Our work in Spotify’s Global Workplace Services (GWS) workforce isn’t static – it’s a part of our firm tradition to embrace change, and all of us working throughout the People Constituency at Spotify problem our chosen truths, and make daring HR and office selections. We’re an organization that invests in individuals, processes and methods of working, and we all know that as applied sciences rework, our office design should additionally evolve.
Even earlier than the pandemic and the following paradigm shift, we had foresight that the workplace areas of the long run wanted to be extra dynamic. In the final couple of years, specifically since introducing our Working From Anywhere (WFA) program, we’ve doubled-down on listening to our band members as we’ve navigated this new set-up with a trial and error mindset. In addition, we wish to be data-informed about our selections and have invested in some expertise (house utilisation sensors) that may assist us higher perceive using every house within the workplace, with out making assumptions which are tied to previous rhetoric about workplaces.
Combining these two inputs with our insights as specialists in house design and administration has allowed us to make the long run use of our workspace much less unpredictable and to have the ability to deal with enhancing the office expertise for our staff.
Being Data Informed
Within the GWS workforce, our predominant goal is to make Spotify a fantastic place to work by offering areas and providers that convey our tradition to life. We are right here to supply a fantastic office expertise by enabling collaboration and productiveness, fostering belonging and neighborhood and representing our model (from a buyer, accomplice and worker perspective).
One key facet of that is to ensure we optimise our utilisation of our workplace house. If we do that accurately it should enhance expertise and as constructive negative effects cut back our value and on the similar time our environmental footprint. It’s a win-win-win state of affairs.
Optimising Our Spaces
To information our determination about how finest to optimise, we supply out in-depth analyses on utilization of workstations, assembly rooms, frequent areas and so on. Without information, data and a transparent course of we’d by no means be capable of make selections confidently, or execute a challenge easily.
For instance, the quantity of desk house is a scorching matter. Does it actually make sense to design workplace house for everybody to have their very own desk? We don’t suppose so. Based on our handbook occupancy research from again in 2019 we noticed that the common peak utilization of workstation was round 35%. And these had been the times when everybody labored full time from the workplace. For an organization like Spotify, pushing in additional desks just isn’t sustainable. So when the time got here to revamp and design our workplaces, it was a no brainer to maneuver away from devoted desks. We haven’t completely forgotten in regards to the desk – it’s nonetheless an essential ingredient of an workplace panorama, however a mixture of desks that anybody can use and assembly areas in an open-plan setting offers better comfort – and higher flexibility.
Another instance comes from our workplace in New York City, the place insights confirmed us that we are able to enhance office expertise by bringing individuals and groups nearer collectively, and concurrently utilizing our sources in a accountable manner, by lowering our workplace house. The largest problem is to make this discount in house with out lowering the quantity of assembly rooms an excessive amount of.
We do related issues throughout our portfolio and we strongly consider it is sensible to let different firms use our already constructed out areas as an alternative of constructing new buildings or operating match out tasks which each will enhance utilization of uncooked materials and add CO2 emissions.
Growth with out rising
Optimising doesn’t essentially imply lowering house. Where we’re welcoming new band members, our earlier default answer can be so as to add more room. Now we do it otherwise.
We analyse the information we now have, each quantitative and qualitative, after which we have a look at the anticipated progress and see how we are able to accommodate new band members with out rising in sq. ft. This may imply rebalancing the workplace house almost about desks and assembly rooms, growing the quantity of frequent areas or merging small neighbourhoods.
Our information tells us that the utilisation of workstations are all the time a lot decrease than the utilisation of assembly rooms. We additionally learnt that huge assembly rooms are not often used to their full capability. And we all know that dividing the workplaces into too small neighbourhoods impacts utilisation negatively. These are all nice insights that information our selections on this uncharted territory. We may not all the time get it proper the primary time, however we all know we’re performing and designing on greater than a intestine intuition.
New Offices
In some places we now have maximised utilization and wish to search out extra new house to allow progress. Once once more, being information knowledgeable helps us to maintain office expertise prime of thoughts.
We make sure that we seize learnings from our house utilisation sensors, utilizing the insights gathered to assist us design and construct out any new workplace house. We all the time use a individuals centric method by capturing the precise wants from each location, solely backing up that location-specific data with information from our full portfolio as a further supply the place wanted.
Finding The Perfect Balance
Similar to many different firms we see that the best utilisation happens in the course of the week, with Mondays and Fridays being the times of quieter footfall within the workplace.
This is reflective of human and group behaviour – in any case, we all know that one of many predominant causes for a band member to work from the workplace is to fulfill, socialise and collaborate with their colleagues, so it makes excellent sense that they could select to make use of the workplace on the identical days. From a pure utilisation perspective it will be higher to flatten the mid-week peak to maximise the utilization of our workplaces.
Our present problem is whether or not we are able to do this with out compromising on office expertise (there’s no level flattening the height if our staff don’t get the complete good thing about interplay they’re looking for). That’s why we’ve began to look into whether or not we are able to make modifications however nonetheless preserve collaboration, belonging and connectedness. One nice instance is to have our in-office occasions on Mondays and Fridays. This is a troublesome nut to crack, however we’ll positively have a go, while maintaining in contact with the Spotifiers and monitoring information to ensure we don’t tip the steadiness too far in both route.
In reality, in true Spotify style we are able to’t declare to have all of the options but, however optimising the workplace house and our actual property portfolio just isn’t a one-off challenge, it’s an ongoing essential a part of our enterprise. We will proceed to be taught, take a look at, and iterate, ensuring we repeatedly present the very best expertise for our band members to collaborate, be inventive and allow productiveness. And in fact we’ll proceed to share our progress right here!
