The Proworking Roadmap: The Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy

The Proworking Roadmap
The Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy


In today’s increasingly-mobile and costconscious world, corporate real estate
executives are faced with unprecedented
challenges as they strive to find the right
balance between business demands
and worker enablement. Pressures
are mounting, as noted in Jones Lang
LaSalle’s biannual Corporate Real Estate
Trends report 2013, which cited 72 percent
of global companies now expect real estate
to drive workplace productivity and 61
percent of companies look to real estate to
drive people productivity.
With the “weight of the workplace” squarely
on the shoulders of the company’s real
estate team, executives are turning toward
innovative space curation and consumption
models to enhance business performance.
“Workplace” has taken on new meaning, as
it now refers to workplaces both within and
outside of a company’s portfolio of leased
or owned properties. Companies are
embracing a mix of solutions that include
space both inside and outside the office,
which reduce fixed-space commitments
for the corporation while providing workers
with greater choice as to where they
can work.

joneslanglasalle.com

Worker enablement is now a key driver
of both people and real estate asset
productivity, but it can be challenging
to optimize a real estate portfolio while
meeting the needs of a distributed, mobile
workforce. Technology is fuelling a mobile
workforce that prefers flexibility and choice.
An estimated 1.3 billion mobile workers
conduct work outside of a traditional
office today. The question is where does
a corporation place its employees to best
capture collaboration and innovation?
The emergence of coworking environments
serves a transitional consumer need,
but don’t fit as an enterprise solution where
security and reliability are paramount.
Enter proworking, a new approach to
improving corporate productivity by
dynamically balancing the changing
needs of the workforce and the portfolio.
Proworking is a natural extension
of coworking at the enterprise level,
consistently providing professional and
well-maintained work environments to
mobile workers by owners of real estate.
Businesses can now overcome the
barriers presented by traditional real
estate models and achieve greater

flexibility inside and outside of their
portfolios.
Forward-thinking corporate environments
are beginning to take note of how
proworking can support their overall
business goals. Proworking can suit the
needs of large enterprises by matching the
workplace supply and demand equation in
the following four steps:
•
•
•
•

Align the workforce
Match people to place
Create engaging environments
Expand boundaries

Watch Jones Lang LaSalle’s
proworking approach come to life
in an interactive video.


In this collection of executive opinions,
Jones Lang LaSalle outlines the
proworking approach and its implications
for large enterprises. Industry thought
leaders shared their insights on the future
of the workplace and how enterprises
unlock people and asset productivity
by moving outside of their four walls:

Mark Gilbreath, CEO, LiquidSpace:
Next-Generation Sharing Economies:
The Consumerization of the Workplace
John Hampton, Senior Vice President,
Innovation & Product Development,
Jones Lang LaSalle: Proworking:
Redefining the Workplace and the Role
of Corporate Real Estate

Bernice Boucher, Managing Director,
Workplace Strategy Lead in the Americas,
Jones Lang LaSalle: Productivity Begins
with Workplace Strategy
Steve Hargis, Executive Vice President,
National Director, Jones Lang LaSalle:
Characteristics of a High-Performance
Workplace

We encourage you to use this piece to start
a proworking dialogue. Join the movement.
For more information, contact:
John Hampton
Senior Vice President
Innovation and Product Development
Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc.
+1 214 438 6383
john.hampton@am.jll.com


Next-Generation Sharing Economies:
The Consumerization of the Workplace
By Mark Gilbreath, CEO, LiquidSpace

History suggests that what our generation
is going through right now is much more
than a hangover from a period of excess.
Across the sweep of recorded history,
there have been four “mother” moments
— periods of economic revolution where
everything changed. In every one of these
periods, there have been two conspicuous
factors present: the emergence of a new
energy paradigm, and the adoption of a
new communication paradigm.
So let’s take a quick walk through history.
8,000 years ago, the first revolution took
place. What caused it and what changed?
Stored grain represented a new energy
paradigm as society moved from hunting
and gathering to agriculture. Communities
were for the first time able to anchor and
organize in place, rather than following the
food supply. Written language emerged
as the new communication paradigm,
transforming the ability to chronicle and
disseminate ideas and histories. Physical
communities formed, structures were built,
diets improved. Culture was shaped and
reshaped in quick waves.
Fast-forward to the mid 1700’s: a new
energy paradigm was ushered in by the
steam engine, and the communication leap
came in the form of the printing press.
As a result, the first Industrial Revolution
took hold, and the locus of human
economic endeavor moved to factories,

while people and materials were
transported more efficiently. Relatively
Meanwhile, the printing press made
the wide dissemination of diverse ideas
a reality. Governments and religions
evolved, and were eventually overthrown.
The known world was explored and
documented.

of the telegraph opened the era of
electronic communications. Once again,
in a relatively short period of time these
advancements caused massive change.
The wide use of oil as a fuel enabled the
combustion engine and portable power,
and the invention of the telephone,
offered real-time communication.

