PART IIThe Responsible Workplace

“Human-centric workplace design is an ecosystem of optimized experiences and incorporates choice. We need to measure the value of office real estate by its ability to optimize performance. Great workplaces ignite great work. This is how top companies will sustain advantages in innovation, productivity and competitiveness.”

Diane Hoskins, Co-CEO, Gensler

A tectonic shift of the purpose of workplaces is underway. The nature of workplaces has already evolved, from all the images of exploitative, unhealthy workplaces of the early Industrial Age that one can conjure, through the other revolutions of mass production and technological acceleration, to the present time, when work and workplace are being revolutionized by the advent of digitization. The work performed today has evolved from functions centered solely on tangible products to knowledge-enhanced deliverables of products and services, with the demands of space changing alongside it.

Demographic shifts had already started to affect workplaces well before 2020, with the idea of a seamless live, work, and play environment starting to take hold in varying measures. Technology companies were praised for creating a completely different kind of workplace, with amenities, sports and fitness spaces, and collaboration spaces to attract and retain up-and-coming talent. Companies in other industries sought to adopt similar concepts, with the expectation that doing so would enable them to be equally ...

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