Workplace Experience: Redesigning work in the office

Workplace Experience: TL;DR

• Workplace experience describes the overall experience that employees have in their working environment: consisting of rooms, technology, services, and culture.
• A good workplace experience is created when employees experience a positive culture and office space, digital systems, and organizational processes work well together.
• Hybrid working is changing the requirements for the workplace: fewer fixed desks, more zones for teamwork, quiet, and breaks.
• The quality of the workplace experience can be measured through employee feedback, utilization data, attendance measurements, and external evaluations.
• With PULT, you can visualize the workplace experience, identify trends in usage, and make targeted improvements to your office.

What does “workplace experience” mean?

Workplace experience describes the overall experience of employees at their workplace and the associated environment. This includes three closely related areas: the spaces in which they work, the technology they use, and the culture they encounter and help shape.

Why is workplace experience important?

A positive and managed workplace experience is important because the shift between working from home and working in the office (hybrid work), competition for skilled workers, and rising expectations of the workplace are creating new requirements.

You need to design your spaces, the technology you use, and your organization in such a way that they keep pace with new ways of working. Only then will your office remain a place that people enjoy using and where they can work productively.

Hybrid working is changing office space

Because many employees regularly work from home, permanently assigned desks are often empty. At the same time, employees want spaces for collaboration, project work, or quiet zones for concentrated work.

To offer this variety in the office, you need to repurpose space. A reduced number of individual workstations creates room for zones that are actually needed and desired.

To ensure that the remaining desks can be fairly distributed and used, you need a booking system that allows employees to reserve workstations and rooms in advance.

Tip: Desk booking in PULT enables your employees to access all workplaces, rooms, zones, and parking spaces fairly and to make binding reservations.

The workplace determines employer attractiveness

Workplace design plays an important role in the competition for skilled workers. Applicants pay attention to whether an office offers modern areas for teamwork, quiet spaces, good technical equipment, and services that make everyday work pleasant and differ from both their former company and working from home.

If your office space offers something that is superior to that of your competitors and working from home, you increase your chances of attracting new employees and retaining existing ones.

Processes for workability

Every interruption in everyday office life has a noticeable effect on your employees. Such interruptions can include:

• A technically disrupted video call with a customer
• Double-booked meeting rooms
• Noisy open-plan offices without acoustic dampers
• Lack of opportunities for physical relaxation

Disruptions of this kind add up and have a negative impact on your employees' ability to concentrate. With a well-designed workplace experience, on the other hand, you can ensure that rooms and technology function reliably and that personal workflows are not unnecessarily disrupted.

The workplace experience strengthens loyalty

An office that offers a variety of working options has a direct impact on satisfaction. When employees feel that their needs for peace and quiet, interaction, and comfort are being taken into account, they are more likely to stay with the company. A positive workplace experience thus contributes directly to reducing staff turnover.

What influences the workplace experience?

The workplace experience encompasses three areas: spaces, technology, and culture. Only when you consider all three together can you create a working environment that truly improves everyday life.

Spaces and floor plans for a positive workplace experience

Because many employees regularly work from home, individual workstations can be reduced. Convert some of this space into areas that are in greater demand: zones for project work, meetings, quiet work, or even breaks.

Studies show that this variety of spaces is a significant factor in whether people enjoy coming to the office. The core idea is to offer your employees advantages with the layout and equipment that they don't have at home. 

A desk booking system ensures that the remaining workstations, rooms, and zones are available for planning purposes.

Technology for a good workplace experience

Digital equipment is an integral part of the workplace experience. Hardware and software should enable your team to work as freely as possible and never become a bottleneck for productivity.

This includes powerful Wi-Fi, video conferencing systems, large and sometimes multiple monitors per workstation, docking stations or monitor adapters for laptops, and software for communication and planning.

Equally important are sensors and software that make utilization, air quality, and temperature measurable and visible. By consistently using this technology, you ensure that employees can use workstations and rooms without disruption and in high quality.

Culture and services along the workplace experience

Workplace experience also means how work feels in the office. This includes collaboration between departments, the design of rules and processes, but also offerings such as team events or even hiring a workplace experience manager.

These elements influence whether your office is a place where people enjoy spending time. They complement spaces and technology with a social and organizational dimension.

Tip: An active desk sharing concept can have a positive effect on the workplace experience in this regard. Desk sharing breaks down departmental boundaries. Colleagues who would otherwise have nothing to do with each other sit next to each other. This encourages conversation and company-wide exchange.

How can I provide a good workplace experience?