Step forward another hundred years
to the second Industrial Revolution in
1870, and you’ll see another wave of
massive change. The discovery and
refinement of oil and the invention of
the internal combustion engine were
the new energy paradigm. The advent

Right now, we’re experiencing a
fourth wave of massive change.

Enter the Fourth
Economic Revolution

Today’s new energy paradigm is
renewables and post-fossil fuel.
Renewable energy and newly efficient
green technologies promise independence
form a fossil fuel-based economy.
Perhaps more importantly, such
innovations have changed expectations
for everything from building (LEED
certification) to lighting (CFL’s as a global
standard, supplanting incandescent light)
to cars (hybrids and plug-in electrics).

and their many uses — sales, business
development, and recruiting.
But this is all just the tip of the iceberg.

The communications paradigm is thirdgeneration electronic communications.
Smartphones bring us ubiquitous, mobile
connectivity to third-generation Web
technologies that range from Telepresence
services to social networks like Twitter
and Facebook. As the Arab Spring
demonstrated, the effects are profound.
Meanwhile, YouTube allows anyone in the
world to broadcast themselves. LinkedIn
has made virtual business networks,

The fabric of society was rewoven during
each of these periods of revolution. In
building practice, we’ve gone from mud
to stone to steel. We’ve gone from using
grain to steam to create energy and drive
consumption, and steam to oil. Now we’re
focused on renewables as the smart way
forward. Transportation has evolved from
foot to train, to ship, to the automobile.
Now, virtual technologies like Telepresence
and Skype supplant physical travel. The
model of ownership and job creation has

gone from chieftain to king, robber baron,
and then executive. Now we have the
entrepreneur.
Most important for your purposes, work
has changed through these revolutions:
farmers, laborers, and eventually, office
drones. Today, we’re a nation of knowledge
workers.
Accordingly, the workplace has evolved.
We used to work on the farm, and
eventually we moved to the factory.
Then came the office. Today, work is
anywhere you are.

a wonderful time to be in the business of
“Workspace”.
The Consumerization of Real Estate
A year ago the association formerly known
as the Office Business Center Association
International (or OBCAI for not-so-short)
threw off its boat anchor of a name and
adopted a new moniker, the Global
Workspace Association (GWA). That move
was about more than creating a pocketsized acronym. With that change, the
organization’s leadership sought to raise
a big tent with enough room to welcome
the wide array of places where working
professionals go to get stuff done as well
as the service providers that support them.
Where are the biggest opportunities?
It’s an exciting time, but one in flux.
There will be big winners and big losers.
Above all else, real estate is under great
duress, and as a result, it’s where some
of the best opportunities for innovation in
today’s economy present themselves.
Corporations are rethinking their facilities
strategies across the board—adapting to
new work patterns and cultural norms, and
grappling with economic and environmental
sustainability mandates. “Space as
a service” has emerged as the nextgeneration model for real estate fueled
by an explosion of third places offering
space to “work on the go”: coworking
spaces, office business centers, hotels,

and libraries. The corporate campus has
dissolved as a standard.
In parallel, the activity that gets done our
workspaces changes at an even faster
pace. Knowledge work is moving from
individual work to networked work, towards
constant collaboration and mobility as a
core competency.
What does this all amount to if you’re
interested in sharing economies, and the
future of work?
It amounts to the fact that the “workplace”
industry is transforming. It’s an incredibly
hard time to be in the old workplace
business—developing buildings and office
campuses. On the other hand it’s

What we’re witnessing is the
Consumerization of Real Estate unleashed.
WorkPLACE is becoming the real-time
choice of the employee, rather than a
dictate of the employer. And given the
choice, you can expect people to eat off
the full menu.
On the road with a report due? Check in
for an hour at the hotel business center.
Interview with a must-get job candidate?
Impress with the polished business center
boardroom. Looking for a bit of soul in your
environment while you brainstorm next
year’s product strategy? Spend the day at
the nearest Coworking space.

