Spatial Attraction

Redefining Work (with Jeremy Myerson): Beyond the Halfway House

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 03:00:00 -0500

Redefining Work

In this episode of Spatial Attraction, Kursty Groves is in conversation with Jeremy Myerson about why the return-to-office debate refuses to settle.

Together, they explore the “halfway house” we’re living in now: work that feels more flexible and more unsettled at the same time.

Jeremy is Professor Emeritus at the Royal College of Art, founder of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, and co-founder of WorkTech Academy.

They unpack:

Why hybrid work can increase friction, anonymity, and the coordination load
Jeremy’s “three waves” of office evolution (efficiency → social democratic → networked)
The hidden costs of distributed work, including lost mentoring and tacit learning
Why the office is still psychologically central, even when we work from anywhere
Why we may be measuring the wrong things, and what it means to design for experience
What becomes more valuable as AI accelerates visible output: judgement, trust, cohesion, and shared meaning

For companion notes and research links, visit the episode page:

https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/spatial-attraction-redefining-work-with-jeremy-myerson/

About Jeremy Myerson

Jeremy Myerson is a design writer and academic based in London.

He is Professor Emeritus at the Royal College of Art, founder of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, and co-founder of WorkTech Academy.

His most recent book is Unworking: The Reinvention of the Modern Office (2022).

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Series Intro: Welcome to Spatial Attraction

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Spatial Attraction is a podcast about the spaces we work in, and the forces that shape how we think, interact, and perform.

In each episode, Kursty Groves explores the conditions people are working inside across physical, digital, social, cognitive, and temporal space - and what to notice, name, and redesign when those conditions are working against us.

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Trust Spaces (with Rachel Botsman): Designing the Conditions for Trust

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Space for Trust
In this episode of Spatial Attraction, Kursty Groves is in conversation with Rachel Botsman about how trust has been reorganised over time, and what that means for the spaces we work inside now. Together, they explore how trust is shaped by the conditions people are working inside, and how uncertainty, discomfort and friction interact with visibility, proximity and format to subtly influence who is heard, believed, and relied upon.

For companion notes and research links, visit the episode page: https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/spatial-attraction-trust-spaces/

About Rachel Botsman

Rachel Botsman is a leading global expert on trust and the author of What’s Mine Is Yours, Who Can You Trust?, and How To Trust & Be Trusted. Her work explores how trust is formed, tested, and redesigned as society, technology, and institutions change.

She has advised and spoken to organisations including Salesforce, Goldman Sachs, Adobe, Gartner, and EY, and was the first Trust Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.

Rachel has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, Wired, Financial Times, Time, and Fast Company.

Rethink with Rachel is Rachel’s thought-provoking newsletter on trust, leadership, and change, read by leaders, founders, and decision-makers worldwide.

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Why IKEA’s employees love coming to the office, with Momo Pavlovic

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 13:00:00 -0500

What’s a better life? What’s a better office? Those two questions are inherently connected. Your workspace’s biggest challenge is to stay relevant, and it’s impossible to do so without obsessively making being in the physical workspace an incredible life experience. This is IKEA’s workspace development philosophy and in this episode, Momo Pavlovic shares how IKEA brings it to life through an infinitely iterative process.

Developing an incredible workspace is work that is never finished. Tune in to discover how IKEA does it.

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What we discussed
(00:24) Developing Ikea workspaces
(08:12) How the pandemic changed workspace planning
(13:09) Workspaces vs. team behaviour: what’s the connection?
(16:39) Infinitely changing IKEA workspaces
(18:04) Feeling forced to be in the office (BIG MISTAKE)
(23:31)Creating a destination office
(31:04) IKEA’s 3-part workspace plan
(33:17) “Why do I have to go in 4x/week, when they come in 2x/week?”
(41:55) Momo’s question to you (about meetings)

3 things you can learn from how IKEA manages its workspaces:

Ask the question “how do we make this a great experience?” rather than “how do we get more people in the office?”
Prepare your workspace to support the new behaviours you want your team to embody. But, before you can do that you must concretely understand what the new behaviors you need really are.
It’s important for team members to not feel like they’re forced to be in the office. How many days people spend in the physical office should be a team mandate, not a rule enforced by executives.

Links

Momo Pavlovic is the Workplace Support Leader at Ingka Services which is the force behind IKEA’s holistic and in-demand workspaces.

Connect with Momo Pavlovic: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

What it’s like inside the Netflix office with Nasreen Potter

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 06:00:00 -0500

What’s it like to design, build and operationalize a Workplace project during 2020 a Netflix office? What’s the workplace culture like? How does Netflix stay genuine? Nasreen Potter from Netflix tells all about what it’s like to work there.

She shares the Netflix workplace philosophy, how they justify their office space investments, how they engage employees with relevant communication and the secrets behind their vibrant work environment.

Nasreen Potter is a Workplace Director at Netflix. Previously she was Workplace Director at LinkedIn and Regional Workplace Lead at Microsoft.

“There isn't a limitless bucket of money available to everybody, especially in our line of work. And we need to be really fussy figuring out what is going to help move us forward and then fixing it.”

“If the space isn't working for the purpose that it was intended, right, then you are wasting your money anyway.”

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What we discussed

(00:24) Diversity, equity, and inclusion at Netflix
(03:13) Pale, male, and stale: “this is not my tribe”
(07:40) How workplace feedback at LinkedIn is different
(09:39) Netflix workplace philosophy
(12:39) Netflix’s pandemic project
(18:24) Authentic DEI vs. faking it
(22:08)How to lead inclusively
(24:14) Tick box communication
(28:30) Why we need farewell parties
(29:35) First days back at Netflix
(32:32) What if we can’t afford to fix the office space? (solved)
(34:05) Secret behind Netflix’s buzzing office
(40:12) Measuring space usage
(41:15) Who does the Netflix CREWS team hire?

3 things to remember:

Diversity and inclusion is not just a tickbox - thinking of ways that it permeates throughout every touchpoint and process is key to authentically living and valuing DE&I.
If your office space isn’t serving the purpose it is meant to serve and you are not working on fixing it for financial reasons, then you might be losing more money waiting to fix it.
To have a buzzing workspace you first have to have a culture that allows and encourages a buzzing workspace.

Links

Connect with Nasreen Potter: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How to create a ‘destination office’? with Tom Kegode, Lloyds Banking Group

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 11:00:00 -0400

What if you could have a ‘destination office’ rather than a bland office that people dread coming into?
How do you create spaces at work that energize people?
How do you make people look forward to their days in the office?

