Winner: Creating a world class Workplace Experience, CBRE, Atkins & Faithful and Gould

Sponsored by: Accruent

This year’s winning entry celebrates the ways in which a sharing of corporate values has led to a behavioural and cultural framework that, while guiding the operational team, also works at a more strategic partnership level.

Together, Atkins and CBRE developed an internal FM brand entitled ‘One Workplace’ through which their core values and those of their service partners promoted a one team ethos.

CBRE’s core values (respect, integrity, service and excellence) joined with those of Atkins (safety, integrity, collaboration and innovation) to create the foundation upon which One Workplace was created.

The result is a workplace experience that is attracting and retaining talent while creating a competitive advantage for Atkins.

Atkins and the engineering project management consultancy Faithful & Gould created design-led offices offering inclusive spaces – welfare rooms, bicycle and shower facilities, accessible and sustainable furniture and facilities, collaboration spaces, quiet zones, meeting rooms and technology – in support of better ways of working.

Results gleaned

Focus groups were created to gather feedback from users about workplace services, the office design and furniture, the collaboration spaces, quiet zones and meeting rooms.

Feedback included: ‘It felt great to be back in the new office yesterday. The Birmingham office truly is an amazing and motivating place to work; the perfect environment to start working towards my professional goals for 2022.’

One Workplace now hosts a series of wellness days in partnership with Atkins. At a Pancake Day event, occupancy increased by around 40%.

The One Workplace team uses a workplace experience survey to measure satisfaction. The Derby office, as one example, rated their workplace experience (FM services as well as physical design and facilities available) at 79% overall satisfaction. Where CBRE is responsible – for catering and cleaning – scores for these services alongside the workplace experience team have stayed above 95% for the last two years.

Best practice learning point

Key to the project’s success was having the different specialisms to come together and work on a single strategy that incorporated the key themes of optimising the workplace experience while ultimately providing a superior workplace that is both inclusive and sustainable.

For CBRE, the PHD model (a type of model that incorporates physical, human and digital elements of the workplace that can enhance overall experience) created at Atkins is now being used to create bespoke workplace solutions for other clients. The company has evidenced the importance of bringing all elements of the experience together under one framework to truly deliver an exceptional workplace experience.

Key quote

‘The whole team were amazing, showed commitment above and beyond, with many working longer hours both before and after the day to ensure that the event went as smoothly as possible. A true team effort including supply partners, Olive & Churchill who all contributed fully to make the event such a success.’ – Jeremy Dyble, client.