The past 10 years have seen a dramatic
shift in the landscape of work. A perfect
storm of factors have set “the office” on a
new course. Among them:
• ight-weight tech and ubiquitous wifi are
l
freeing workers from their desks;
• he digital generation is bringing a
t
different attitude about the life/work
balance and social engagement;
• mployers are awakening to the
e
economic burden of under-utilized real
estate assets and;
• ew players are emerging to provide
n
solutions that meet the growing demands
of a workforce on the move.
T
he impact of this game-changing shift will
be massive, and will include:
• uality of life and productivity wins for
Q
the individual.
• ramatic cost reductions and increased
D
workspace agility for corporations.
• bundant opportunities for new
A
entrepreneurs and existing companies
to innovate and build new businesses to
support this shift.
In addition to all these great benefits, we
have the potential to alter the planet’s
carbon trajectory. With more happy people,


The norm of 250+ square feet
per employee, typical from
the ‘70s through the ‘90s, is
plummeting to below 100 square
feet per employee at many
progressive companies.

working in fewer buildings, the planet
smiles.
Real Estate In Crisis
We have more commercial real estate
inventory than we will need for the rest of
our lives.
There are two drivers behind this sobering
fact: Firstly, commercial real estate
operated for too long as a supply-driven
marketplace, turbocharged by cheap
capital and complex financial instruments
that created a bubble of value still in the
process of venting.
Up until three years ago, supply steadily
outgrew demand. Today, over one billion
square feet of commercial workspace
inventory sits empty. The supply curve
actually surpassed the current level of
demand twenty years ago, but we kept on
building as demand flat-lined.

The second factor at play here is the
changing nature of work at a very
basic level, from “me” to “we”. This is
demonstrated by the dominant trend
towards more collaborative and more
distributed work. There is a drop in
space being allocated to each employee
in workspace environments across the
board. The norm of 250+ square feet per
employee, typical from the ‘70s through the
‘90s, is plummeting to below 100 square
feet per employee at many progressive
companies. This evolution in the allocation
of space serves to add even more
inventory to the excess of supply.
The net impact of these two factors is an
effective workspace vacancy of over 50%
—more space than we will likely absorb in
our lifetimes, even factoring in aggressive
estimates for population growth.
There is, quite simply, an overabundance
of supply in corporate real estate. Why
this is the case could fill another post,
but in short, it’s because new supply was
continually brought online long after the
demand curve flattened.
With the emergence of third places and
transactional workspaces like coworking
spaces and office business centers, we are
transitioning to a demand-driven economy.
It’s one that will naturally result in the more
efficient utilization of assets.

The sharing economy

and any requests inside that window are
put on a standby list. In contrast, Hotel
Tonight only offers rooms for the current
night, with a cutoff of 2 a.m. local time. It’s
a fascinating constraint, and one that has
propelled their business forward. When
people need a room immediately and
you’re able to provide them one, they will
remember you.

As it matures, the driving force of the
sharing economy will become time, and
the companies that can do business in
real-time will occupy a more strategic,
and profitable, place in the ecosystem.
Fresh off its $1 billion valuation, Airbnb
is the most common reference point for all
manner of “this for that” pitches bouncing
around the Valley right now, with many
new ventures proposing to be the “the
Airbnb of X.”
But Airbnb is only one species of the
sharing economy genus—a genus that will
stratify over the next few quarters.
Real-time makes your brand a hero
Hotel Tonight is a great example of the flip
side of the Airbnb coin. It focuses on realtime reservations, and the real-time use of
latent capacity.
Airbnb’s transactions typically take place
five or more days in advance of a stay,

Real-time can command premiums,
not just discounts
Of course, different markets and different
kinds of capacity have unique sensitivities
to time.
Uber’s car service business is incredibly
time-sensitive. One of its most common
use cases is trips to and from the airport,
which usually involves a high-stakes
deadline on at least one end of the journey.
Other popular uses are travel on a busy
holiday (think Halloween or New Year’s
Eve in New York City during a public
transportation strike).
The more time-sensitive a market becomes
for buyers and sellers, the more lucrative
the corresponding business opportunity.
This is an old lesson—price and revenue
optimization wizards hold time in the
highest regard. And as the time-sensitivity
of a situation increases, the number of
parties we’re willing to entrust with our
affairs dwindles to a small handful.

Real-time puts coveted data
in your pocket
What Hotel Tonight, Uber and my company
LiquidSpace have in common is that we
all know a lot about our customers’ travel
patterns.
Additionally, we can extrapolate a ton of
information about preferences—from who
customers are likely to collaborate with to
where they like to work or hang out.
With this real-time data, we’re primed to
find other ways to make your stay, ride or
meeting that much more enjoyable. We
can quickly provide add-ons that customers
need, such as snacks or printing, or partner
with other vendors who can.

Leveraging analytics
Whether by offering new services or
opening up this powerful real-time data, we
are exposing new revenue streams that the
sharing economy enables.
With enough time, any latent capacity
can be utilized. Each year at South by
Southwest in Austin, Texas, we see twelve
month’s worth of planning make use of
every nook and cranny.
On short notice, sharing economies are
harder to organize, and they involve more
risk. Real-time capabilities mean that you
sit closer to purchasing decisions, closer to
strategic imperatives, closer to profit and
loss, closer to sealed deals and averted
crises.
Real-time is difficult, and precisely because
it is so challenging to do real-time well,
and safely, the market will reward those
who invest in making the “here and now” a
priority. In short, you’re closer to risk, and
closer to reward.
Consumers want real-time access, and
businesses demand it. The sharing
economy is not only online, it’s also picking
up speed.

