communication,
positively impact employee well being, enhance
individual performance, attract talent and reinforce
culture. The wrong strategy can negatively impact
these same elements and place undue stress on
employees. Given the contribution of talent and its
cost (typically an order of magnitude higher than
real estate costs), it behooves us as stewards of our
talent base to ensure we do not sacrifice employee
performance by ignoring Workplace Strategy.
In many organizations the workplace is still
considered an expense to be managed by
Corporate Real Estate (CRE), rather than an asset
to be leveraged for organizational performance.
This is changing in today’s post recession and
talent hungry environment, as more and more
organizations begin to consider their workplace as
a strategic asset.
“We are increasingly engaged by business
executives rather than real estate leaders to
explore and develop new workplace programs”
says Joel Ratekin, Workplace Strategy expert and
President of Ratekin Consulting. Recent research
confirms this trend; a biennial Workplace Strategy
benchmarking study by the New Ways of Working
(NewWOW) research consortium found that for
the first time since the study’s initiation, HR and
Executive leadership are sponsoring Workplace
Strategy initiatives ahead of CRE leaders.
The study further demonstrated the increasing role
of HR through a shift in the drivers and anticipated
outcomes of workplace programs. Specifically, HR
concerns including Employee Work/Life Balance,
Employee Productivity, and Employee Attraction/
Retention ranked ahead of Cost Savings for the
first time since the survey’s initiation. Cost savings
BUILDING
WORKPLACE
STRATEGY
INTO HR PLANNING
Workplace Strategy – a strategic alignment of space, technology and
work practices – has traditionally not been a central concern in Human
Resource (HR) planning and organizational change efforts. Given
today’s competitive talent market and the role of the work environment
in reinforcing culture and enabling performance, linking Workplace
Strategy and HR planning is becoming increasingly important.
By Reza Ahmadi, Ph.D.