It’s not just hitting KPIs that creates value at work. Connection, community, and collaboration create immeasurable value. Tom Kegode and Kursty discuss how to use office spaces to grow social capital and why social capital is a necessary form of productivity.

Tom Kegode is the Work:Lab Lead at Lloyd’s Banking Group where he is creating new imaginations and realities of work. He’s had a 13-year career at Lloyd’s so far.

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What we discussed:
(00:22) How did work at Lloyd Bank change over the years?

(09:09) Collaboration spaces are NOT enough

(15:10) What’s hard to replicate virtually?

(17:29) Transactional work vs. joyful work

(23:11) Having a floor dedicated to testing workspace configurations

(30:33) Building critical mass for rich work experiences

(33:32) The new way to feel belonging at work

(41:11) Getting in touch with Tom Kegode

4 things to remember:

Collaboration is the byproduct of connection and community. Collaboration can happen anywhere as long as you have community and connection.
Productivity isn’t just progressing on your KPI, forming social connections and increasing your social capital are their own forms of productivity.
When work gets reduced to a transactional task, rather than a joyful and energetic experience it becomes easy to quit.
It’s really important for everyone to feel like they’re part of something when they enter their office building. There has to be something meaningful and fulfilling they’re getting by being present there at the office.

Links

Connect with Tom Kegode: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Myths About Resilience and How It Actually Works With Bruce Daisley

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 10:00:00 -0400

Resilience - why doesn’t it work? Most people get resilience wrong.

In this episode, we’ll reframe what resilience really is and how to tap into it for yourself and your organization. Bruce Daisley and Kursty discuss the 3 pillars of resilience that people don’t usually take into account, the connection between childhood trauma and resilience, how your sense of identity can predict your well-being, and why many resilience training programs are ineffective.

Bruce Daisley is the author of Fortitude. He is a writer and podcaster. Previously, he was a VP at Twitter amongst other roles.

“What you find is that the more coherent someone's identity is, the story they tell themselves about themselves, the more able they are to carry themselves in the world.” - Bruce Daisley

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Timestamps

(00:22) Episode Overview: Who is Bruce Daisley?

(02:49) How to always be writing

(05:07) Why resilience training programs don’t work

(10:06) Do you have to go through great pain to have great success?

(14:48) How bad was your childhood trauma?

(20:56) 3 pillars of resilience and fortitude

(25:25) Building resilient organizations

(30:49) Individual identity vs. collective identity

(38:35) What is Bruce Daisley working on now?

3 Key Takeaways:

There is a correlation between adverse childhood experiences and super achievement. This doesn’t mean you have to go through great pain to achieve great success. Your experiences don’t necessarily predetermine your life outcomes but some experiences may put you at greater risk of negative outcomes than others.
Identity is a key pillar of fortitude. The stronger your sense of identity, the more likely you are to have higher well-being. Identity is how other people get access to us, it is how we belong to collective groups. Identity and community are two parts of the same piece.
There are 3 pillars of fortitude: control, identity, and community

Links

Grab a copy of Fortitude: https://www.findfortitude.net/

Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat Podcast: https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com/

Connect with Bruce Daisley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucedaisley/

Adverse Childhood Experience quiz: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/media-coverage/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How Does Your Office Space Manifest Your Culture? With David McKay, Innocent Drinks

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 10:00:00 -0400

How Does Your Office Space Manifest Your Culture? With David McKay

How do spaces change the way we talk to each other? The way we feel about work? And the way we behave at work? David McKay from Innocent Drinks joins Kursty to discuss how their spaces manifest their company culture. They explore how spaces can bring people in, why they invested in a sustainable factory that’s filled with plants, how they experimented space configurations that work best for their teams, and why you’d want to be copyable.

David Mckay is the Head of Culture and Workspace at Innocent Drinks. Innocent Drinks is a B-Corp-certified company. They started the first carbon-neutral drinks factory.

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Timestamps

[00:29] Episode Overview: Who is David Mckay?

[03:59] How spaces express company culture

[09:56] What if any member of the public could visit your facilities?

[12:42] Why limiting choices at work is effective (and other lessons from Covid-19)

[20:53] Experimenting with different space configurations

[28:06] What’s the point of the office?

[35:06] The blender: the first carbon neutral drinks factory

3 Key Takeaways:

It’s human nature to want to slip back to what’s comfortable. Within this context, it can be helpful to take away choices from people or limit choices.
To make it evident that you are listening to your teams, you have to be flexible with making changes. This is especially the case when you’re experimenting with new things and introducing new ideas that are meant to be tested and evaluated together.
You do not necessarily need a prescribed purpose for what offices are for. It can be that you allow each team member to develop their own perspective and purpose for the role the office plays in their lives.

Links

Connect with David McKay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mckay-8579aa75

Innocent Drinks: https://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/

B-Corp Certification: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/company/innocent-drinks

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Hybrid Work Office Space Challenges Worth Solving With Emma Morley, Trifle*

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 11:00:00 -0400

Solving hybrid work challenges requires us to talk less about desks and more about how we work. Emma Morley and Kursty discuss what it’s like to solve hybrid work, all the things that get in the way, and how to be more intentional in solving for it. Different stakeholders around the office often have conflicting and ever-changing requirements for what the office should be like and what it should be for. Tune in for insights about how to decide what problems are worth figuring out and what problems are unnecessary distractions.

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Timestamps

[00:29] Episode Overview: Who is Emma Morley?

[03:15] Should you give your employees what they ask for?

[10:17] Is it possible to future-proof office spaces?

[13:02] Does balance really exist?

[16:34] Working in silos vs. working together to design office space

[23:28] Designing for Monday morning meetings vs. designing for energy

[27:40] What’s missing from online conferences?

[32:01] What remote work problems should we solve? (and which are not worth it)

3 Key Takeaways:

Sometimes, when companies attempt to have adult-adult relationships with their employees and try to be employee-centric, things start becoming rather individualistic. People start making demands that pertain to them without considering the larger group's needs.
There isn’t a perfect static balance. Balance is always moving and shifting. It is dynamic. If things feel balanced, you must also keep in mind that it might not stay that way long.
Conferences are re-energizing. They remind everyone of their purpose and renew their commitment to the company and its mission. But, it’s not the same in virtual conferences. It is hard to replicate the energetic experience of face-to-face conferences. It’s critical not to compromise such high-value face-to-face interactions.