The path forward
The thing to focus on from here on out is actually pretty obvious to even
the casual observer. People are leaving work to get work done.
In some scenarios, we tell employees to leave work to get work done—
we give them pink slips, or ask them to work from home.
In other cases, alternative workplace strategies mean that you don’t need a
desk any more—instead, workers have access to a wide array of contexts
and collaborative spaces that better match their real needs. 82% of
Fortune’s “Best Places to Work” have implemented strategies like this, and
actively market their innovations as a recruiting tool.
Downsizing has also created an America of freelancers, where project
work accomplished by expert contractors rules the day. The “contingent
workforce” will double to 40 million people by 2020, representing almost
half of all US workers.
Today’s working millennials also have a big hand in this transition—they
see flexibility and new work lifestyles as a right, not a privilege. It’s what
they expect.
Finally, we leave work to get work done because technology lets us.
Laptops, tablets, better battery life, cell phones, Mi-fi cards, easy-to-access
public Wi-Fi networks, and online connectivity on planes have made it
possible to literally work on the beach.
As a result, whether you’re working at an office business center, a plane,
a train, an automobile, or even if at home, work is indeed where you are.
This fourth economic revolution will be distinguished by the proliferation
of the Sharing Economy and the harvesting of perishable inventory of all
flavors — beds, cars, household tools, and yes, great spaces to work.
We are midway through an economic revolution, and everything
is changing.


Proworking: Redefining the Workplace
and the Role of Corporate Real Estate

By John Hampton, Senior Vice President, Innovation Product Development, Jones Lang LaSalle

The world of work is undergoing
a continuing transformation.

The global financial crisis, rapid
technological advances, globalization
and changing workforce demographics
are changing where and how work is
performed. For corporate real estate
executives, portfolio management has
become extraordinarily complex, as the
workplace evolves and requires spaces far
beyond traditional corporate environments.
These trends have led to the emergence of
a new approach, known as “proworking,” in
which some forward-looking companies are
increasingly focused on worker enablement
as a driver of people and real estate asset
productivity. “Workplace” has taken on new
meaning, as it now refers to workplaces
both within and outside of a company’s
portfolio of leased or owned properties.
Using the proworking perspective, a
company adopts a holistic approach to its
use of real estate and commits to offering
multiple options for employees to be at
their most productive, in the places that
best support achieving business results.
Delivering that environment means
re-envisioning how and where workers
access the space and resources they
need. Based on a deeper understanding
of the workforce and occupancy needs—
including improved support resources,
expanded access and more choice
of locations—proworking empowers
employees to work efficiently in diverse
business environments that boost
productivity and business performance.


Proworking is a natural extension of
coworking at the enterprise level, in
consistently providing professional and
well-maintained work environments
to mobile professionals by owners of
real estate. Businesses need a way to
overcome the barriers presented by
traditional real estate models and achieve
greater flexibility.

The essential problem of space:
Where are the workers?

Proworking can help companies stay
nimble in an unpredictable environment by
combining the best practices of workplace
strategy with the underlying driver of
the corporate mission and culture. In a
fast-moving, ever-changing economy, the
organizations that can adapt to market and
economic forces will succeed—and those
that are built on a flexible workspace model
have the advantage because their cultures
will be wired for fluidity.

Whether a company is growing rapidly or
reshaping its global footprint, corporate real
estate can present barriers to growth and
flexibility. It constrains capital in long-term
lease or mortgage commitments, interferes
with monetization of unused space, and
creates inflexible structures for both
landlords and their corporate tenants.

Traditionally, companies have, of course,
leased or acquired space to house their
workers, with the goal of maximum
utilization to avoid excess expense.
However, traditional own-or-lease
arrangements can limit a company’s ability
to respond to changing conditions.

The traditional model is also inefficient.
In a typical U.S. or European company,
only 50 to 60 percent of desks are
occupied on any given workday.
Not surprisingly, 79 percent of U.S.
corporations have or plan to implement
mobility programs. More than 37
percent of the total global workforce, or
1.3 billion people, is predicted to work
away from assigned offices at least two
days a week by 2015.
Market data indicates that this mismatch
of workers and work locations is a
growing trend. In the United States alone,
approximately 95 million square feet of
sublease space was on the market as of
August 2013. Within the U.S. portfolios of
Jones Lang LaSalle’s corporate real estate
clients, comprising some of the largest
corporations in the world, 200 million
square feet of space is underutilized.
The proworking approach
Worker enablement has trumped facilities
management as a priority for corporate
real estate professionals, with 72 percent
experiencing high expectations to
deliver clear enhancement in workplace
productivity. Seventy-two percent
anticipate the transformation of their
workplaces in terms of quantity, quality,
utilization and density over the next three
years.4 Clearly, many companies are
eager to change their current workplace
strategies in search of more collaboration


and innovation, greater productivity,
employee satisfaction and talent retention.
This need requires a different approach,
one that uses technology as an enabler of
workplace strategy rather than the driver.

