Want to attract the best talent? Start with a personalized workplace (original) (raw)

We are all doing more on our phones, averaging 4 hours and 12 minutes of mobile screen time every day. I am willing to bet you are reading this on your phone now.

While there are many reasons for this uptick in screen time, one stands out: even though smartphones are mass produced and ubiquitous, they are also highly personalized.

And they aren’t the only highly customizable consumer product. We can create over 87,000 Starbucks drinks to suit one’s individual palate. Clothing brands from Nike to Levi’s offer the flexibility to design items from the ground up, or modify standard pieces with personal flair. Jewelry, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, even building materials—all are moving toward mass customization.

So why should the workplace be any different?

As we turn the corner on the pandemic and start to integrate the lessons of mass remote work into the future of the office, organizations have an important opportunity to make the workplace more like a consumer product: stylish, healthy, intuitive and purposeful—or risk falling behind in the war for talent. To stay ahead, today’s workplace must deliver flexibility in terms of where and how to work, while also offering a consistent, culture-driven experience.

Personalization at work

Powerful products that consistently draw consumers back for more are not an accident. They are carefully designed, marketed and measured—and the workplace will soon follow suit.

When the pandemic hit, many of us left behind offices that were good, but were they really great? To be sure, a lot of work has been underway to modernize workplaces—but the pandemic has only underscored the need to act with urgency. Were you one of the millions of workers left drained by the buzz of an open-office environment, constantly battling for quiet space to concentrate? Maybe your team needed a place to meet and share ideas, and the only social space was a drab cafeteria. Or maybe you were among the managers and executives who found themselves stuck in an office, disconnected and distanced from the very team you were supposed to lead and inspire.

A more personalized workplace will provide every worker with the space they need to do the tasks before them on any given day, rather than assigning a seat based on title or seniority. In the personalized workplace, a mobile app will guide you to a quiet phone booth for a morning of one-on-one calls or a small conference room to meet with other team members, both in person and remote.

After a quick lunch break, you’ll navigate to a free desk to read and respond to emails, or a lounge area to connect with a colleague. At every stop, you can adjust the temperature and lighting to the levels that work for you, while internalizing your company’s brand and culture in the design choices. In between workstations, you’ll have ample opportunity to bump into coworkers, creating the spontaneous interactions that make the office a worthwhile place to be—and in turn drive innovation at an organizational level. And all while having ready access to what you feel aligns with your social and community priorities—information about clean air, mental and physical health options, etc.

Inspiring innovation across a disparate workforce

The challenge for organizations is building in workplace flexibility that meets distinct preferences, values and motivations of a generationally diverse workforce, while also understanding that part of the role of the office is to bind the community together.

Every worker cannot “choose their own adventure,” or companies will lose out in terms of culture, community and productivity. Nor can today’s largely generic workplaces continue to be the norm. Leaders must learn to accommodate and celebrate individual choice and preference, or risk stifling experience and undermining performance.

It's a tricky balancing act, but the reward is worth more than the effort for organizations that get it right: drawing the best and brightest talent and engaging them for the long term.

The deeper power of a customized workplace

Today’s workforce has many choices. Physical location matters less in a world of remote work. New kinds of employment, including gig and freelance work, have grown in popularity. And across industries and sectors, workers are leaving jobs that don’t meet their expectations for compensation, work-life balance, health and wellness, and social responsibility.

Workplaces that can draw people to them rather than mandating attendance, and spur an emotional connection, have significant talent advantages. But to do so, organizations must find ways to personalize the space to drive culture, community and engagement far beyond the daily tasks.

Companies that meet this demand will not only win the war for talent—they’ll be more resilient to future disruptions and new evolutions in business. They can also leverage the data and predictive tools that drive personalization for continual improvement, by testing workplace modifications that boost engagement, performance, health and fulfillment.

There is no one workplace strategy that will meet the needs of all organizations and employees. That’s why in our new book, The Workplace You Need Now, we give a framework for the key decisions executives, managers, leaders and individual workers must make to create their own personalized, responsible and experiential workplace.