Links

Connect with Emma Morley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-morley-b9664b21/

Trifle* Creative: https://www.triflecreative.com/

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Why Bringing Nature Inside Boosts Creativity, Productivity, and Wellness (Space Matters, ep.7)

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 10:00:00 -0400

Plants can change your mood, so should offices have more of them around? Kali and Katie from The Glasshouse project join Kursty to discuss how plants can boost mental wellness, productivity, and creativity. They also chat about how having plants in the office can encourage staff to want to work from there rather than from home. Rediscover why you need more plants in your life throughout this episode.

The Glasshouse Project is a social enterprise in the UK that helps female inmates fin housing and employment by bringing nature into urbanized environments. They provide corporate gifting packages, plantscaping services, and workshops that simplify the process of caring for plants.

“They just grow, they’re just useful, how could you not want plants around you?”

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Timestamps

[00:29] Episode overview: Kali and Katie from The Glasshouse Project

[03:38] What is The Glasshouse Project?

[05:53] The secret is in the soil

[07:26] The mental benefits of keeping plants in the office

[13:08] How plantscaping can change your corporate culture

[17:21] Expanding The Glasshouse Project

[18:55] How Katie got involved in The Glasshouse Project

[20:12] Becoming a horticulturalist: a softer way of life

[24:12] The connection between creativity, productivity, and nature (what the studies show)

[31:39] How to get plants from The Glasshouse Project

[33:57] How The Glasshouse Project’s business model is changing

[35:11] Can you bring the Glasshouse Project to your country or city?

3 Key Takeaways:

Urban environments that are devoid of nature negatively impact mental health. Plants ground us. Being surrounded by a man-made environment without nature causes stress and anxiety.
Plantscaping your office can potentially boost mental wellness and decrease the amount of sick days being taken. Even small moments of interaction with nature indoors can make a noticeable shifts in the way our minds deals with stress. Bringing nature inside can create a welcoming environment.
Taking care of a plant can prepare people who are recovering from addiction for bigger commitments like taking care of a pet or getting into a serious relationship.

Links

The Glasshouse Project: Website | Instagram | Facebook

Connect with Kali Hamerton-Stove: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How Your Brand and Experiential Design Can Impact Your Office Design - with Sonya Simmonds, Spotify

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 12:00:00 -0400

Sonya Simmonds joins Kursty to discuss how to meaningfully bring out your brand through workplace and office design. They explore how office design impacts employee morale, productivity, and work ethic, why the ‘wow factor’ of designing office spaces shouldn’t stop at gimmicks and fragmented Instagramable spots, and Spotify’s Work From Anywhere program that allows staff to choose between a ‘home mix’ and an ‘office mix’ work experience.

Sonya Simmonds is an interior architect with 20 years of experience and the Head of Workplace Innovation & Design at Spotify.

“It’s also really strange to me that people say 'I don’t care what it’s like. I really don’t care what the office is like or this building is like' and I’m thinking, well you’re going to spend a lot of time in it.”

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Timestamps

[00:25] Episode overview: designing spaces, designing for brand cultures, co-creation, working from anywhere, and more…
[01:46] Who is Sonya Simmonds?
[03:33] Visiting the Nike store in New York and Working at Bloomberg in London (experiential design).
[10:51] How big is Spotify? How many offices does Spotify have?
[12:24] How do you choose an office building and how do you use co-creation to localize it?
[15:55] Flexibility, wellbeing, and working from anywhere - how they affect workplace design
[22:24] Home mix vs. office mix: planning based on people’s preferences
[24:19] Storytelling and communicating design updates with the whole team (how and why to make people care about design decisions).
[29:38] How office design brings out the brand (and a deep dive into Spotify’s Heart and Soul room)
[40:09] Instagrammable office spaces and office spaces that employees actually love being in

4 Key Takeaways

One way to localise an office building is to invite local artists and local staff to co-create the look and feel of it with you. You should also ask members of the local office what they want to define what they wanted to express with the office.
Explaining your design choices to the wider body of employees can help the whole team understand why design decisions are made the way they’re made. For example, if you chose not to occupy a building in an area that displaces the local population - this strengthens your brand values and shows staff that you are serious about your convictions. It also helps the team become more proud of the offices they inhabit.
The migration back to the office is intimidating and stressful. Your workplace design can help people ease that stress.
Bringing your brand out in the design of your workplace isn't about purely aesthetic elements or fun gimmicks, the brand has to be deeply embedded in the functionality of the space as well.

Links

Connect with Sonya Simmonds: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea:

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Special Episode: LEGO Workplace Symposium 2022 (Part 3) - Breaking Behavioural Norms Through Purposeful Meetings and Office Design

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 13:00:00 -0400

In the final part of this series, listen in to the last two hot topic discussions from the LEGO workplace symposium on (1) designing spaces and (2) orchestrating purposeful meetings.

During the discussion on designing office spaces, we discuss how to create spaces that break traditional norms and influence positive behaviours. You’ll discover insights on whether activity-based office space design is effective, why one size fits no one when it comes to space design, how to interrupt traditional views of what the office should be like, and how to ask the right questions before redesigning your office space, and which metrics actually matter in office usage.

When we move on to the discussion on purposeful meetings, you’ll tune into a conversation that critiques meetings as an overused problem-solving tool and discover a way to frame the purpose of meetings in order to host and attend them more intentionally. We also explore the behaviours we need to unlearn and the way technology must change to adapt to the new age of meetings.

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Timestamps
[00:16] Episode overview
[00:43] Hot topic discussion(3/4): Designing spaces
[00:47] Spaces that serve a dual function
[06:57] Should you have activity-based spaces?
[11:02] Asking the right questions to discover an ideal space design.
[17:58] Should you measure space usage data?
[22:04] Hot topic discussion(4/4): How to Orchestrate Purposeful Meetings
[22:10] Meetings and the fear of missing out
[24:52] How hybrid meetings can be disruptive for people joining remotely
[25:51] What goes wrong in workshopping, idea co-creation, and engagement in remote meetings.
[31:03] How often do we need to travel for work, really?
[31:48] Framing a purpose for meetings: Being thoughtful about the different types of meetings we conduct.
[34:44] Relearning our meeting behaviours: Do we need meetings? What meetings can we skip?
[40:04] How to activate better meetings through technology?

