Technopolis helps CxOs understand how workspaces support business strategy
Still today, too many companies neglect the role of workspaces in the overall success of the business strategy. To help the top management understand the importance of workspaces for the company’s long-term success and to help them make informed decisions, Technopolis has published a practical guide for CxOs.
Rapid changes in the business environment have increased the complexity of demands and pressure for business leaders. Many of the macro-level challenges have been unexpected, which makes it increasingly difficult for leaders to forecast changes in the operating environment even in the short term.
To help companies get the most out of their physical workspace and understand the different ways in which a trusted workspace partner can help them succeed, Technopolis has developed a practical guide for CxOs, a framework for leaders who want to harness the full potential of their workspaces to support the company’s strategy.
“Too many companies and leaders today see their office space and the related contracts as something purely technical, failing to recognize how those things affect the overall performance of their business. They might invest in things that do not actually support their strategic goals, such as the size of the office. This might lead them to miss many of the opportunities where workspaces could really support their success,” says Karri Hautanen, CMO of Technopolis.
The approach is presented in Technopolis’ new guide Making the Workspace Work for Your Strategy: A Practical Guide for CxOs . The guide offers an understanding of why you should approach the workplace strategically and tips on what you should consider when considering the office's role in your company, based on Technopolis’ more than 40 years of experience in providing workspaces for thousands of companies in Northern Europe.
The goal of the guide is to provide actionable insights on how workspace design can help leaders navigate in the current ever-changing environment. The approach is presented as a response to four main challenges and focus areas of top management today:
- While the shift to hybrid work brought greater flexibility to workdays, stress and anxiety among employees has increased simultaneously. In fact, according to a Gallup survey from 2022, as much as 60% of employees reported that they are feeling stressed at work every day. This means that there are even more stressed workers than in the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, which was the previous record year.
- Sustainability has made its way permanently to the top of the leadership agenda. While companies are constantly raising the bar and competing on pioneering sustainability initiatives, politicians and officials are also creating pressure in the form of rapidly tightening regulation – not to mention the growing expectations of other key stakeholders, such as investors, employees, and shareholders.
- It is also evident that the period of stable and predictable economic development has come to an end. The disturbances the global economy has faced within just a few years include pandemic restrictions, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical tensions, trade conflicts, rising energy prices, interest rates and inflation. When business leaders cannot predict the near macroeconomics in a reliable way, the significance of flexible business partners and contracts increases.
- As the fourth point, we highlight how AI is revolutionizing the nature of office work. By taking care of many of our routine tasks at work, the new tools make space for tasks that people do the best – things that machines cannot do well or at all. The change means that in the near future, our work will be more about interaction with others, more about ideation, and more about creativity. Therefore, office design needs to respond: we need spaces that foster relationships between employees and encourage creative thinking.