The future of office design

Businesses are focused on recruiting the best staff and getting the most out of them, which means workplace design is a crucial element in corporate strategy. This article draws on insights from JLL’s Future of Work 2024 survey to identify opportunities to invest in designing workplaces that will maximize staff satisfaction, wellbeing and performance.

The JLL Global Future of Work survey is a biennial survey which has been produced since 2011. It explores the evolving world of work and the key priorities, challenges and strategies of more than 2,300 corporate real estate (CRE) and business leaders, as well as the emerging trends within organizations all over the world.
 

The social purpose of the workplace has become the most important reason for returning to the office. The collaborative nature of office workplaces is beneficial for productivity, company culture, wellbeing and innovation. Collaboration, social interaction, culture and connectivity are cited as the top reasons for working in the office, for both employees and employers.

A wide variety of activities take place in the office; it is not as simple as meetings in the office and focused work at home. In many offices, the true value of the workplace is often at the blurry edges of activities: a serendipitous meeting or cross-team social bonds. This means workplace design has to look beyond planned collaboration spaces, considering how people interact, form social bonds and share knowledge.

The increased complexity of the world of work means a bigger role for workplaces in supporting employee performance and expectations, corporate sustainability ambitions and the evolving technology and AI landscape. All this means now is the time to invest.

The design of workplaces has a significant impact on people’s performance and wellbeing. While approaches to hybrid working policies and return to office strategies continue to shift, the design of the workplace plays a critical role in supporting individual wellbeing and engagement, and enhancing team performance, social cohesion and organizational culture in the office.

Understanding the needs of employees and future talent should be central to design strategies if they are to meet corporate aspirations towards 2030, and organizations can benefit from enhancing workplace design with data-driven approaches. For example, utilizing employee experience data or social strategies in developing design strategies that meet your employee and corporate needs.

To gain the greatest value from workplace investment, design strategies must be connected to corporate goals and ambitions. In a complex environment, approaches such as science-led design can unpick these intricacies and provide clear frameworks for successful design.