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MEASURING SUCCESS Leesman’s CEO, Tim Oldman, explains what the best workplaces in the
At Leesman, we canvass the views of
employees in order to arm businesses and
organisations with the insights they need to
provide both an e ective working environment and
an outstanding workplace experience. We do this
via an online survey that looks at what employees
are doing, and how well each of the activities they
undertake as part of their role are supported by
the physical, virtual and social infrastructures on
o er. The benchmark also considers the impact
that the design of a space has on an employee’s
overall experience, from their perception of their
productivity to the sense of community.
We believe that a truly e ective working
environment, one that enhances productively on
both individual and collaborative activities, is one
that also o ers a great day at work.
Our research, based on a global database of over
4,000 workplaces across 96 countries and more
than 700,000 respondents, has identified an elite
group of organisations that demonstrate a strong
understanding of this innate connection between
environment and experience. The Leesman+
collective is driving change through new methods
and an innovative use of data to create workplaces
that act as an example for the rest of the world to
follow.
The evolving employee experience
First and foremost, does the workplace have
a positive impact on corporate image and
sustainability? Corporate image is one of an
organisation’s most important assets. What people
think of and how they see the organisation is
imperative. Not only does it impact the organisation’s
draw towards potential customers, customers
and collaboration partners, but it is also crucial in
attracting and retaining the best talent.
The best workplaces in the world consistently
o er a specific type of workplace experience—a
participatory space where infrastructures are cra ed,
immersive and user-centric. Our own research
rea irms that. And in a time when employers
are being bombarded with the latest must-have
workplace strategies, this research isolates the
employee signal from industry noise to reveal a nonnegotiable
list of employee experience components
which leadership teams should ignore at their peril.
How to win the talent war
There is one simple way businesses, of all industries
and sectors, can win the talent war. That’s by
consistently investing in – and listening to – their
primary asset: their people.
Our data shows an elite band of organisations
have asked, listened and taken measures to improve
their employee experience. Since 2012, Leesman
has awarded the highest performing workplaces on
its Index – ones that comply with strict qualification
criteria – Leesman+ certification. Identifying what
separates them from the rest of the pack has helped
to unveil the cornerstones of great employee
experience.
Crunching the survey data from the most recent
Leesman+ list which comprises 28 buildings together
with information on key variables external of the
research including occupancy density, desk-sharing
ratios, and environmental certification, has identified
the key di erentiators between these two groups.
And the findings expose some blunt discrepancies.
When it comes to personal productivity, for example,
77 per cent of respondents in the Leesman+ buildings
answer a irmatively – a whole 15 percentage points
higher than the global index average. On the topic
of pride, meanwhile, scores soar by 29 percentage
points, from 51 per cent to 80 per cent.
Delving into the factors that determine these
scores reveals a great deal about how organisations
can achieve exceptional employee experience. It
is easy to make the argument, for example, that
Leesman+ organisations have a much better sense
of their employees’ increasingly mobile and flexible
needs. A substantial majority of the high-performing
workplaces o er either a fully flexible arrangement or
a mix of flexible and designated workstations – and
their occupiers are happy: a massive 86.5 per cent
of respondents from the Leesman+ buildings report
satisfaction with the variety of workspaces on o er.
The open plan myth
Wider variety may also help to explain why the
Leesman+ workplaces are predominantly open
concepts. A perfect example of this conundrum can
be found in the ongoing war on open plan o ices in
press. The most current and common theme is that
open designs distract, diminish privacy and create
toxic levels of stress at work. Yet, our latest findings
show that organisations which get open plan designs
right do not sacrifice visual or acoustic privacy. In
fact, the number of respondents who were satisfied
with the quiet rooms provided by Leesman+ spaces
last year climbed to 61 per cent, which represents an
increase of 20 percentage points since 2015.
The common perception may be that remote
working a ords people the freedom to be both
e ective and creative away from the chaos of open
plan o ices, but this simply isn’t backed by the data.
Leesman+ spaces contain fewer remote workers
than the global average, while remote workers
across Leesman’s wider database report lower
levels of personal productivity than their o icebased
colleagues. Moreover, digital tools and better
high-speed internet are still no match for face-toface
interaction in the workplace when it comes to
something as critical as knowledge transfer. O ice
workers report six per cent higher satisfaction with
their ability to share ideas with colleagues than
remote workers.
There is an all-important question. Why are
employees choosing to work remotely or from home,
with increasing regularity? What does this actually
say about the standard of today’s workplaces?
Organisations have a duty to reappraise their
employees’ needs ensuring they are providing the
infrastructures, services and experiences to match.
world are doing diff erently to everyone else and how others can adopt
the same approach
60 FEBRUARY 2020