海角视频

People change faster than the spaces they work in. We use new tools to communicate and coordinate work. We adopt new schedules to provide flexibility.

We create new norms to set shared expectations. We enact new policies to ensure equity. Workplace strategy has always been about catching spaces, services, and systems up to people 鈥撯�痑nd maybe even anticipating how they鈥檒l work in the future. 

College and university workplaces have a lot of catching up to do. We hear from client after client that hybrid work is here to stay and that work patterns have stabilized 鈥� indeed Stanford Professor Nick Bloom鈥檚 national data shows this new normal with an average of 2.3 days per week working from home (January 2023 report ). 

Faculty and staff are working differently, but few universities have changed how they allocate or operate their spaces. People are still assigned a desk or an office even if they are only on campus a day or two per week. The mix of spaces doesn鈥檛 reflect the new purpose of the workplace: collaboration and community, with being . Few have added enough small spaces for videocalls, even though we now . 

海角视频 has been helping institutions with workplace change since well before the pandemic: understanding trends, assessing needs, creating the vision and strategy, developing workstyle-based space programming and planning, evaluating change readiness, implementing pilots, and facilitating change management.  

In this post, we compiled the articles, tools, and videos we鈥檝e shared over the years so that colleges and universities have the information you need to reimagine your workspaces. Your efforts may be about increasing engagement and productivity. Or about ensuring equity and environmental sustainability. Or about saving space and money. Hopefully all of these.  

Understanding the Landscape

Start by getting oriented to the trends impacting work and examples of how organizations across different sectors are responding 鈥� ideas tend to diffuse across industries at different paces. Workplace strategies like flexible working in shared spaces were the norm for consulting firms 25 years ago, then became common within other industries like pharma and tech 15 years ago and are just being introduced in higher education in projects like University of Minnesota鈥檚 Work+ program or at MIT Sloan School of Management. To do this: 

•  on how academic workplaces are evolving to create more shared, open, and flexible spaces for staff, part-time faculty, and full-time faculty  
•  on the University of Minnesota story of how we developed a workplace strategy and then piloted a flexible workplace program 
•  on the transformation of library staff spaces where staff engagement and productivity enable better support for students and faculty 
• ne on flexible work covering flexible schedules, spaces, services, and organizational structures 

Understanding Your People聽

Since the primary goal of any workplace change should be to better support the people working in it, understanding people, their needs, and how these are changing is critical. The workplace is truly a 鈥渙ne size fits none鈥� environment. You need to categorize people in terms of how and where they spend their time. These workstyles then allow you to get the right types, quantities, and organization of spaces to support them and give them choices in when and how to use these spaces. It鈥檚 also useful to spend time with your 鈥渓ead users鈥� whose unusual work patterns today will be the norm tomorrow. To understanding people: 

•  鈥撯�痺hat they are, how to create them, and how to use them 
•  on how to design and facilitate inclusive and productive stakeholder engagement 
• on how to foresee needs by shadowing lead users 
• s to evaluate the current or imagine the future employee experience (which might vary by workstyle) 

Explore Flexible Work and Flexible Workplaces聽

The simplest workplace is one where everyone works the same way, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, and is assigned a single space to do it in. But this isn鈥檛 true for most (any?) colleges or universities. Instead, you need to provide staff and faculty flexibility in where, how, when, and with whom they work. This means that rather than assigning everyone a desk or office, you figure out their workstyle and provide a variety of spaces they can use when they need to. To explore this paradigm shift:

•  on the why, what, and how of flexible workplaces 
•  based on a panel discussion with Elliot Felix and Duke, MIT, and UT Austin 
• R on your campus so that you can have a step-by-step roadmap to follow 
• Re-read this case study on the University of Minnesota鈥檚 Work+ program now that you understand the trends, the people, and the process 

Don鈥檛 Forget About Change Management聽

Programming, planning, resigning, and renovating the workspace will only get you so far. Think of your facilities as the workplace hardware and your norms and culture as the software.  is what you need to develop the software, communications, events, training, and support to make it work. 

Start by assessing everyone鈥檚 change readiness. Then design a change program to build on the strengths and address the barriers. Then deliver it, monitor progress, and adjust. If you can only do one thing, make it a norms workshop to set shared expectations for how you鈥檒l use space and technology; we increased employee satisfaction 71% at a technology company by developing and communicating their workplace norms without changing their physical spaces. To learn more about change management: 

• Read this case study about change management on an innovative workplace at the University of Michigan, where we saved faculty and staff an average of 4.26 hours per week in productivity gains
• Read this post on establishing norms in a mobile workplace where people can choose where to work based on the vibe (i.e., noise level and atmosphere)
•  on norms and workplace productivity

Push the Envelope聽

As you develop a workplace strategy that will meet 鈥� and hopefully anticipate 鈥� the needs of staff and faculty, consider ways get even more out of this change by including industry partners and/or surrounding communities. Once you break the mold of one person, one space, you not only have flexibility in where, when, and how people work, but who as well. Shared spaces could be used by community members (which you might already be doing in your library?) or by industry partners who might be working with faculty and students on a project (which you might already be doing in your incubator or innovation lab?). To get more out of a shared workspace: 

• Read this article on making university/industry partnerships that identifies the forms of partnership, the benefits, and the considerations 
• Read this whitepaper on creating campus coworking space to further industry and community partnerships and model workplace change 

One final bit of advice: do a pilot. Stories and stats from other universities and other industries are a great start. But the only way you鈥檒l convince people on the fence is with a local example that鈥檚 well assessed, comparing before and after the change to show its impact.

 provides an effective guide for this. First, he identified how ideas are adopted from group to group: 鈥渋nnovators鈥� who create new things, to 鈥渆arly adopters鈥� who want to try new things, to an 鈥渆arly majority鈥� who copy the 鈥渆arly adopters,鈥� to a 鈥渓ate majority鈥� that jump on the bandwagon once it seems like everyone鈥檚 doing it, to the 鈥渓aggards鈥� who鈥檒l only change when forced to it. Second, Rogers identified what people consider as they adopt a new idea: observability, trialability, complexity, compatibility, and relative advantage 鈥撯�痜ive questions to answer as you design and communicate the change.

Good luck with your workplace transformation!