3 Key Takeaways

If you ask your team what they need from a space, they will answer you based on the paradigms they already know and have internalized. The better question to ask is “what do you want to do” and design spaces based on the needs of the primary tasks rather than based on traditional paradigms of what a workplace should look like.
Hybrid meetings can be a terrible experience for people joining remotely. For example, activities happening in the room like eating and drinking can interfere with the sound quality and end up leaving the remote attendants confused about what is going on in the meeting. Technology hasn’t kept up with our new behaviours.
We need to be more thoughtful about what type of meeting each meeting is: transactional? Relationship building? Output-oriented? Project check-in? Ideation? We need to re-learn our meeting behaviours to be more intentional. We need to make sure we only attend meetings in a way that brings real value, rather than merely out of habit.

Links

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Special Episode: LEGO Workplace Symposium 2022 (Part 2) - Finding a Strong Purpose to Return to The Office, No It’s Not “Culture”

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 06:00:00 -0400

Be a fly on the wall in two hot topic discussions that took place in the LEGO Workplace Symposium:

What is the purpose of the workplace?
Hybrid headaches over the past year

You’ll listen in on groups of executives from many large companies like Microsoft, Netflix, Unilever, Spotify, Ikea, and Booking.com discuss a range of topics about finding a compelling purpose for returning to the office and how to minimize the speedbumps that come with hybrid work.

A recurrent theme within the discussions is that hybrid work and returning to the office is forcing companies to be more intentional with what in-person work looks and feels like.

Tune in to reflect on the many different ideas being thrown around the room answering the question: how can we make the workplace work harder for us? You’ll also hear interesting ideas about How to recreate on-site experiences as off-site experiences.

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Timestamps

[00:30] Hot topic discussion(1/4): What is the purpose of the workplace? What is our end goal?

[01:02] Is the purpose of hybrid work to provide flexibility or to cut costs?

[06:07] Have people always wanted hybrid work or do they want it because of the pandemic?

[09:06] How hybrid work changes the face of society (and the responsibility that comes with it)

[10:07] “We build culture in the office” is a weak purpose for in-person work (how to be deliberate with why we meet in person)

[12:10] Consequences of not having a hybrid option

[17:47] “Build the experience you want to be part of, and they will come”

[19:43] The risk of hybrid work and the shifting power dynamic

[23:08] How hybridity is affecting retail businesses

[25:33] Hot topic discussion (2/4): Hybrid headaches

[26:50] Lessons from experimenting with hybrid over the past year

[30:03] How remote work steals your “reclaimed” time

[31:46] Why do some people never want to return to the office again?

[34:13] How do we recreate the coffee machine connection in hybrid mode?

[38:36] Why do people work where they work?

[42:01] Will we always feel like a little dot on the screen in remote meetings?

5 Key Takeaways

If there is a clear purpose explaining why work needs to be in-person, hybrid, or remote - it’s much easier to get the buy-in of your team to comply with the rules. You have to give people something to believe in.
People have likely always wanted the flexibility that hybrid work offers. However, the pandemic empowered them to seek what they want.
Having beautiful offices is not a compelling enough reason for people to want to return to the office. You have to think of what experience they want to be a part of. Think of it this way: what kind of experience will make people feel the urge to return to the office?
When mandating a specific number of days per week for in-person work, your reasoning has to be grounded in data or else people will see through it. If you expect people to come into the office 3 out of 5 days, you’ll have to explain

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Special Episode: Recap of the LEGO Workplace Symposium 2022 (Part 1) - How Do Work and Play Merge In A Conference?

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 03:00:00 -0400

In the first part of this three-part special, Kursty and Sabine recap their experience at the LEGO Workplace Symposium in Billund, Denmark. The symposium focused on key issues in workplace design and experience. It was organized by the Ways of Working team and was attended by several corporate giants including Microsoft, Netflix, Unilever, Spotify, Ikea, and Booking.com.

Kursty and Sabine share what it was like to visit LEGO’s brand new campus for the first time, how the symposium was structured, and the different topics that were brought up for discussion. They even share unusual informal events that went on - like a cookout!

In fact, it is those informal moments that were a game-changer during the event. They helped cultivate an atmosphere of trust making people feel that they can let their guards down, confide in one another, and have deeper conversations in a safe environment.

So, if you’re curious about how work and play merge in a conference setting - this episode will tell you how the champions of play thoughtfully design an experience like this.

“For the whole 3 days so much thought was put into the informal parts and I feel those parts were actually the crucial elements to get everybody comfortable.” - Sabine Ehm

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Timestamps

[00:30] Podcast field trip: what went on in the LEGO Workplace Symposium?

[02:17] First impressions of the brand new LEGO campus in Billund, Denmark

[04:25] Who was at the LEGO Workplace Symposium 2022?

[06:42] How the informal aspects of the symposium made the biggest difference

[08:50] What was in the LEGO goodie bags?

[09:42] Why does LEGO have a space for ex-employees in their headquarters?

[12:46] What went on throughout the day? What hot topics were discussed?

Here are the hot topics we’ll be discussing in parts 2 and 3 of this special:

Why do we do hybrid work?
What’s wrong with hybrid work?
How do you assign space without assigning space?
What are purposeful meanings really like?

You won’t want to miss these episodes.

Links

The Workplace Leader Podcast

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How Remote Work Creates Richer In-Person Interactions with Scott Witthoft (Space Matters, ep.6)

Wed, 25 May 2022 08:00:00 -0400

Scott Witthoft joins Kursty to discuss how we are becoming more intentional with how we use and divide physical and digital spaces. They explore many thought-provoking questions like: why do some things work in some places and not work in others? Are in-person meetings and activities catalysts for progress? And why are some office spaces abandoned?

Scott and Kursty explore how the pandemic helped us refine our improvisational skills; we've effectively become designers who create experiences between physical and digital spaces and now have to be more intentional about how we show up digitally versus physically and what we do in each space.

Scott Witthoft is an educator, designer, and author. He is a co-designer of Stanford University’s d.school’s space and the author of Make Space. He is currently an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Austin School of Design.

“These virtual tools are amazing tools that I can now use in lots of different ways and I can now be intentional about what it means to be in-person when I’m in-person” - Scott Witthoft

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Timestamps

[00:52] Who is Scott Witthoft (and episode overview)?

