HI there, 

STEP INSIDE THE INNERCIRCLE:

your monthly recap to stay connected with the world of Smart tech and Smart life.

NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY

With apologies to Trevor Noah’s current comedy tour, the autumn of 2022 might well be remembered as back to abnormal as we continue to navigate a world that’s just not out of the COVID woods yet. As businesses strive to figure out this not-quite-post-pandemic back-to-the-office landscape, a theme of uncertainty prevails.  

Questions around optimizing workspaces join more around employee recruiting, mentorship, culture development and staff retention – helping spur such trends as flexible leasing as companies reckon with maintaining profitability as well as rebuilding team cohesion. 

One thing mustn’t be lost in the fog: in the absence of accurate, reliable data, it’s difficult if not impossible to quantify what companies need from their offices now, and why. Measuring and understanding behavior to guide real estate decisions – what we’ve coined Indoorology – is the bedrock for a meaningful office strategy.

MEANINGFUL REAL ESTATE

Innovation, collaboration, company culture – these are heavy targets for companies across industries right now. These essential components of success take root inside offices to a far greater extent than they can with teams working remotely. To this end, offices must be strategically planned so that their design, location, and resources offer the most meaningful real estate possible for each company.

Our recent article explores some of the key considerations in achieving an office space that supports those three items off the top. The goal: to build spaces and neighborhoods that work the way each team wants them to, with as much flexibility as possible. And the key to that goal is capturing and leveraging the data needed to understand what the most meaningful office real estate should look like.

MEANINGFUL WORK

Meaningful real estate sets an important foundation for meaningful work – an imperative when it comes to keeping employees engaged and productive.

As we detail in our latest post, meaningful work drives the bus on employee satisfaction – and it's a key driver of retention rates everywhere. According to a recent Gallup poll, it takes more than a 20 per cent pay raise to lure most employees away from a job where they feel engaged and, unsurprisingly, it costs nothing to poach most disengaged employees.

When it comes to determining what’s meaningful for each of your employees, we really like the SCARF model, a science-based approach to ensure you’re supporting your team and helping them bring their best to your business every day. 

NEW IN SMART TECH

• All the Smart home technology that has been developed will soon make its way into hotels as the hospitality industry considers how to put a fleet of controls into guests’ mobile devices. Smart hotel rooms, anyone?
  
  
• U.S. biomedical engineers are taking aim at Smart contact lenses capable of measuring intraocular pressure in your eye in a bid to help prevent glaucoma-related blindness.
  
  
• Smart surfaces are making their way onto city streets, replacing asphalt, concrete and other heat-island creating materials with reflective coatings, green roofs, porous pavements and other technologies that help reduce the effects of climate change by lowering urban temperatures.
  
  
• ‘Femtech’ is shining a spotlight on sorely needed data, research and innovation when it comes to menstruation, pelvic-floor health, fertility and more. From kegel exercisers and trackers to breath-powered ovulation predictors, these devices are set to influence women’s health.

IN OUR SPACE

We’ve created a healthy catalog of resources around redesigning office space in a world where employee needs and expectations have shifted. Take a tour through our main white papers:

• Introducing Indoorology - a method to make informed decisions around your real estate
• The Science of Indoor Space - how to make the right data-backed decisions on redesigning office space 
• Blueprint for a Hybrid Workplace - the inside goods on building, managing and measuring the ideal hybrid office by tapping WiFi.
• Future of Work(Place) - our most-read report on how HR, facilities, IT and operations can work together to build new office plans.

Source

That's a wrap... 

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Stay safe,

YOUR TEAM AT INNERSPACE