Designing for Hybrid Work

Creating an HQ consolidation strategy and hybrid work model for a healthcare organization

User Research | Strategy Development | Implementation

Spring 2018 - Winter 2021

With an upcoming HQ lease expiration, a healthcare organization sought to explore opportunities to optimize their office experience. Our team supported them in innovating their workplace practices to answer the following critical questions:

How do we best take care of our people so they can take care of their patients?
How can the experience of the workplace enable people to be more effective?
How do we maximize our investments while creating a state-of-the-art workplace?

Majority of my recent projects are under NDA. Please contact me to discuss project specific outcomes.

Research Methods

Survey
Data tracking
- Space analysis
- Badge analysis
Field study
Interviews
Employee focus groups
User journey mapping
C-Suite visioning session
Post occupancy evaluation

My Role

Coordinated data gathering, user research, and analysis efforts
Supported the development of strategy and scenarios
Led development of occupancy strategy and enablement of hybrid work

Understanding the User

To understand how the organization currently operated and uncover opportunities for the future we needed to first engage staff and gather feedback.

Our qualitative research consisted of 30 leadership interviews, 1 field study, 3 focus groups, and 1 C-Suite visioning workshop. Our quantitative research consisted of a 623 employee survey, badge analysis, and space analysis.

Through leader engagements our team was able to:

understand key business objectives and priorities
understand how teams would grow and evolve in the future
map key adjacencies and cross collaboration needs
identify key change gaps

Through employee engagements we were able to:

dig deeper into insights gathered from the survey
better define the desired future experience of employees
understand current workplace gains and pain points that ultimately impact productivity

Qualitative Research

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harris health focus group

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survey_1

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Quantitative Research

The employee survey assisted in

Defining work styles and work preferences
Understanding whether employees are well supported in daily activities
Assessing key areas of impact based on NPS, employee engagement, and workplace functionality

The badge & space analysis informed:

How space was being used and office utilization and mobility patterns
How space was allocated and how it aligned to staff's functional requirements
Whether the organization was ready for more flexible ways of working

Defining the Problem

With upcoming lease expirations for two administrative locations as well as major HQ renovation needs, our research uncovered four primary findings:

Outdated design and inefficient use of technology and policy hinder employees' daily workflows
There is a need to provide space and amenities that support health and well-being as it does not exist today
There is an opportunity to consolidate some or all of the admin functions to break down existing physical siloes
Inconsistent space standards and minimal flexibility lend to hierarchical notions and inefficiency of real estate

Building out the Strategy

Following the research engagements, the team met for an internal worksession to synthesize the data and formulate recommendations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations articulated a variety of strategies for each category: policy, technology, people & culture, and space.

The primary strategies executed were:

Co-locating admin functions from 5 different locations under one roof
Adopting desk sharing for hybrid (30% of population) and full telecommute staff (40% of population)
Shifting from 34% to 7% offices
Better organize space and people data in order to support occupancy management functions moving forward

Dina Kaganer