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The Government Property Agency (GPA) has gained a world-leading award for its Quay House office hub building in Peterborough.
It is the second time the agency has achieved Leesman+ certification – global recognition of exceptional workplace experiences which only six public sector offices worldwide have ever attained. The GPA first achieved Leesman+ certification for its Birmingham hub at 23 Stephenson Street in 2023, which was recognised as the best amongst Leesman+ buildings.
Quay House, in Peterborough, was opened in March 2023 as the GPA’s first new-build hub within the Government Hubs Programme. It brought together 1,200 civil servants from several government bodies to work in one shared building as part of a £120 million regeneration of Fletton Quays.
The building was aligned to the Government Workplace Design Guide across its seven floors, providing flexible, digitally-connected workspaces to support greater productivity, create cost efficiencies and enhance carbon reduction.
The survey results for Quay House showed that 70.1 per cent of respondents agreed ‘It’s a place I’m proud to bring visitors to’, whilst two thirds agreed the building provides an enjoyable environment to work in and enables them to work productively.
Georgina Dunn, Interim Director of Capital Projects, said: “By transforming brownfield sites into industry leading workplaces, our Government Hubs are at the heart of enabling the government’s Places for Growth programme.
“For our hubs in Peterborough and Birmingham to be given Leesman+ recognition shows that we are at the forefront of modernising the Civil Service whilst supporting economic growth across the UK, not just in capital cities.”
Leesman has surveyed more than 1.35 million employees across 9,300 workplaces to establish the world’s largest workplace experience database and benchmark standards across the private and public sectors. Only 269 workplaces have ever achieved its coveted Leesman+ certification.
As well as benchmarking government workplaces against some of the leading offices worldwide, Leesman+ also provides rich insights on behaviours and priorities of building users which informs workplace design and service delivery across the GPA’s portfolio.
Louis Roberts, Interim Director of Workplace Services, said: “We recognise the importance of agile and flexible workplace communities that accommodate the diverse needs of civil servants. As these needs continue to evolve, strong insights enable us to adapt our design and delivery models to ensure we are providing workplaces that our customers need, where they feel empowered to work productively.”
Dr Peggie Rothe, Chief Insights and research Officer at Leesman, said: “The addition of the UK Government’s Quay House hub as a Certified Leesman+ workplace presents another powerful illustration that placing employees’ lived workplace experience at the centre of all design and build decisions delivers both outstanding places to work, and great returns on investment. The GPA’s approach of capturing and analysing a far more granular set of end user factors than nearly any other organisation in Leesman’s fully independent data set, really does enable them to develop more inclusive and supportive workspaces for their Civil Service colleagues.”
Frontline workers form the backbone of facilities management services, serving as the face of the brand and interacting directly with customers. Yet research by both L&G and the Living Wage Foundation reveals the majority feel overlooked and expendable.
Accelerating the problem is a growing technology gap. Despite having 2.7 billion deskless workers worldwide, representing 80 per cent of the global workforce, only one per cent of software and technology investments has been allocated to this segment. This means there is a huge disconnect between frontline workers and their headquarters, leading to lack of sufficient training, communication challenges and low employee retention.
For this webinar, FMJ has teamed up with frontline training platform Lingio to bring together a panel of experts, to discuss how easy-to-use and efficient AI tools can help create engaging and gamified learning experiences that fit the needs of underserved deskless workers. The result? Better software and learning experiences lead to improved staff engagement and reduced staff turnover by up to 95 per cent, according to McKinsey.
To register for the webinar taking place on 11 September at 11:00 am click here.