[06:09] What is Scott currently working on?

[08:50] Are successful solutions context-agnostic?

[12:25] Building spaces that trigger specific behaviours.

[20:00] Abandoned spaces and what happens when people use new spaces.

[28:15] How remote work can create more meaningful in-person meetings.

[35:44] Everyone is a designer juggling physical and digital spaces

[44:31] Do in-person activities catalyse progress?

[46:18] Redesigning rituals for what it means to be with people

4 Key Takeaways

If something works in one context, there is no guarantee that the same solution would work in a different context. You can’t just lift and shift. You can use successful solutions as prototypes rather than blindly implementing them without adjusting them for context.
Environments have to support the goal or behaviour you want to achieve. You have to ask yourself, “What behaviour am I trying to encourage?” and build a space that triggers that behaviour.
Designing spaces goes way beyond the physical. You are not just designing to trigger certain behaviours, but designing the invitation for people to use the space a certain way.
Our numerous constraints over the past few years have allowed us to explore and develop our improvisational qualities.

Links

Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration by Scott Witthoft and Scott Doorley

This Is a Prototype: The Curious Craft of Exploring New Ideas by Scott Witthoft and Stanford d.school

Connect with Scott Witthoft: Twitter

Connect with Kursty Groves:

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

The Mindset Companies Need to Make Remote Work, Work with Jason Fried (Space Matters, ep. 5)

Wed, 11 May 2022 01:00:00 -0400

Jason Fried joins Kursty to share wisdom on how he runs a fully remote company by simplifying things and focusing on what matters. They explore where deep work happens, how to create space for it, why rigid workplace rules can kill passion and create distractions, and why companies that want to run remotely need to adopt a new mindset.

Jason Fried is the co-founder of Basecamp and has been running the company for 23 years. He is a monthly columnist at Inc. Magazine and has authored several books, including Rework and Remote: Office Not Required.

“A lot of work doesn’t happen in the office. A lot of distractions happen in the office. We get in each other’s way all the time.” - Jason Fried

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Timestamps

[01:13] Who is Jason Fried?

[04:16] How did Jason grow Basecamp?

[06:32] Where do people do their best work?

[09:28] How to create the space to do great work.

[13:44] Why don’t people have the space to do great work?

[17:58] Why remote work requires a different mindset from physical work.

[22:32] 40-hour week: how much can you get done in 8 hours?

[25:34] Balancing work life and home life when working remotely.

[29:02] What if employees abuse our generosity or trust?

[34:18] Organisational culture is NOT created.

[36:47] How to stay social when your company is fully remote (expensive but not frivolous).

[41:01] JOMO - The joy of missing out.

[43:25] Creating great and safe digital workspaces.

[47:24] How to stay in touch with Jason Fried

4 Key Takeaways

People need space to do great work. When space is restricted by workplace rules, people aren’t able to fulfil their potential. Restrictions include being monitored or watched, not being able to move while working, and being forced to work in specific places or at specific times.
Remote work requires a different mindset from local work. Among many other aspects, it requires more trust, fewer meetings, more individual work, and less oversight. If companies don’t adopt a different mindset governing remote work, it may be worse than physical work.
Being driven by philosophies rather than rules can make organisations more flexible and adaptable. It creates a more open, lenient, and thoughtful culture and more space for agency and openness.
Culture is not created; it's a byproduct of consistent behaviour.

Links

Why Work Does not Happen at Work: Jason Fried at TEDxMidwest

Books by Jason Fried: Amazon

Jason’s new email service: Hey

Connect with Jason Fried: Newsletter | LinkedIn | Twitter

Connect with Kursty Groves:

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Spotting Trends That Will Shape The Way We Live and Work with Li Edelkoort (Space Matters, ep.4)

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 01:00:00 -0400

Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort joins Kursty to discuss the anatomy of trends, the ecology of fashion, and the post-pandemic workplace. Reflecting on the state of the world, Li discusses how to redesign the modern workplace to respond to new and upcoming trends. She explores how the pandemic has made us more in tune with nature and the good things that have come of it. Throughout the discussion, Li shares nuggets of wisdom, showing us how trends that haven’t yet reached the main stage are currently being formed.

Li Edelkoort is a globally renowned trend forecaster and activist for fair, sustainable, and thoughtful fashion. She is the author of the Anti-Fashion Manifesto and a co-author of A Labour of Love. Recently, she founded the World Hope Forum.

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[00:49] Who is Li Edelkoort?
[01:43] The Workplace Geeks Podcast
[02:28] More about Li’s impact on eco and fashion issues.
[04:22] Where do your clothes come from?
[07:40] The energy of immobile items and all the ideas that have shaped Li’s career.
[12:05] Getting clients that align with your values.
[14:28] Fashion has become old-fashioned - what does that mean?
[20:01] The disappearing joy of finding a new fashion piece.
[22:39] Would slavery have existed if cotton and sugar didn’t exist?
[25:57] How to predict trends before they happen.
[30:52] How the pandemic pushed us to live in a more seasonal way (winter hibernation).
[34:05] How organizations can adapt to post-pandemic realities.
[37:50] Why it’s profitable to be in smaller cities.
[39:39] A simpler way to think about money and managing resources.

4 Key Takeaways

We are rooted in the earth. Our clothes are made from plants that grow in the ground. Fashion grows from the earth. We must ignite our consciousness of the connection between fashion and the environment.
Society has been overloaded with shopping. There is too much choice, and that choice is overwhelming. The joy of finding a new fashion piece and celebrating when you purchase it and then go home with it is no longer as prevalent as it used to be. As mass production increases, editing and curating will become more important parts of fashion.
The 'Great Resignation' movement amplified what was already in the air. This new trend may indicate that urban environments will become less populous as people move into rural areas. This may lead to the urbanisation of rural areas.
The pandemic has forced us to live more in tune with the seasons. Winter is for introspection, solitude, and hibernation. Summer and spring are for blooming into the world, exploration, and togetherness.

Links

Listen to Workplace Geeks: Podcast Web Page | Kursty’s Episode on Workplace Geeks

Books by William Morris: Amazon |

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Kursty featured on Workplace Geeks podcast

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 02:00:00 -0400

Interview with Ian Ellison and Chris Moriarty, two brilliant workplace thinkers 'on a mission to find and celebrate the most exciting and inspiring workplace research in the world'.