While these trends are encouraging, the
transformative pressures that have been
felt by CRE will only intensify in the coming
years. CRE teams will be faced with the
challenge of further increasing densities
and utilization rates without negatively
Ongoing pressure on operating costs
impacting quality or worker experience.
has already compelled more than twoThe need will grow for modern, flexible,
thirds of CRE executives to increase the
densely occupied high-quality space that
utilization rate of space on a global basis.
supports creative and collaborative work
Many corporate real estate footprints
and enables talent attraction and retention.
are shrinking, with 31 percent of CRE
Most critically, these workplaces may not
executives reporting a
necessarily be within
reduction in the size of
the walls of a company’s
their real estate portfolio Many corporate real
own facilities.
over the last three
estate footprints are
years. The majority, 79
Whether the workplace
shrinking, with
percent, says that space 31 percent of CRE
is physical or
utilization will increase
virtual, temporary or
executives reporting a
further over the next
permanent, creating a
reduction in the size of
three years, with only 42
self-sustaining, highly
their real estate portfolio productive community
percent forecasting that
over the last three years. of workers today
the real estate portfolio
will increase in size over
requires an expanded
this period.
vision of corporate real
estate. Like a city, a community of workers
Sixty-seven percent of CRE executives
needs certain elements in order to be
maintain that the quality of their workplace
productive—no matter where the work is
has improved during the last three years,
being done—and corporate real estate
demonstrating a focus on quality over pure executives are challenged to provide these
space utilization metrics. Two thirds of CRE critical workspace elements.
executives point to improvements in
the workplace from either a design or
The need for a more holistic approach
environmental point of view.
to corporate real estate has led to the
emergence of proworking, a new approach
to workforce productivity that changes

In essence, the study concluded that work
is what workers do, not the place where
workers go.
Proworking encompasses the diverse
workspaces that already are part of the
knowledge worker landscape. More and
more work is being done in “third places,”
or on-demand spaces outside of company
facilities. These third places may include
an employee’s home, a neighborhood
coffee shop, the library or other social hubs
in a community. Some forward-looking
companies are creating satellite offices
to provide a workplace and social hub for
mobile workers who rarely need “face time”
at the primary corporate campus.

how businesses share, access, lease and
conduct transactions involving corporate
real estate. It is based on the Scandinavian
ProWork Project, a long-term study aimed


at understanding the requirements of
productive knowledge work in physical,
virtual and social work settings, and how to
manage the workplace change processes.

Proworking provides a new alternative
model for dealing underutilized corporate
real estate spaces. New technology is now
available to help mobile workers locate
workspace for use by the hour, the day,
the week or more. A corporation can use a
matchmaking Web application to connect
its excess space with mobile employees
or even make the space available for other
companies to use. This flexible model
speeds and simplifies the process of
finding a workplace for mobile workers, and
expands the universe of options available.
This process of thoughtfully selecting,
preparing and maintaining spaces is
essential to providing highly productive
“prolocations.”

The workplace as a thriving city

Proworking requires not only available and
supportive workplace environments, but
all the elements required for productivity
as well. It should not be a surprise that
employees see a clear link between the
physical work environment and personal
productivity, and that the work environment
is very important to job satisfaction.8 And
so, companies continue to search for the
right combination of workplace elements to
drive performance.
Consider the analogy of a thriving city. A
workplace can be considered a microcosm
of a community, with the same five
requirements for a vibrant, productive
society. A city’s residents live and work
in communities, including physical
neighborhoods and affinity groups.
Residents need resources, including
retail centers, grocery stores, restaurants
and services, and they need access to
resources via transportation and Internet
connectivity. The capacity for commerce, or
the exchange of goods and services, drives
economic activity, while safety and security,
in the form of public and private safety
measures, allow residents to focus on work
and leisure rather than on self-protection.
Applying the prosperous city metaphor to
the workplace, parallels emerge. Like a
city, a company comprises communities,
but of work teams, whether ad hoc or
formal departments, who need resources,
which can include capital, colleagues,


a whiteboard, meeting space, wireless
Internet access and a place to sit. For
commerce—the exchange of knowledge
and skills to accomplish the work—workers
need convenient access to community
resources. Safety and security are also
required, in the form of physical safety and
the virtual security of an Internet firewall.

on portfolio optimization and facilities
management to creating engaging work
environments. Fulfilling this role, however,
requires corporate real estate executives
to leverage assets outside the corporate
real estate portfolio as readily as owned or
leased assets.

