Last week our Associate Director of Workplace Recruitment, James Saunders visited the CoreNet Global summit in Amsterdam. The event is designed to help professionals from all aspects of corporate real estate advance their skills, connect with peers, and learn about the latest innovations that are reshaping the way we live and work.
James shared his thoughts about the event:
"As always, it was a fantastic event and CoreNet Global knocked it out the park with the calibre of speakers and seminars on offer.I’ve now had some time to reflect on everything I’ve learned and wanted to share my thoughts on the event and the future trends of Workplace Change and Corporate Real Estate.
Read on for my highlights from the day.
Be curious!
Throughout the day, there was an emphasis on curiosity and the importance of continual learning. A perfect example of this was the incredible AnneMarie Imafidon, CEO at Stemettes and Podcast Host and Speaker, who got her A level in computing at age 11 and an MSc in Computing by the age of 20.
Anne said that she has always been curious. I think that we could all take a leaf out of her book and introduce this mentality to our own roles.
So, how can CRE decision-makers be more curious? What are the benefits of this?
Research suggests that training and development opportunities are important at every level of business (and are relatively straightforward to introduce). According to LinkedIn, professional skill development is the number-one way to improve company culture.
Inclusivity in the workplace
Dr. Hannah Barham-Brown an award-winning disability advocate, discussed the importance of inclusivity in the workplace.
Job adverts often say they need problem solvers – well, have you ever tried to navigate from East to West on the London Underground in a wheelchair? People with disabilities are solving problems like this every day!
We need to stop normalising differences and celebrate them instead. People of different abilities have different skills. The world (and your customer base) is diverse, so your workplace should be too.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the number of disabled people in employment has increased by 1.3 million by 2017. The disability employment gap has also decreased 0.2 percentage points on the year to 28.2%.
Both are promising statistics! Visibility for disabled people in positions of power will surely inspire children and naturally encourage change.
Workplace engagement
Erik Lucken and the superb Laurie Goodman from IA Interior Architects came through with the outstanding (and slightly scary) statistic that “79% of the global workforce are not engaged at work”.
79%!! Shocking.
‘Hotelification’ of the workplace was another great snippet from Kirsty Angerer at Leesman. This is essentially the repositioning of residential, retail, and office space to adapt to how employees are using office spaces in 2022.
Employees have been enjoying the reduced expense and time savings of working from home, so office spaces need to add extra value to the employee experience to make their use worthwhile. ‘Hotelification’ may well be the response to best drive this lulling workforce engagement…
… and if the majority of the workforce globally is disengaged, is this purely the fault of a physical workplace? If workplace design firms don’t adapt to the need to design effective workplace experiences for people, then they will not have the luxury of success they enjoyed pre-2020.
The CIPD has a great fact sheet on employee engagement and motivation, including a Good Work Index survey. This shows some of the other factors to consider regarding employee engagement.
The survey found that the quality of managerial relationships and support is strongly related to engagement, including job satisfaction, enthusiasm, effort, and intention to quit.
Different aspects of engagement are most closely related to different factors of job quality. For example, job complexity is most closely related to enthusiasm and effort. Meanwhile, job security and development opportunities are most closely related to overall job satisfaction and intention to quit.
Final thoughts…
Overall, it was great to be back at CoreNet global in person and I was pleased to see it was a very well-attended event. A huge well done to all the speakers, however my leaving thoughts are nagging me:
- Is physical workplace design dead in favour of purely employee experience design?
- How will employers maintain high levels of employee engagement in the coming years?
- Are people with disabilities being included in the conversation?
As a recruiter sitting amongst some 750 corporate real estate professionals, these are the questions and challenges that your future employees will be demanding of you.
If you were also at the event and we didn’t get a chance to speak, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above.
And as always, get in touch for a chat about your recruitment strategy or career development.
