Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytics, shares research on telecommuting and the Mount Rushmore of remote-work issues: productivity, culture, innovation, and employee engagement. They also discuss benefits of remote work, challenges for mid-managers, activity-based workspaces, demographic trends, the future of work with chat GPT, importance of culture and leadership, and the interconnection between profits, people, and the planet.

Dave Cairns, SVP Office Leasing for CBRE Canada, leasing office space to some of the largest companies with a presence in Toronto, squeezed eight years of traditional office time between a very unconventional post-college career in poker, and more recently, embarking on a 'digital home-ad' life while taking a leadership position on commercial real estate transformation, and becoming a prolific publisher on LinkedIn. I am so excited to share this episode with you. East of the Eastern time zone, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, lies Prince Edward Island (PIE), just off New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Atlantic time zone. This where Dave Cairns and family relocated. As he explains, "my wife and I moved to an unconventional place because of a pandemic set of learnings," a place they were considering a vacation home, they would now move full time to raise a family and embrace the life of digital home-ads. Dave inhabited a digital world long before covid, online poker. And it was in this world, that he developed his very unique perspective on the strengths of community, engagement, relationships, and transactions that do happen digitally, the positive impact growth in digital worlds has on corresponding physical worlds, and finally, the difficulty many non-digital natives are having during this time of transition. My conversation with Dave Cairns Don’t Gamble 1-800 Gamblers Anonymous Hotlines  https://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/hotlines Gamblers Anonymous, International Service Office, 1306 Monte Vista Avenue, Suite 5, Upland, CA 91786, Phone (909) 931-9056 Episode Page on Work 20XX - Dave Cairns: Arbitrage, Asset Class, Asynchronous, As-A-Service | Work 20XX #11 - Work 20XX Watch on YouTube - Dave Cairns: Arbitrage, Asset Class, Asynchronous, As-A-Service | Work 20XX #11 - YouTube   Disclaimer and Discloser  All products, product names, companies, logos, names, brands, service names, trademarks, registered trademarks, and registered trademarks (collectively, *identifiers) are the property of their respective owners. All *identifiers used are for identification purposes only. Use of these *identifiers does not imply endorsement. Other trademarks are trade names that may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or names of their products and are the property of their respective owners.  We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.  © Copyright 2023 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved  

Tyler Sellhorn runs remote for Polygon Labs, a blockchain development platform with 500 employees distributed all around the world. Less than 4 years ago, he was teaching high school algebra for the Fort Wayne Community school district, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the 140th largest metro area in the US, not necessarily known for its bustling blockchain sector. Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on the transitioning world of work, where we bring you the best minds in the business to provide insight, direction, and specific actions that leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use as we experiment our way forward. I started the process with Tyler with every intention to deep dive into remote team management best practices, leveraging Tyler’s day job, and Podcast where he’s hosted the biggest names in the workplace. And yet, I find his career pivot to be even more compelling, and something more broadly applicable to an audience far larger than those focused on remote work, including those laid off in the past, and those still to come. How do people, transition to industries, that didn’t even exist when they finished our formal school? Thousands of people are getting laid off, automation will remove many jobs, many of which are crap, but still. The good news is there are so many avenues to find a match for your current aptitude, applied to a new field, with some learning of the vocabulary, norms, community, discussions, hot button issues, voices, etc. And this is accessible online. Whether that be getting a certification for in demand cloud or data skills, or becoming a remote work expert as Tyler did, the resources are available, the information is available, and the community is available, you just have to pick which community fits your objectives. Tyler transitioned from High School Teacher to Customer Success for a software company, then Remote and Ops for a blockchain development platform, picking up hosting the ‘We Work Remotely” podcast along the way. As Meg Bear likes to say, the secret to re-skilling is doing. What Tyler shows is all, is that the resources are there, listen to the experts, read the posts, and take the certification. The open-source ethos, layered on vast libraries of information, has changed the way we continue to learn, both for fun, professional development, and the more frequent than comfortable career pivot. My conversation with Tyler Sellhorn   YouTube - Click Here 