Within this analogy of the thriving city, the
provision of work-enabling features is more
important than the physical location of the
work. Both the company and its employees
benefit, as employees are empowered to
choose the space that is most productive
for the task at hand, while companies gain
flexibility and lower costs.

Ideally, the proworking approach compels
corporate real estate departments to
evolve into what CoreNet Global calls
“strategic enablers” for the work of
employees, working with human resources,
information technology and finance to
create engaging workplaces. Corporate
real estate professionals can become
facilitators for a network of distributed
activity nodes, whether owned or borrowed
(in the surrounding community), where
knowledge workers from multiple sectors

The proworking approach can transform
the role of the corporate real estate
department from its historical focus

Implementing the proworking approach

can convene to collaborate across the
globe, around the clock. Corporate real
estate can provide not just the facilities,
but also a menu of services and
capabilities, from small group meeting
rooms and private spaces to technology
for virtual meetings, to support productivity.
Align the workforce with business goals.
The role of strategic enabler requires
a broad set of capabilities and a deep
understanding of the business strategy
and corporate culture. How and where
is work performed? How do different
employee groups use their workspaces—
or not use them?
For example, product development work
may comprise a mixed group of employees
and contractors collaborating in 12- to
18-month cycles. The sales force may
need “touchdown” office space near clients
or, in a new market, near prospective
clients. Training staff may require meeting
space with large presentation screens.
Match people to the places in which
they are most effective. Combined with
an understanding of the workforce and
workflow, an analysis of a company’s
current real estate footprint and usage
patterns will reveal possibilities for different
work experiences. Core corporate real
estate competencies such as portfolio and
location strategy occupancy planning and
portfolio optimization can be used to gain
an understanding of supply and demand.

For example, frequency-of-use occupancy
data may indicate peaks and valleys in
the workflow. Onsite headcount may vary
at different times of the year, suggesting
that the company needs on-demand
space rather than a fixed expense that
is underutilized during non-peak times.
Business intelligence data may indicate a
future need for a large collaborative space
for a particular project, and it may indicate
that workers prefer offsite meeting space,
even though onsite space is available.
Looking far and wide for real estate usage
patterns may underscore the need for
alternative spaces in which employees
can gather to collaborate or simply share
the social experience that a workplace
can provide. Ideally, data aggregation and
usage studies will enable the corporate real
estate team to determine where and when
employees need to interact.
Create engaging work environments.
With the continued transformation of work
and the growth of the mobile workforce,
corporate real estate must expand to
include a range of flexible workplace
options. Today’s effective workplace
strategies focus on culture, connectivity,
collaboration and choice of workplace
rather than on specific corporate facilities.
In the proworking mindset, an engaging
environment involves membership
rather than ownership. The traditional
one-person-per-desk model no longer

serves knowledge workers best, and
the most productive workplaces create
non-territorial neighborhoods by function.
These workplaces provide a wide range
of environments—formal meeting zones,
casual brainstorming spots, IT stations,
private spaces, third space—for different
kinds of work.
Nor is the “ownership model” of one
seat-per-worker sustainable, given the
relatively low utilization levels on an
average day in a typical company. In
North America and Europe, for example,
job sharing, telecommuting and virtual
meetings continue to decrease traditional
office space usage.
Proworking charges the corporate real
estate department with finding the right
balance between supporting individual
and team productivity. When employees
have greater control over how and where
they work, they are empowered to choose

the space that is most productive for the
task at hand. With spaces that support
quiet or confidential work, as well as
virtual or face-to-face collaboration, the
workplace can drive cross-pollination of
ideas, employee engagement and foster a
sense of community. It may sound counterintuitive, but employees who are given
greater autonomy are often more engaged
and loyal to an organization, even without
personal desks.

cultural and environmental advantages for
productivity.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace,
the organizations that attract and retain
the most effective talent share attributes
that consistently foster innovation, drive
productivity and grow revenues—even
with highly varying corporate cultures.
A high-functioning organization creates a
shared culture and an environment that
supports its people, accurately reflects
the way people work in the 21st century
and aligns the physical workplace with
business goals.

