Hybrid Work: Understanding Space to Create the Best Place

Over this past year, corporate real estate professionals worldwide have been challenged with responding to the sudden shift to a largely remote workforce and the uncertainty around how employees will respond to their return to the office.

Though the world of work was slowly changing before COVID-19 and companies like Microsoft were already building more flexibility into their work environments, services, and real estate portfolios, the pandemic greatly accelerated that evolution and is requiring us to test, learn, and adapt business strategies quickly.

On March 22, 2021, Microsoft released its Work Trend Index Report, which focuses on seven trends shaping the future of work, and gives a unique view into how human interactions are changing our notions of collaboration and productivity. It is a must-read for anyone in the real estate industry. The report makes it clear that corporate real estate professionals need to build agility into our portfolio and services to meet changing employee expectations of flexibility and productivity in the hybrid work model.

The data gives us a better understanding of the landscape, but it is not enough to inform our decisions alone. As employees settle into their preferred way to work and we move towards the normalization of this new model, a strong relationship between Microsoft’s Real Estate and Facilities team and our business group leaders will be key to our success.

It is a guiding principle for my team that our strategies lead with the employee experience. Once we understand what employees need to be productive, creative, and innovative, we can take that into the physical space and create a great experience. This is where the Relationship Managers on our real estate teams have been crucial. Similar to the traditional Portfolio Manager role (think Account Manager in a sales function), each Relationship Manager is assigned to a business group and works with their C-suite to translate business needs into real estate plans and operational execution. These Relationship Managers are plugged in at the start of strategic conversations such as headcount growth, locations, strategic space planning, and more. This results in a deep understanding of the type of work performed by the business groups as well as their unique productivity and space needs.

This type of close collaboration was happening prior to the pandemic but having access to the wealth of data from this unique role on my real estate team is helping to accelerate our understanding of the real estate services we need to support the future of work. 

With the Work Trend Index in hand, our Relationship Managers have been working directly with the teams to develop customized occupancy plans for hybrid work – including the appropriate level of social distancing and the needs for employee services in our work environments. This collaboration—supported by the anonymous facility and survey data on where and how employees want to work—gives us insights into how people are utilizing our spaces as we facilitate Microsoft’s movement through its Hybrid Workplace Dial.

With more than 57,000 Microsoft employees in the Puget Sound region, this role is helping my real estate team balance short-term needs with longer-term perspectives to inform our real estate and services strategies.