A good workplace experience is the result of careful planning and gradual implementation in your company.

• 1. Assess the current situation: Start by taking stock of the available space and how it is used, the existing technology and furniture, and employees' expectations of the company. Use occupancy data, feedback surveys, and discussions to do this.
• 2. Clarify responsibilities: The workplace experience affects several areas: IT, HR, and facility management. Determine who is responsible for which tasks and how you will make decisions together.
• 3. Adapt office space: Reduce unused individual workstations and use the space for areas that are actually in demand: team rooms, quiet zones, break areas. Add a booking system so that workstations and rooms are distributed fairly at all times.
• 4. Check technology: Ensure stable conference systems, docking stations at workstations, and software that facilitates processes.
• 5. Integrate workplace experience services and culture: Snacks & drinks, canteen offerings, lounge areas, sports activities, employee events, joint workations, workshops, training courses on private financial security or healthy lifestyles, career opportunities, psychological counseling, job bikes, etc.
• 6. Get feedback: Regularly ask how the workplace experience is perceived. Use short surveys, digital feedback tools or a workplace experience app.
• 7. Continuously improve: Work on the workplace experience is never finished. Needs change and technology evolves. Therefore, plan regular adjustments and check whether and which measures are effective.

Tip: In the workplace experience platform PULT, you can measure office utilization, gradually replan and optimize office space, and easily conduct surveys among employees.

How do I measure the quality of the workplace experience?

You can measure the quality of the workplace experience by combining several sources of information. These include feedback from your employees, objective usage data, the functionality of your systems, and external evaluations.

Employee perception of the workplace experience

• Surveys: Short monthly or quarterly surveys give you an up-to-date picture of the mood.
• In-office NPS: A simple scale (“How likely would you be to recommend the office as a place to work?”) provides you with a comparable value that you can track regularly.
• Feedback and annual reviews: Personal conversations give you deeper insights that are not likely to be revealed in standardized surveys.

Objective usage data

• Space utilization: Booking systems or sensors allow you to see whether workstations, meeting rooms, or quiet areas are being used as you planned.
• Attendance rates: These show on which days and at what times your office is used particularly heavily.
• Length of stay: Provides information on whether employees only use the office for individual appointments or spend longer periods of time working there.

Tip: With PULT Presence, employee office attendance is automatically recorded as soon as their laptop or smartphone connects to your company Wi-Fi. Unlike simple booking data, this gives you real attendance figures.

Technical functionality

• System stability: Failure rates for video conferencing, Wi-Fi, or software.
• Ticket processing times: How quickly problems are resolved.

External reviews and signals

• Review platforms such as Kununu or Glassdoor: Comments and reviews show you how (former) employees perceive the working environment, with regard to factors such as workplace design, equipment, or atmosphere.
• Turnover and application rates: An increasing resignation rate or declining applicant numbers are also signals that the workplace experience is out of balance.

Evaluate data in context

The most meaningful insight into the quality of the workplace experience comes when you combine the various sources. If internal surveys show dissatisfaction with space availability, occupancy data shows high utilization, and criticism of office design appears on review platforms, you know that action is needed.

Similarly, you can check whether new measures such as additional team zones or improved technology are reflected positively in feedback, data, and reviews. This can also be handled by a workplace experience coordinator.

Measure and improve workplace experience with PULT

A positive workplace experience for your employees is created by the interplay of many factors: spaces and zones that enable different ways of working. Technology that works reliably. Offers and services such as catering or lounge areas that enrich everyday working life and surpass the comforts of working from home. And a culture that ensures people feel comfortable in the office. All these elements interact and determine how the workplace is experienced.

To ensure that you can evaluate this experience not only based on gut feeling, but also control it in a targeted manner, you need reliable data, such as that provided by the workplace experience software PULT:

• Office Insights: PULT allows you to see in real time how heavily your office space is being used. Based on this, you can gradually adjust the room layout, reallocate space, and gather direct feedback from employees via surveys.
• PULT Presence: In addition to booking data, Presence provides you with real attendance figures. As soon as laptops or smartphones connect to the company Wi-Fi, office attendance is automatically recorded. This gives you a realistic picture of how many employees are actually in the office, regardless of whether they have made a booking in advance.
• Workplace and room booking: Your employees can reliably reserve workstations, meeting rooms, zones, and parking spaces. This ensures that everyone has fair access to available resources and no one is left standing in front of occupied spaces.
• Actively shape desk sharing: Departmental boundaries become more permeable, colleagues from different areas sit next to each other, and exchanges take place that would not otherwise occur in everyday life.

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