JLL launches Social-Spatial Design service, turning workplace science into measurable team performance

CHICAGO, July 16, 2026 – JLL announced today the launch of Social-Spatial Design, a performance-led workplace design service from its JLL Design business that helps organizations unlock team performance by aligning physical space with how people actually work together. Developed with Thompson Harrison, a global organizational and leadership development consultancy, the service translates behavioral science and social dynamics into practical design decisions — positioning JLL as a leader in turning workplace intelligence into measurable outcomes.

Social-Spatial Design is grounded in a core insight – while work patterns, technologies and organizational models continue to evolve, human cognitive limits, social behavior and team dynamics remain remarkably stable. Understanding these constants allows JLL to make practical design decisions that directly affect how teams focus, collaborate, learn and make decisions.

“Workplaces have traditionally been designed around desks, policies or organizational structures, rather than around how teams actually function,” said Nicasio Gutierrez, Project and Development Services Global Head of JLL Design. “Social-Spatial Design brings behavioral science into the heart of design, allowing organizations to invest with greater confidence in spaces that genuinely support team performance.”

“Organizations invest heavily in individual talent, but far less attention is paid to the foundational conditions for high-performance teams,” added Tracey Camilleri, who is a co-founder of Thompson Harrison along with Samantha Rockey. “By socially 'tuning’ workspaces, designing with the science of human biology, chemistry and physics in mind, organizations can optimize performance and human thriving.”

The launch builds on JLL’s wider body of work science research into how the built environment shapes the way people think, focus and make decisions. While much of that work has explored individual cognition and brain health, Social-Spatial Design extends the science to the level where most work actually happens: the team.

The approach treats the team as the primary unit of performance. JLL Design experts observe how teams focus, collaborate, move and connect, then use proprietary tools to diagnose performance gaps and identify what is already working. These insights translate into evidence-based priorities that inform choices about layout, acoustics, adjacencies and spatial settings across the workplace. Findings are validated through low-risk trials before being applied at scale across portfolios.

Unlike traditional workplace strategies that focus on space efficiency and utilization, Social-Spatial Design measures return on investment through workplace performance indicators, including collaboration effectiveness, focus and concentration, learning and knowledge sharing, employee belonging and engagement and overall team performance.

The methodology translates these variables into weighted performance scores, helping organizations identify where workplace conditions support or hinder performance. Different outcomes emerge at different speeds; shifts in workplace perception are typically visible within one to three months, behavioral adaptation within three to six months and retention and performance impacts within 12 to 24 months.

“At a time when operational costs are under increasing scrutiny and many organizations are embedding hybrid work as a long-term model, workplace investment decisions have become more critical than ever,” said Cynthia Kantor, CEO, Project and Development Services, JLL. “For decades, professional sport has applied science to improve results by fractions of a second. Work can be just as mentally demanding, yet there has not been enough science behind how the workplace can help people perform. Social-Spatial Design moves beyond efficiency and utilization to focus on the conditions that most strongly influence how teams perform.”

Social-Spatial Design is informed by JLL’s ongoing investment in the science of work, which helps to deepen our understanding of how workplace design influences human performance. JLL is exploring new methods of assessing how the physical environment affects focus, stress and collaboration, using electroencephalography (EEG) to observe brain activity. For an inside look, watch the video here that also features the International Centre for NeuroArchitecture and NeuroDesign, an initiative of University College London (UCL) and Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE). UCL and RISE are developing studies that simulate real work tasks in mock office settings where variables such as lighting, sound and layout can be precisely controlled.

Social-Spatial Design comes at a critical moment. As AI automates routine tasks, human cognitive and collaborative skills are becoming more valuable than ever, making evidence-based workplace design an increasingly important driver of organizational performance.

“Our goal is to eliminate guesswork and give business leaders actionable intelligence about how to build workplaces where people can do their best work,” Kantor added. “By understanding how people genuinely respond to their environment, we can design spaces that help teams — and the organizations they power — perform better.”

Organizations interested in how Social-Spatial Design could help their teams perform can inquire about the service here.

For more news, videos and research resources on JLL, please visit JLL’s newsroom.

Thompson Harrison is an award-winning and research led leadership and organizational advisory firm.  We help organizations to get the best out of their people and people to get the best out of their organizations. Our focus is on what doesn't change about human behavior and how, by working with the grain of that knowledge in a fast-moving world, groups can improve performance, innovation and impact. www.thompsonharrison.com