A fascinating geek-out into Kursty's second book, Spaces for Innovation, which dives into the science and design of inspiring environments that support creativity and collaboration.

Some of the topics covered include:

📖 How the book itself is designed with the user in mind

💡 The core themes for defining spaces that support creativity and innovation

📏 Metrics, how they need to accommodate new ways of working and the spaces that support

Links:

Workplace Geeks Linkedin Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/workplacegeeks/
Chris Moriarty Linkedin
Ian Ellison Linkedin

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Creating Spaces of Trust To Enable Immersion At Work with Rachel Botsman (Space Matters, ep.3)

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Summary

Expert author Rachel Botsman joins Kursty to discuss the relationship between trust and space. They talk about how significant it is for organisations to empower individuals to have a rhythm of work that sends them into immersion mode, why getting through to-do lists shouldn’t be the most prized priority in the workplace, and what negative capability is.

Rachel is the author of Who Can You Trust and the host of the Rethink Podcast. Throughout her career, she has delivered three TED talks and written two critically acclaimed books. She is the first Trust Fellow at Oxford University. Her book What’s Mine Is Yours predicted the rise of the ‘sharing economy', coining the phrase ‘collaborative consumption'.

“What you give attention to is the shape of your life” - Rachel Botsman

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Timestamps

[00:18] Who is Rachel Botsman (and episode overview)?

[03:54] The rhythm of unconventional work: finding immersion and working in 5-year cycles

[07:39] Resisting distractions and staying the course in your line of work.

[08:44] The relationship between trust and digital and physical space.

[15:22] Fake backgrounds in virtual meetings: is it inauthentic?

[16:44] What does it mean to trust yourself (and what is negative capability)?

[21:50] Three aspects of building negative capability in yourself and your organisations.

[27:01] How busy people make time for people (how Rachel does it).

[30:33] Rachel’s process for reading, reflecting, and capturing information.

[34:33] Why time blocking doesn’t work (managing competing priorities and creating space).

[37:23] Procrastination vs. avoidance (why we avoid work).

[40:44] What Rachel is working on currently.

[44:37] Rachel’s rituals when public speaking or podcasting.

4 Key Takeaways

Technology has made the world noisier. It has become harder to resist distractions. People need to be empowered to change the rhythm of their work to allow for immersion.
Trust is a space and an energy. It is a confident relationship with the unknown. When you have trust, you place your confidence in the unknown. Space design reflects the culture of trust in that space.
No creativity happens in the known; the known is the opposite of invention. Great minds can hold space in themselves; they don’t need to know the end result before they begin. Negative capability in the workplace is rare.
Timeframes, language, and work rhythms can reinforce or kill negative capability in individuals and organisations.

Rachel Botsman’s Books:

Who Can You Trust?

What's Mine Is Yours

Rachel Botsman’s Ted Talks:

We've stopped trusting institutions and started trusting str

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

The Time and Space Complications of Hybrid Work with Neil Usher (Space Matters, ep.2)

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 03:00:00 -0400

Summary

Workplace strategist Neil Usher joins Kursty to discuss the nuances of navigating hybrid work, brain states that trigger creativity, and the research opportunities we missed in the pre-pandemic world. In their conversation, they accentuate that what makes hybrid working complicated is not just the space aspect but the time aspect as well. They chat about self-imposing discipline, internally inspiring creativity, and managing time and space when you work from home.

Neil Usher is the Chief Workplace & Change Strategist at GoSpace AI. He has 20+ years of experience managing property portfolios and large-scale organizational change. He is the author of the two books The Elemental Workplace: The 12 Elements for Creating a Fantastic Workplace for Everyone and Elemental Change: Making stuff happen when nothing stands still.

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Timestamps

[00:41] Who is Neil Usher from Go Space AI? (and highlights from the conversation with Neil)

[05:36] Why Neil wrote his two books Elemental Workplace and Elemental Change.

[08:54] Why coordinating time is more challenging than coordinating space in the hybrid working world.

[15:45] Is there more value to working alone or working together?

[25:00] How has the pandemic changed the 12 elements of the workplace?

[28:52] The value of your unpublished work (don’t throw it away)

[32:32] How to leverage your two brain states (beta state and theta state)

[39:18] Self imposing discipline when you work from home

[43:24] How to connect with Neil Usher.

3 Key Takeaways

Time is more complicated than space. Before the pandemic, you knew where your colleagues would be at any point in time. Now, you need to make more decisions like where you will be at which point in time and where people you work closely with will be as well. Flexibility adds complexity and adds a mental burden.
There is a value to being alone and a value to being together. We instinctively feel that there’s value to being together, but we didn’t use the decades of opportunity we had to explore the value of being together in a scientific way. We have a lot more data on the value of working alone from the past 2 years because we consciously looked for it. We need a dynamic data capture to accurately understand how we work best.
Inclusion has become one of the most important elements of the workplace. The pandemic has shed light on the range of considerations we need to keep in mind when we think of inclusion.

Links

The Elemental Workplace: 12 Elements for Creating a Fantastic Workplace for All

Elemental Change: Making stuff happen when nothing stands still

Connect with Neil Usher: LinkedIn |

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Where is The Nowhere Office? With Julia Hobsbawm

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 02:00:00 -0500

Summary

Best-selling author Julia Hobsbawm joins Kursty to discuss her new book The Nowhere Office. In their discussion, they discuss how workplaces need to shift to embrace social health, how they can be a source of wellness, what managers need to do to overcome the 'Great Resignation', and the biggest powershift in the workplace.

Since Covid, people have strongly insisted on a genuine work-life balance. Organizations that don’t understand this desire are losing out to the great resignation. Those who do understand this fundamental mindset shift are now in the process of becoming forever changed. Tune in for a deep dive into what organizations must do to stay relevant, productive, and desirable.

Julia Hobsbawm is the author of The Nowhere Office. She is also the author of five other highly acclaimed books and is the founder of Editorial Intelligence. Julia has been awarded an OBE for her services to businesses.

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Timestamps

[00:21] What is Space Matters about?

[00:47] Who is Julia Hobsbawm (Author of The Nowhere Office).

[03:51] Do you feel like you’re in a Nowhere Office?

[05:30] Writing the book while dealing with heavy personal issues.

[07:36] Two key approaches have shaped The Nowhere Office's ideas.

[09:44] 6 ways our work landscape is permanently changing (and why the workplace will never return to pre-covid ways).

