Transforming Work with Sophie Wade
104: Phil Kirschner — Integrating Workforce Innovation and Workplace Strategy
Phil Kirschner, Senior Expert and Associate Partner, Real Estate & People and Organizational Performance at McKinsey where he advises executive teams on the future of work, employee experience, organizational health, and workplace strategies. Phil discusses systemic changes, expected rebounds in cities’ commercial real estate, and organizational health. He shares insights about workplace utilization, the critical emphasis on ‘how’ we work and change management to evolve behaviors, and the new retail-oriented perception of work.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
[02:25] Phil calls himself an accidental work strategist, starting out in banking.
[03:37] Phil starts in the efficiency management group looking to save money in real estate.
[04:40] How workplace innovation by Google and Microsoft caught public attention.
[05:23] Competition for talent from other industries drives investment to improve work ‘place’.
[06:30] Balancing not having your own desk with other amenities to improve the experience.
[08:06] Trying to reduce office-based friction with shared environments.
[09:00] Most managers absorbed a bit more pain to give team members a better experience.
[10:00] The loss factor and importance of change management to establish new behaviors.
[11:32] Where managers set the example carefully, the highest satisfaction is reported.
[14:02] These are not real estate projects, but culture projects—requiring a cultural shift.
[16:21] Ten years ago, productivity at the bank was measured through self-attestation and surveys.
[17:00] Team dynamics, people’s ability to focus, and overall engagement all increased significantly.
[19:57] McKinsey’s Organizational Health Framework and Index helps analyze work practices and how these tie to performance.
[21:04] Studying fully remote companies to isolate specific variables, Phil finds them to be top decile performers.
[23:20] Organizational practice surveys show if you give someone flexibility, they are much more likely to report positive outcomes for the organization.
[25:25] You have to teach people how to use new environments and tools differently.
[27:15] The four ways companies are showing up in the world nowadays.
[28:35] Building facilities for very specific purposes rather than trying to solve all needs all the time.
[30:10] Clearly defining the purposes of a workspace unlocks better outcomes.
[32:37] Progressive companies with flexible hybrid policies are working hard to figure out how to adapt fully to all the new ways of working.
[36:45] Most companies need to be focusing on ways of working and responsive spaces.
[40:27] Technology is undoubtedly driving the change in how we work, Phil touches on how AI may change this further.
[44:22] Phil explains the increasing retail nature of our work choices and some of the implications of this when it comes to competition.
[46:56] The HR/IT/Real Estate stool now needs a seat to bridge the gap in employee and customer experience.
[51:10] RTO is not sustainable; Phil explains why and what RTO focused companies can expect.
[55:47] Phil breaks down what commercial real estate issues and positive trends to watch for in the coming years.
[59:05] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Stop thinking about inputs, the days in the office, or “what’s the right hybrid?” Focus on outputs and the impact on organizational health. Study work practices and outcomes across your organization based on how people work and collaborate to figure out the secret sauce, then pilot, test, learn, and scale those behaviors, and keep evolving.
RESOURCES
QUOTES (edited)
"Those work environments with the bean bags, the beautiful amenities, and the campus also have a desk for each employee. We didn’t have the means for that, so to give you a better experience, you had to make a trade with us: give up your assigned seat."
"We found that where you had the managers who were willing to be sitting in the open having calls or conversations in the open, those zones by far were the ones where people would report the highest satisfaction."
"These are not real estate projects, they are change projects. They are culture projects that happen to manifest in space."
"When you’ve created a culture where lots of work can happen in the open, it eases demand for the formal spaces."
"Fully remote companies that have never had an office, who were born remote and not forcibly remote are top quartile, if not top decile performers against McKinsey’s 20-year experience of measuring Organizational Health."
"If you give someone a choice in where they work, either in the office or home or when they’re working their hours, we find that they’re about one and a half times as likely to report positive outcomes for the organization."
"I am fully a believer that the ways of working are far more powerful as a tool for organizational performance and experience than where we happen to be working. And I wish I knew that 10 years ago."
"For a city like New York, we have to make it compelling and affordable for people to want to live here, even if they’re not working for someone who is here."
"I will go back for experiences that I enjoy, back to the same restaurant, same bar, same shows. We like that our customers are repeat customers. We can be repeat workers, and that’s going to be a huge unlock in the coming years."
"Changing the way we work is hard, no matter the best tools in the world. It's still hand-to-hand combat group by group, culture by culture, process by process. It’s hard, so instead of doing the hard thing, we do the easy thing and there is a call to all go back to the office."
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