Delivering on the Brief & Creating the Ultimate Employee Experience
The brief, an all important starting point for interior designers in all sectors. Get that wrong, and your entire direction is misled. Listening to the client, deciphering what their needs are when they sometimes do not know it themselves, and providing that holistic solution - these are the challenges of the brief. The 2024 Workspace Design Show stage talk “How to provide better solutions, service clients well and create the ultimate employee experience” touch on some key considerations when serving the brief. Moderated by Dr Vanessa Champion, Editor and Founder of Journal of Biophilic Design, panellists included Darren Graver (Head of Workplace Experience, Trainline), Dominic Dungan (Creative Director, Oktra), and Toni Riddiford (Head of Office & Workplace Sector, Stride Treglown).
Vanessa Champion opened the talk with the question: Creating the ultimate employee experience, what does that look like? Darren Graver spoke of getting the fundamentals right - for instance, clean toilets and provision of refreshments - but also noted that every individual and every organisation are different. By starting with research on employee engagement and understanding how people enjoy different spaces, a designer is able create a workplace that encourages productivity. Dominic Dungan stated the need for a holistic design that considers the future use of the space, whilst Toni Riddiford highlighted the employee experience as one that starts from the moment they wake up and commutes to work, to the interaction with other occupiers of the workspace and the policies applied by the employer.
When considering the brief, Darren emphasised the need to first refer to the quantitative and qualitative data, such as, understanding where the demand of use is in the different work areas, and the qualitative needs of the user. Toni added the need for tools that captures data on every individual using the space, and using engagement and post-occupancy surveys to measure the success of a spatial design.
“[we] need to embrace the data led approach
a lot more in this industry.”- Darren Graver
Further thought provoking questions ensued, including, how to know when a designer is doing a good job, or that the brief is actually being met. Common themes in the responses were:
The need to reflect on a completed design via quantitative research on staff frequency, and appropriate use, of a space; and
The qualitative analysis on the key benefits individual employees gain from being present in a workplace.
Toni warns of the dangers in looking at masses of metrics, as responses to certain surveys can been dependent on the employee’s mood for the day. Instead, pulse type surveys - comprised of in-the-moment, short and concise questions - are being considered to minimise emotional bias. From the viewpoint of the client-side, Darren noted that there are many nuances to the way people work these days, and too many “cookie cutters” for office designs at present. As an occupier, Darren expressed the usefulness of having an external party challenging the user of the space as part of the design process.
Discussions wrapped up with the panellists agreeing on the following qualitative measures as a starting point for assessing the success of employee experience in a newly designed workplace:
Verbal feedback from clients in the new environment versus the old environment;
An employee’s proactive recommendation of the space to other users, being a strong indicator of success; and
Use of change champions to attain feedback on occupiers, post-handover stage, as part of the workplace ‘health check’.
Whilst the stage talk was in the context of workplace design, the fundamental principles can be applied to all design sectors, whether it be residential or other commercial areas. The importance of both qualitative and quantitative research, prior to commencement and post-completion of a design project, remain key in delivering on a brief and ensuring its occupiers attain the best possible experience. There is value in creatives turning to the statistics of occupier research before a design is put to paper, and certainly, the experts are supportive of this approach. Ultimately, successful occupier experience equates to positive wellbeing, and a space worthy to be talked about.