[12:16] What if work was a source of well-being (instead of stress and confusion)?

[16:02] The unreasonable expectations placed on HR departments.

[20:00] The biggest post-covid powershift in the workplace (and how to navigate hybrid working schedules).

[27:37] Where is The Nowhere Office (how physical workplaces are changing forever)?

[31:26] The great resignation: what managers MUST change to attract top talent.

[35:10] What’s next for Julia Hobsbawm (book launch, pilates, and what she did with her office)?

5 Key Takeaways

Work is shifting in 6 significant spheres. These are (1) time and place, (2) identity, (3) purpose and productivity, (4) the way we network, (5) management and leadership, and (6) wellness and wellbeing.
The workplace shouldn’t limit itself to providing mental health support for people who seek it. Rather, work should be a source of well-being in itself. Some workplaces can be a source of unreasonable expectations, elitism, and confusion.
HR departments usually have a huge mandate that keeps them busy. Paradoxically, they are awarded too little agency to do it well.
A significant result of the pandemic is a power shift between managers and employees. Knowledge workers have amassed much larger negotiating power than pre-COVID. This is particularly evident when negotiating remote working schedules and work preferences.
The idea of an office filled all the time with a particular number of people is now an outdated, unproductive, and undesirable idea. Organizations that want to remain relevant and attract top talent must shift their policies

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

NEW MINI-SERIES: Space Matters Introduction

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 02:00:00 -0500

Adding to the inspiring leaders in well-known organizations who share what they're doing and how they're implementing new ways of working, including hybrid, we'll look beyond physical space.

We'll explore my hypothesis is that there are three further types of space that impact how we think, feel, behave and interact in order to do our best work: digital space, social space and cognitive space.

Embarking on a year-long journey of exploration, Kursty will be speaking with experts from the worlds of psychology. Neuroscience, organizational development, tech, architecture, and design to understand whether and how space matters in all of these different areas for high performance work.

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Kursty featured on The Workplace Leader podcast

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 05:00:00 -0500

Interview with Sabine Ehm of Locatee, and host of The Workplace Leader.

We dig into what makes inspiring work environments and touch upon some of the misconceptions around creativity and collaboration:

❗Collaboration does not equal everybody together all the time.
❗Creativity does not equal bright colours and post its everywhere.

A thing will not make you or your people creative. So, for instance you cannot install a foosball table and then expect creativity to happen.
It is much more important to understand the fundamental human elements that support creativity like

☀️ natural light,
🌳 exposure to nature and
🏃 movement.

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How COVID-19 Launched a Constantly Changing Future of Work with Sudhir Saseedharan, Tetra Pak

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 07:00:00 -0500

Summary
Workplace experience expert Sudhir Saseedharan joins Kursty to discuss the opportunities the pandemic has presented in terms of reshaping work and the workplace. They talk about the four main pillars of the Tetra Pak workplace experience framework, why policies and frameworks should never be set in stone, and the realities of rolling out a framework globally.

While you might not have heard of Tetra Pak, you might have used it. Tetra Pak is a packaging company servicing 170 countries. It employs over 25,000 people.

Sudhir Saseedharan is the Director of Workplace Experience and Future Working at Tetra Pak. He has an impressive educational background that encompasses design, engineering, and social science.

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Timestamps

[00:33] Episode overview: Tetra Pak (the company all over the globe that you probably should know)

[02:19] Who is Sudhir Saseedharan (in his own words)?

[04:02] Why every adversity (like the pandemic) is an opportunity.

[05:22] Why everyone in the food industry should be considered a key worker.

[06:38] The packaging that keeps food fresh without preservatives.

[08:35] 4 main pillars of an optimal workplace experience.

[10:26] Why you should map out personas of your employees.

[12:47] The future is now (what does that really mean?).

[14:15] How to convince leadership to accept constant iteration.

[17:08] What is the workplace experience like at Tetra Pak?

[22:14] The challenge and excitement of innovating at a company with a mixed age demographic.

[23:47] How do you roll out a framework globally (across 170 countries)?

[26:57] Quick-fire question round (coming up with awesome ideas, getting into flow, etc.)

3 Key Highlights

Workplace experience can be broken down into four main pillars: (1) flexible working arrangements (2) workplaces (3) digital tools (4) health and wellbeing. To understand how to tackle each of these aspects, it can be a good practice to map out employee personas and use the personas to create a framework that considers everyone.
Working productively, dynamically, and capably across teams is heavily catalyzed by having a hyper-collaborative work culture and ethic. The future of work involves everyone and not the workplace experience team alone.
Rolling out a policy framework globally is undoubtedly a complex process. That being said, if we view policy frameworks as a constant work in progress (rather than instructions that are necessarily set in stone) it allows us to manage obstacles as they arise.

Links

Connect with Sudhir Saseedharan: LinkedIn

The Sharing App: Olio

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

What Hybrid Work Looks Like In Real Life - The LEGO Workplace Experience, with Timothy Ahrensbach and Anne Sofie Fedders

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 16:00:00 -0500

Summary

Timothy Ahrensbach and Anne Sofie Fedders from LEGO join Kursty to share insights from the hybrid work model they are currently implementing. Since the pandemic, the future of work has been one big experiment. Our perspective about work from home and hybrid work life has changed month by month since the beginning of COVID-19 lockdowns.

Tune in to hear Tim and Anne Sofie’s insights into how they created principles and guidelines to facilitate an effective and happy hybrid working environment. They discuss, among other things, what it’s like to build community and run meetings in a hybrid working world.

Timothy Ahrensbach is the Head of Workplace Experience at LEGO and Anne Sofie Fedders is the Head of LEGO Ways of Working.

“We’re still trying to figure out what the future of work is while we’re implementing it.” - Tim Ahrensbach

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Timestamps

[00:49] Episode overview: The best of both (LEGO)

[02:18] What’s been going on at LEGO Workplace Experience the past 9 months?

[03:35] What hybrid working at LEGO is like.

[07:11] Why is their hybrid working initiative called The Best of Both?

[07:55] Crafting and coordinating the LEGO hybrid working plan.

[12:23] Two-pronged approach to building a trust-based system.

[15:55] The main question to consider when rolling out a hybrid work programme.

[21:23] The practical side of rolling out a hybrid work programme (behaviour and mindset)

[23:32] How is the workspace changing to accommodate hybrid work?

[25:21] The necessary feedback loop between workspaces, individuals, and teams..