Tracy Hawkins, former VP, Head of Real Estate & Work Transformation, Twitter was well into the hybrid / remote work transformation before Covid thrust the concept on the rest of us. Moving from the London and Dublin offices to Twitter Headquarters in Downtown San Francisco, she and her team had already expanded their thinking from a purely real-estate-centric focus on leases and occupancy, to how they could use the tools at hand to build and support the broader employee experience, culture development, and taking a more human-centric, activity based approach to how her team could enable Tweeps to do their best work, regardless of location. Covid certainly accelerated this, and Tracy’s team formally moved from the finance team to the people train in 2020. Tracy has executive support as she and team focused on the details, everything from formally institutionalizing, training, and promoting behaviors, norms or ‘etiquettes’ around asynchronous communication, fewer meetings, no-meeting Fridays, Perching, and more. Compete with Senior executive support and modeling of desired behaviors. As for space, the goal was choice, giving people a variety of environments to choose from, when they want to come in to accomplish something, be it heavily eam collaborative work, culture building and team bonding, or isolated focus work, Tracy and the team focused on providing options. Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on the transitioning world of work, where we bring you the best minds in the business to provide insight, direction, and specific actions that leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use as we experiment our way forward. In this far-ranging conversation, we cover these topics and more including the role of data, and a number of no-cost ways you can begin to better support all the people in the organization. Without further delay, a conversation with Tracy Hawkins Work 20XX Episode Page with links, references, and transcript  - Tracy Hawkins: Talent, Twitter, People and Perching | Work 20XX #09 - Work 20XX  YouTube - Click Here 

Shared pain builds camaraderie and strengthens ties as we rally around a cause. Workplace professionals grabbed internet megaphones and started sharing best practices almost immediately in the spring of 2020 as the digitization of work took a step-function leap forward. This open-source ethos of sharing continues today because as much as we have over two years of experience, the future is still undefined. A learning mindset and all that implies, has never been more important.  Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on work, and the future of work, where we bring you the professionals to provide insight, direction, and specifics actions leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use to navigate these sometimes choppy waters. Maribel Lopez, Founder and Principal Analyst, at Lopez Research, has been doing her part on this path of discovery.  Maribel has been working in ‘technology enablement’ her entire career, founding Lopez Research in 2008. In this far-ranging conversation, we discuss how organizations are completely rethinking the importance of and prioritization of well-being as an objective which digital workplace systems weren’t originally built to do. Now that all devices are connected and data is at our fingertips (literally), the digital work experience is about thoughtful, contextual, and intelligent applications, doing the right things, at the right time, with the right information. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should (cough, ‘surveillance’).  I was excited to get Maribel’s take on the entire spectrum of inputs impacted by the term-soon-to-be-dropped ‘future of work.’ It’s just ‘work’, the future is unknown. The digitation of work has reshaped the data conversation, shifting the focus from ‘can we get data’ to ‘we have super granular data, now what? What’s proper, what’s really valuable, and what moves us toward desired objectives?’ The ubiquity of data, especially coming from employee surveillance systems and activity trackers, makes the use of that data and its impact on culture and productivity part of the digital workplace calculus. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.  We covered the benefits of asynchronous communications and some meeting best practices. Offices are moving from connected spaces to intelligent, smart assets, adding additional layers of context nuance to the data. Managers need assistance and training in managing their teams and working products in a hybrid world. Flexibility, in time and place, is a high-value component of DE&I initiatives.  And finally, in our technology-obsessed connected world, the skill, practice, and art of communication have never been more important. Without further delay, a conversation with Maribel Lopez.

Workplace professionals have worked with corporate real estate and facilities to build productivity and people-centric improvements in the office and work environment for decades. But resistance was usually high and progress measured, frustrating many who saw opportunities to do so much better and move beyond historical habits that continued to dictate so much of our work routines. As we come into Fall 2022 in the northern hemisphere, summer ends, and the kids go back to school, While some companies go fully remote or fully on-site, it appears that most companies are going to offer their people some type of hybrid working plan. The bad news is no one really knows what Hybrid means generally, and more specifically for their team. The Good News, there are workplace professionals who have the knowledge, experience, and tools to help. Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on work, and the future of work, where we bring you the professionals to provide insight, direction, and specifics actions leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use to navigate these sometimes choppy waters. Adrienne Rowe is Head of Workplace Strategy at Raytheon Technologies. Adrienne’s college summer internship sweeping the streets of Disney World turned into a 20+ year career with Disney, where she developed many of the foundational values that continue to surface today, starting with the connected threesome of the customer, the product or experience, and the employee. Purposeful attention to detail centered on the customer’s experience defines the perception of the company in the customer’s mind. In Workplace, Adrienne works in partnership with other departments like real estate, facilities, communications, technology, human resources, and others, to create a collection of work environments that are not just a place for calls and meetings, but where people can do the best work of their lives. Adrienne and I discuss a number of strategies and methods organizations can use to increase the chances of hybrid work success moving forward. Starting with the reality that we don’t have all the answers, and must be willing to try some things, and learn, knowing that not all the experiments will work. It’s a dynamic and changing world of work, and we’re entering new territory. As Beth Comstock reminds us, get comfortable being uncomfortable. As we dive into the vocabulary and priorities of the hybrid workplace, most importantly, Adrienne reminded me, that we have to think and frame the conversation not in the words of the experts, but in the words of people learning new behaviors, new management techniques, new 1:1 strategies, and more; many for the first time. I’m thrilled to share this interview with one of the leaders in workplace strategy. Without further delay, a conversation with Adrienne Rowe.

