From Misalignment to Synergy: Improving Employee Experience through IT and CRE Partnership
The employee experience is increasingly becoming a board-level issue, with c-suite sponsorship. Yet, JLL research finds mismatched investment and poor alignment between stakeholders across real estate and IT significantly stimies progress toward creating an equitable workplace. The ripple effect of this disconnect spans talent retention, space utilization, technology adoption and operational costs.
Five years on from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, corporations are still struggling to adopt successful plans for an employee experience in the workplace that is worthy of a commute. Some are responding with strict return to office policies, while many are offering remote or flexible hybrid options. Amidst this clunky adjustment of ways of working, a key component is falling by the wayside: developing and maintaining a strong, equitable workplace culture.
Our recently published report, Earning the Commute, involves a diverse survey panel of both real estate and IT leaders and pinpoints several divergences between the two key stakeholders responsible for curating equitable employee experiences.
For instance, when asked to identify their number one barrier in facilitating an equitable workplace, real estate leaders found reported a “lack of adequate budget for technology investments” the number one barrier, whilst while their IT counterparts were more concerned around about “split responsibilities across key departments.”
These trends can be explained by the fact that the two different departments are dealing with different aspects of the same problem, but not doing analyses together. This leads to value leakage. Example: real estate doesn’t coordinate with IT to standardize A/V equipment, resulting in meeting room tech that’s incompatible with collaboration and space management platforms. This prevents a seamless user experience and deters from a positive UX for staff.
To remedy this, and the myriad of other challenges we outline around the employee experience, we offer a three-part strategy:
- Shift towards a product-based workplace model, that involves treating the design, amenities and services of both the on-site and off-site workplace as a product that must be monitored and updated to fit evolving needs.
- Introduce formalized, accountable coalitions to coordinate employee experience initiatives across multiple stakeholders like real estate, IT and HR.
- Instill adaptability into project delivery, involving creating or updating governance strategies for the digital infrastructure behind a workplace.
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Read the full research report: Earning the commute: Creating equitable employee experiences
