The Top 7 Things That Matter in the Workplace—And FM’s Impact On Them (IFMA 2024)

A facility manager’s job is to manage buildings in a way that keeps the people inside safe, healthy, and productive. Sometimes that looks like testing emergency plans and maintaining building systems. Other times, it means finding ways to adapt to shifting office utilization trends.

“The workplace is always going to change. It’s always evolving. The pendulum is always swinging,” explained Alana F. Dunoff, MS, ProFM, FMP, IFMA Fellow, at a Thursday afternoon session at IFMA’s World Workplace Conference & Expo. “As FMs, we’re constantly on our toes thinking about how we’re going to adjust our facilities and our organizations.”

Dunoff advises a utility company with about 1,000 employees and 250,000 square feet of office space across a four-building campus. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic reared its head, the company adopted a “flex first” policy in which people could come and go from the office as they wanted. However, some employees couldn’t work remotely, resulting in morale issues. The company kicked off strategic planning in 2023, involving interviews with 94 senior and line managers who shared insights about the flex first policy, their teams’ productivity, and more. Dunoff and the company made several discoveries:

• Management came to the office more often than their staff members did, and they were looking for guidance and structure to help them encourage their staff to come in without a mandate.
• People were striving for balance in the services that were provided. The concept of the workplace isn’t the same for all employees of the utility company—some could go anywhere and work any time, but support staff had to be in the office to do their jobs. “How do we balance that out and try to support those who have to be in every day vs. those who don’t?” asked Dunoff.
• Management was split on whether the company culture was in a good place.

Sound familiar? The good news is that facilities departments can have a strong influence over these trends and can improve the built environment. Seven workplace and occupant services matter strongly in many workplaces in some form, and facility managers can impact all of them.

1. Individual Workspaces

Dunoff’s client previously gave every employee a dedicated workspace that belonged to that person. This didn’t change when the new flex policy was introduced, so people who only come in once a week still have their own desks. “The challenge is now impacting occupancy, because there are new hires coming in and they don’t have [the] capacity for these people. Everything is fully dedicated,” Dunoff explained. “We have a lot of vacancy, because there’s not a lot of people, but everyone has dedicated space.” The company is shifting to a two- to three-day threshold for allowing dedicated space.

Individual workspaces also don’t stop at one desk for one person, Dunoff said. The company is looking at “work anywhere” spaces—places for a single person to come in for the afternoon and take a phone call or knock out some emails. Hoteling spaces that can be booked for a couple of days are also a strong option.

“We’re also thinking about adding quiet spaces,” Dunoff said. “In the open office world, quiet spaces are not what we’ve done generally very well—the place to take the phone call or think for a minute. It’s almost like that’s not allowed, but we think it’s really important and necessary.”

2. Together Workspaces

“The traditional together spaces have been the conference rooms—eight, 10, or 12 people and technology. Something you schedule,” Dunoff said. She referenced Gensler’s research that showed more people would come in if they had access to more quiet spaces and more collaborative spaces. Collaborative spaces can look many different ways, from impromptu spots with soft seating and whiteboards to small spaces designed for meetings between a couple of in-person employees and a couple of people connecting via Microsoft Teams.

The company has also embraced hoteling neighborhoods. Some teams and departments aren’t coming in on the same days, so the company wanted to make it easier for groups to be together. “A leader can manage a reservation and say, ‘I’m going to take this neighborhood,’ and the team just comes in,” Dunoff said. “It has a variety of different spaces the group can be in, vs. taking over a conference room. This gives them an opportunity to be there and work, enjoy the one day they’re in the office, and have it be a nice experience.”

3. Engaging Spaces

There has been a lot of post-pandemic talk about wellness spaces and places to connect, Dunoff observed. The utility company already has a high-quality fitness center, a cafeteria, and places to get coffee, but wellness and connecting spaces go beyond these basic concepts. “It’s about mental health,” Dunoff said. “We’re opening up the aperture and thinking about what we can bring into the space that allows for mental health and connecting. We’re looking at putting in maybe a puzzle on a table, a ping-pong table, a putting green. We’re not turning this place into a game room, but we all need breaks.”

The ability to take a break aids productivity, Dunoff added.

“Have you ever been stuck on a problem, and then go away, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I got it’?” Dunoff asked. “If you just stare at the problem, it’s still going to be a problem. If you do something different and get your brain to think differently, it allows you to think about the solution and get there.”

4. Technology

People took their best equipment home during the early days of the pandemic, Dunoff noted, so there is now a need to catch up with technology available in the office. Beyond personal equipment, there are also other technology solutions that can enhance the in-office experience. “We’re now looking at smart whiteboards with a camera,” Dunoff said. “The people who are virtual can see the people in the room, but they can also see what’s being written on the whiteboard. Before, people were taking pictures and texting them, saying, ‘This is what we wrote on the whiteboard.’ That’s not a way to be collaborative.”

The company has also discovered another technological innovation that employees view as a perk—electric vehicle charging stations. “They have them, and people have been using them,” Dunoff said. “I had more managers than I expected saying the reason people come in one day a week is to charge their cars for free. If that works and it encourages people to come in on their own, OK.”

5. Food Services

Food matters, but it’s also a major challenge for both facility departments and food service providers because no one knows how many people will come in to eat. There’s no easy answer, but there are a few things facility teams and building owners can try to make food service more appealing:

• Snacks. “We’re still having lots of conversations about whether snacks should be free,” Dunoff said. “It’s a nice perk.”
• Rethinking where people eat. The utility company has a big cafeteria, but it services four buildings. “Maybe there are different kinds of places to eat, or we rethink the cafeteria and the seating we have there,” Dunoff said. “The cafeteria can double as meeting spaces and have the right kind of power access.”
• Outside eating. “During the pandemic, everyone was outside, and that’s a lingering thing,” Dunoff said. “People still like to eat outside.”

6. Coffee

Coffee really matters—which comes as no surprise to most facility managers. After the flex policy went into effect, the old strategy, in which one person came in early and made coffee and everyone was happy, went out the window. The managers who are working from the office now have brought in lots of personal Keurig machines, removing the communal aspect of the coffee pot.

“What is it about coffee?” Dunoff said. “It’s an amenity, it’s a perk, a valued benefit we provide, and an expected service that’s there. McKinsey and Company said some employees feel more cared for when hot beverages are provided. Some say, ‘I’m more productive when I have my coffee because I need caffeine.’ But I think it’s more than a perk. Coffee is connection. Coffee brings people together. ‘Let’s grab a cup of coffee and talk.’ It’s a way to take a break.”

7. Culture

Culture is “a set of values that persist in a company over a long period of time,” Dunoff said. Often set or influenced by the founders of a company, it includes the behavior, customs, and traditions of a company, and it shifts over time.

Is FM responsible for company culture? Dunoff argues that the answer is yes. The first six items, which are occupant services, are “the physical manifestation of our company’s culture,” Dunoff said. “These things really matter. They help us drive our culture.”

FM influences culture by making sure spaces are realigned so that whatever leadership and employees are doing, facilities and spaces are coming along for the ride.

“It’s about the people. We create places and spaces where people can be people,” Dunoff said. “They’re going to talk. They’re going to connect. They’re going to need quiet spaces. They’re going to need together spaces. They’re going to problem-solve. We are responsible.”