What happened when the world of ‘agile, flexible, and dynamic’ crashes into what my Wharton Real Estate Professor used to describe as  ‘big, lumpy, assets’? Best in class Real Estate, Facilities, and Workplace Professionals are on board, and early results are out, including the recent opening of LinkedIn’s Office One, where 50% of the workstations were removed, and replaced with over 75 different seating configuration options throughout the building. Who better to ask than Julie Whelan, Global Head of Occupier Thought Leadership for CBRE? Julie has been leading a longitudinal study with occupiers since 2015 and shared some of the latest results on Work 20XX, a show focused on work and the future of work. In this episode, Julie shared some of the latest data from the Spring 2022 US Office Occupier Sentiment Survey.  Individual workstation occupancy has been in decline long before 2020. Ironically, Julie and the team published Global Outlook, “The Age of Responsive Real Estate’ in March 2020, foreshadowing a more flexible, activity-based real estate portfolio. And as we’ve repeatedly seen, Covid accelerated said transformation, compression 10 years into two.  ‘Activity based’ is the way to think about usage, which drives employee experience and productivity, which drives retention and innovation. No one wants to be considered overhead or SG&A. How can Real Estate and Facilities professionals use their expertise and resources to help make everyone more productive?   Real Estate also represents a huge lever in achieving corporate sustainability objectives, which are important for everyone from the boardroom to line people.  These are still early days. Listen, watch the data, and be ready to adjust.  Without further delay, enjoy this conversation with Julie Whelan  This Episode of Work 20XX is brought to you by Webex by Cisco.  Webex Ahead Page - Click Here  Work 20XX Episode Site with Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here 

Bad meetings are the bane of the modern working world. The back-to-back, uninterrupted energy crushers have only gotten worse over the last two years. We’re asked to be “always-on” and ready to jump on the next notification (i.e. email, message, IM, DM, text, etc.). This type of work culture is burning people out to the point we gave it a name: “The Great Resignation.” There’s a better way.  Welcome to Work 20XX. A show focused on work and the future of work, as the world of 2019 fades further into the distance. I wanted to move from beyond meeting bashing to sharing best practices. And while some organizations and consumers of expensive executive time do invest in this most important skill, most don’t, and assume that somehow, people will get it. We’re still collectively battling “We’ve always done it this way.”  Welcome Shani Harmon, Co-Founder & CEO of ‘Stop Meeting Like This.’ Shani shares the best practices, tips, and tricks that many of our managers seem to miss, including when NOT to have a meeting (i.e. weekly status meetings).  And while we already know many of the tasks to improve the probability of success (e.g. agenda, objectives, clear roles for each participant), Shani shines a light on many of the gravitational forces, (e.g. institutional, cultural, social, and psychological) that keep us from being more effective, including fear of missing out (FOMO), office politics, and lack of trust due to ineffective communication cultures, channels, and systems. Hopefully, this combination of simple instruction, and focus on the real barriers to implementation, will help you and your team learn and adopt the mindset and techniques to start gradually removing barriers. You’ll end up with more effective meetings, more effective people, higher quality work, and less burnout. And you won’t have to ask your people to turn the cameras on.   Without further delay, enjoy this conversation with Shani Harmon. This episode of Work 20XX is brought to you by Webex by Cisco  Webex Ahead Episode Page - Click Here  Work 20XX Episode Site with Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here 