Many forms of third places have emerged
as mobile knowledge workers have
grown as a proportion of the workforce.
Such venues include co-owned/leased
facilities, satellite corporate offices, hybrid
facilities housing both resident and mobile
employees, or even in-house lounges that
provide a space for formal and informal

Expand the boundaries of the corporate
real estate portfolio. The proworking
approach means that corporate real
estate includes anywhere that work
is being performed—and that means
moving beyond conventional thinking and
traditional space to improve business
performance. The workplace may be a
home office, a corporate facility, a satellite
office, a hotel or airport lounge, or any
number of “third places” that provide


Forty percent of workers report coming
to the office regardless of telecommuting
options because of the tools and
technology available in the corporate
facility. Proworking proposes that, as
strategic enablers, corporate real estate
departments consider how to make tools
and technology available outside the office.

collaboration and socializing. Coworking
facilities have become increasingly
available, although targeted primarily at
self-employed workers and entrepreneurs.
Incorporating alternative workspace
into the corporate real estate strategy
is evolving to a new level with the
development of service providers offering
on-demand models of office space and
technology to serve mobile workers and
knowledge work as a whole. Flexible
working strategies will become pervasive
as a real estate solution to meet business
needs, as the work force of 2020 demands
it. These offerings place productivity
back in the hands of businesses through
a network of trusted, flexible work
environments tailored to help companies
and individuals flourish.

Several services have emerged to match
workplaces with workers on an hourly,
weekly or monthly basis in lieu of a
traditional lease or sublease. For corporate
real estate owners with underutilized space
and mobile workforces, a new service
offering has recently become available
for corporate real estate executives
specifically to streamline the matchmaking
of surplus space and workers in need of
a work environment. It is executed with a
real-time online marketplace and coupled
with services to help companies assess
workforce space requirements; align
people and venues; make underutilized
space ready for productive use; connect
corporations with a vetted network
of professional locations outside of a
company’s portfolio; and manage those
locations on an ongoing basis.
As a secure, online marketplace for
short and medium-term needs, such a
service provides immediately available
workplaces that offer convenient, secure
and professional environments.
Workforce applications are limitless,
particularly for short-term project teams in
need of temporary in-person collaboration;
“touchdown locations” near corporate
or client offices; flexible sales offices in
new markets; or collaboration space for
suppliers, vendors and consultants.
These spaces become trusted third places
for companies with close affinity to the
venue host.

Conclusion
Long a strategic vision for many companies, workplace transformation
is taking on a new resonance in many countries as senior business
leaders respond to an improving economic environment. Facing increased
pressure to improve the productivity of the workplace, the workforce, the
business and the underlying real estate assets, corporate real estate
executives must reinvent their role to encompass all the elements of the
community that is the workplace.
Companies applying the proworking approach recognize its potential
for increasing productivity—and the very way corporations and their
employees relate to one another. From a business perspective,
proworking has the potential to improve space utilization and flexibility
while possibly reducing overall real estate costs. For workers, the
proworking approach offers what many are already pursuing through
informal means: opportunities to collaborate and to choose where they
can be most productive.
Rather than resisting this reinvention, CRE executives can choose to
embrace the proworking concept and become collaborative change agents
within their organizations. Proworking demands collaboration among CRE,
human resources, information technology and finance in providing the
resources that workers need wherever they are working. CRE teams have
an opportunity to play a leadership role with their functional peers to deliver
positive change across their organizations where workplace productivity
is concerned.

Productivity Begins with
Workplace Strategy
By Bernice Boucher, Managing Director, Workplace Strategy Lead in the Americas, Jones Lang LaSalle

Knowledge workers are often most
productive in workplaces that support
collaboration and creativity—but how do
managers ensure the environment in which
those key professionals work delivers on
its promise? Companies typically have
focused on facilities costs rather than real
estate’s potential to support employee
performance and results, so many times
there are hurdles to overcome.


A typical knowledge-oriented organization
spends significantly more on its workers
than its space. For these companies,
productivity is not about presence—that is,
sitting at a desk—it is about performance.
The right workplace strategy can help
increase shareholder value, achieve
business goals and create a highperformance, cohesive corporate culture.

This tension between cost and the need
to invest in strategies that create value is a
shared challenge for corporate real estate
executives around the world. According
to JLL’s Global Corporate Real Estate
Trends 2013 survey, 72% of corporate real
estate executives face high expectations
to deliver clear enhancement in workplace
productivity and 65% are charged with
transforming the quality of the workplace.

The JLL workplace strategy team has
identified five workplace principles that
support increased shareholder value,
improved business performance, a
cohesive corporate culture and other
corporate objectives:

1

Work is what employees do, not where
they sit. The focus of work and
workplace is no longer about squarefootage per person, but about revenue
per person.

2

Think membership, not ownership.
The traditional one-person-per-desk
model does not best serve knowledge
workers. The most productive workplaces
create non-territorial neighborhoods by
function. These workplaces provide a wide
range of environments—formal meeting
zones, casual brainstorming spots, IT
stations, private spaces—for different kinds
of work.