Do you know the biggest challenge your team faces outside work right now? Be sure to ask and listen. And watch PayPal’s Dave Montez on the power of the one-on-one. Welcome to Work 20XX. A show focused on work as we continue to navigate these transformational times. I am your host, Jeff Frick. Whether you’ve been on our Work 20XX journey from the first step or just joining us now, you can quickly grasp a consistent theme—transitioning more work activities to asynchronous and reducing the number of face-to-face meetings. We’ve been advocating the investment in automation of routine tasks and powering self-service as the default way to find information. The reason for this ruthless prioritization is simple—to put people at the top of the list! Not human resources, but the people, with all their subtle and not-so-subtle nuances, interests, imperfections, and unique perspectives. Invest your most precious resources, your time and attention, into the people who will have a significant impact on the success of your endeavor. An engaged team will deliver better results. How do you create and nurture an engaged team? How do you measure their outcome when not working in person together? In Episode 4, we dive into the art of the one-on-one, with a master of the art, PayPal’s Chief Audit Executive Dave Montez. Full disclosure, I’ve known Dave for decades, and a year ago he shared his measurement technique of over-indexing on one-on-ones, in a way I’d never heard before. Again, pulling from lessons shared by Darren Murph, Meg Bear, and Ryan Anderson, the best way to engage people is to ask them questions and listen. And listen to the question behind the question, and then do something about it. And the best way to really understand your people is to get to know them. And Dave doesn’t just talk the talk—he spends a minimum of two and a half hours per day with individual members from their globally distributed team of over 80 people. Without a doubt, Dave sets the standard for anyone looking to invest time in developing their people. In this segment, he shares some of his processes, and more importantly, the results of what he calls the ‘compassionate engagement.’ You won’t be disappointed. So, without further delay, my conversation with Dave Montez. This episode of Work 20XX is brought to you by Webex by Cisco  Webex Ahead Episode Page - Click Here  ork 20XX Episode Site with Transcript and Show Notes - Click here   

Welcome to Work 20XX. A show focused on work as we continue to navigate these transformational times. I am your host, Jeff Frick. In this episode, we explore the world of Design, Real Estate, and Facilities through the eyes of long-time industry veteran Ryan Anderson, Vice President, Global Research & Insights, MillerKnoll. No surprise, these professionals are moving from cost center/efficiency thinking to a more human-centric, and ‘seat-at-the-table’, rethinking their resources. How can we use our portfolio of resources? (real estate, facilities, interior design, remote support, etc) to help our People CREATE the BEST WORK of their CAREERS. It’s hard to attract talent, you want to retain good people, you’re looking for engagement. I invite you to take raise your expectations by changing the focus to the small discrete things Ryan and the professionals at Herman Miller Labs have been studying and documenting and reporting for decades. I didn’t realize how much the tethered-PC infrastructure of the last several decades inhibited the execution of Activity-based spaces, something on design boards long before the PC. The infrastructure has caught up with the vision, with advances in Mobile and WiFi technologies, powerful handsets, and the proliferation of the cloud as an application delivery method. No department wants to be a cost center, and by shifting the focus to human productivity, from spreadsheet-centric optimization and utilization, Real Estate and Facilities are stepping up to do their part, in collaboration with HR and IT. ‘Average’ offices spaces, where everyone got the same ‘here’s your computer here’s your chair’ regardless of function aren’t good enough anymore. A single space built to accommodate all can’t be optimal for the individual, doing all types of work, in all kinds of conditions. Historically, organizations, over-indexed ‘private desk/cube/office’ and under-indexed in meeting collaboration space, even as private desk utilization rates continue to drop, even before the pandemic. In fact, offices should invest in places that support these activities including Community Socialization, Team Collaboration, and Individual Focus work. In this far-ranging conversation, Ryan shares his deep data-based expertise and best practices. The pandemic showed that work could get done outside the office, and on closer inspection of workspaces (COs, Air Quality), there are environmental improvements to be made. Most importantly, the promise of Activity-based spaces and concepts like ‘neighborhoods’, and a more agile/flexible mindset, will make the spaces and places of the future much more attractive, and productive than the rows of desks and tables and cubes of cabled computers in the past. My conversation with Ryan Anderson. This episode of Work 20XX is brought to you by Webex by Cisco  Webex Ahead Episode Page - Click Here  Work 20XX Episode Page with Transcript and show notes - Click Here