3

Do more with less. The “ownership
model” of assigning a seat to every
employee is no longer sustainable,
given that 50% of desks are vacant on
an average day in a typical company. In
North America and Europe, for example,
job sharing, telecommuting and virtual
meetings have significantly decreased
office space usage. Vacancy translates
into underutilized real estate and a lessproductive environment.


4

Provide choices to enhance
productivity. Companies must find
the right balance between supporting
individual and team productivity. When
employees have greater control over
how and where they work, they are
empowered to choose the space that is
most productive for the task at hand. With
spaces that support quiet or confidential
work, as well as virtual or face-to-face
collaboration, the workplace can drive
cross-pollination of ideas, employee
engagement and foster a sense of
community. It may sound counter-intuitive,
but employees who are given greater
autonomy are often more engaged and
loyal to an organization, even without
personal desks.

The most productive workplaces
create non-territorial
neighborhoods by function.

5

Flexible workspaces translate into
agility. In a fast-moving, everchanging economy, the organizations that
can adapt to the market and economic
forces succeed—and those that are built
on a flexible workspace model have the
advantage because their culture is wired
for fluidity. People and technology are
in the right place at the right time, which
drives innovation.

Conclusion
Productivity depends on the ability of a company to get the most out of its
employees in line with the organization’s objectives. The right workplace
can shape culture, promote collaboration, inspire ideas, respond to trends,
improve performance, build retention and grow the bottom line.

A version of this article originally appeared
in GlobeSt.com.

Characteristics of
A High-Performance Workplace

By Steve Hargis, Executive Vice President, National Director, Jones Lang LaSalle

Companies known for high-performing
workplace environments share eight
characteristics, regardless of industry.
By focusing on the goal of workplace
productivity, the proworking approach
compels a company to look beyond its
traditional facilities to provide places that
engage workers with each other and the
company as a whole.
An effective workplace comprise the
following characteristics:
Collaborative community. Creating a
collaborative community of cross-functional
workers who want to interact together
to solve challenges is fundamental.
Collaboration brings people out of silos,
shifts the organization from “me” to “we”
and promotes a lively cross-pollination
of ideas that pays dividends in workforce
retention, employee productivity and
innovation.
Alignment with corporate brand
and values. A shared mission—not
specific policies—creates a resilient,
high-performance organization. When
culture is a strong reflection of the CEO’s
vision, it creates an underlying bond and
fosters a sense of identity. Productivity
drivers naturally flow from shared values,
generate revenue and achieving savings.


Increased choice and autonomy. When
people have greater choice about how and
where they work, they are empowered to
choose the most productive space for the
task at hand. This can happen by shifting
from an ownership to a membership model
featuring non-territorial neighborhoods
comprising a variety of work areas, both
individual and group, concentrative
and collaborative.
Agility. In a fast-moving, ever-changing
economy, the organizations that can adapt
to market and economic forces succeed—
and those that are built on a flexible
workspace model have the advantage
because their culture is wired into fluidity.
People and technology are in the right
place at the right time, and this drives
innovation where and when you need it.


Technology adaptation. Organizations
need to ensure that they have the
appropriate infrastructure, offering the
ability to continually upgrade without
interruption to the business. As workers
increasingly prefer “BYOD,” or bring
your own device, the enterprise must
support their networks, integrate data and
implement appropriate security.
Destinations of choice. Shaping
corporate culture through workplace
destinations can protect the organization’s
cultural identity and sense of community.
While virtual workplaces will always be
required, they do not provide the cultural
boost and connectivity of a shared physical
space. Great workplaces embrace
paradoxes: balancing concentration spaces
with collaboration areas, formal meeting
spaces with social interaction, and
security with accessibility.

A high-quality experience for
its employees. If workplaces are dull,
monotonous and uninspiring, people
won’t want to come to the office, and
consequently may balk at policies
that require face time. By creating
environments where people want to work,
employee satisfaction rises, turnover drops
and behaviors change—in turn driving
productivity and revenue.
Integration of people, technology and
space. When these three elements work
together toward common goals, great
things can happen. Integrated teams
provide a smooth flow of information,
shared decision-making and an appropriate
allocation of resources. This translates into
the right people in the right space with the
right tools available at the right time:
a formula for success.

Jones Lang LaSalle is a financial and professional services firm specializing in commercial real estate services and investment
management. Our more than 40,000 people in 1,000 locations in 70 countries serve the local, regional and global real estate needs of
those clients, growing our company in the process. In response to changing client expectations and market conditions, we assemble
teams of expert s who deliver integrated commercial real estate services built on insight and foresight, sound market research and
relevant knowledge. We attract, develop and reward the best, and most diverse, people in our industry, challenging them to develop
enduring client relationships built on quality service, collaboration and trust. For further information, visit www.jll.com.

The Proworking Roadmap: The Enterprise Guide to Workplace Strategy

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