[28:00] The beauty of the LEGO Leadership Playground model.

[29:35] Co-creating unique shared experiences in the office to grow a strong culture.

[36:45] How do the different parts of the hybrid experience work together?

5 Key Highlights

The LEGO hybrid work plan was tested with several stakeholders before it was presented to the executives. The plan had to comply with local legal requirements.
People are now much more aware of what they want to get out of the office and more particular about their experience of it.
Coming into the office is not merely a personal affair but a collective one. Structures and systems are needed to ensure a certain amount of time spent in the office, for the well-being and harmony of the whole team.
Workplace culture should be co-created with staff, not imposed. It's influenced by the relationships formed between people; strengthening culture is about strengthening relationships.
A principle that can streamline hybrid work is that if one is online, then everyone is online. This can eliminate the awkwardness of having part of the meeting cohort online and the other part offline.

Links

Connect with Tim Ahrensbach: LinkedIn | Twitter

Connect with Anne Sofie Fedders:

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How reducing office space can improve collaboration with Sue Glew (BT)

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Summary

Sue Glew joins Kursty to discuss how she’s changing the work environment affecting 52,000 people with a 200 person team after realizing that BT has too many offices. They talk about how the physical workplace environment can influence productivity, why there shouldn’t be a standard way to implement hybrid working, and how BT adapted to COVID-19.

Sue Glew is the head of the Better Workplace program at BT. She specializes in change management and HR transformations.

“Someone once said to me: do any kind of change ever, but don’t mess with people’s desks... and here we are messing about with 52,000 of them”

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Timestamps

[00:28] Episode overview: Growing an animation studio in the pandemic.

[02:13] How (and why) BT decided that it is better to have FEWER offices.

[03:43] A vision statement for creating better physical workspaces.

[05:48]Enabling key workplace experiences by changing office design.

[10:23] How to run an office where nobody owns a desk.

[13:38] How BT acted when COVID hit.

[16:34] Why going back to the office will be more challenging than transferring to remote work.

[18:33] What is smart working? (experimenting after COVID)

[22:43] Why it is ok for autonomy in the workplace to be confusing (and not standardized).

[25:40] Multitasking in the hybrid working world.

[29:11] What Sue Glew is most excited about!

4 Key Highlights

Moments that matter in the workplace (that you might not think of immediately): being welcomed into the office, solo focus time, collaboration time, and moments of relaxation and refuelling. When redesigning workspaces, it is important to take these significant moments into deep consideration. Great workspaces are key to retaining the best talent.
People need to feel at home in the workplace. This is why, even in highly collaborative workplaces where no desk spaces are assigned - it is important for people to be able to find each other. One way around this challenge is to have ‘neighbourhoods’ for every team. So, you roughly know where you can find someone when you need them.
People adjusted to work from home very rapidly because they had no choice. However, going back to the office will likely be a lot more challenging.
Autonomy in the workplace does not have to look the same for every team in the same company. People have different working styles and personalities. It is best to leave it up to every individual team to decide how autonomy looks for them.

Links

Connect with Sue Glew: LinkedIn | Website

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

How This Company Doubled Their Staff In The Pandemic with Tom Box, Blue Zoo Animation Studio

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 07:00:00 -0400

Summary

Managing Director of Blue Zoo Animation Studio Tom Box joins Kursty to discuss how they almost doubled their staff during the pandemic. They talk about how to successfully set up a hybrid working environment, ensure you are true to your corporate values, and what doesn’t work well when going fully remote.

Tom Box is the co-founder of Blue Zoo Animation Studio and AnimDojo. Blue Zoo animation started when a few friends at university decided to start an animation studio from their bedrooms. Today, Blue Zoo has been responsible for creating some of the most popular children's TV animations. Their clients include Nickelodeon, the BBC, Disney, and many more.

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Timestamps

[00:35] Episode overview: Growing an animation studio in the pandemic.

[02:01] Who is Tom Box, and how has he doubled the size of his team during the pandemic (Blue Zoo Animations)?

[05:24] What allowed Blue Zoo animations to thrive during the pandemic (satellite studios and company values)?

[09:50] Why you should never send a blanket email to all your staff about following the rules.

[12:00] A litmus test to check if you have a culture of trust in your workplace.

[14:56] How can a creative animation studio run on remote working?

[17:37] How Blue Zoo adapted to the pandemic (technology, communicating with clients, mental health).

[20:52] Lessons learned from running a fully remote animation studio in the pandemic.

[24:06] Why this animation studio will NEVER go fully remote.

[27:37] The undocumentable learning experiences you miss out on if you only work remotely.

[34:11] 3 things to consider before setting up a hybrid workplace.

[39:32] Making physical changes to your office to make it more democratic.

[42:00] Why companies who won’t figure out hybrid working will lose out.

[43:55] The future of Blue Zoo, B Corp certification and sustainability.

[46:16] Do you need to know how to draw to work in animation?

[48:51] How to connect with Tom Box.

5 Key Highlights

Trust and diversity can make your company resilient in the face of a storm (like COVID-19). Ask yourself: Why do you force people to work in ways that aren’t suitable for them?
If you want to authentically build trust in the workplace, ask yourself, “Does this rule treat my staff like children?” before you establish any office rule. If it doesn’t pass that test, then you must have a strong (pretty much legal) reason to implement that rule.
People really thrive by seeing each other. There is a tonne of value in having meetings without an agenda. You need a good balance between social communication and project communication.
Working remotely does not bring to life the physical movements and nanosecond facial expressions crucial to bonding, creating, and communicating.
Getting your sound set up right and having enough screens to facilitate good eye contact are two important aspects you need to consider before setting up a hybrid workplace. Ignore this, and you'll turn

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Why the One-Size-Fits-All Workplace is Dead with Rob Fretwell, Airbus

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 05:04:47 -0400

After almost two years of working from home, companies are unsure about what to do with their office space—but Airbus has a plan. Rob Fretwell, Head of Space Management UK for Airbus, joins Kursty to discuss the Airbus Workplace of the Future initiative and tell all about what they are doing to transform the office space by incorporating agile and tailored ways of working.

The workplace tries to be one-size-fits-all, but Airbus knows this will no longer fly. The pandemic has made that all too clear.

“If we try to go back to how we were, then we’ve not learnt from the lesson...we shouldn’t forget this knowledge, we shouldn’t forget what it (the pandemic) taught us.” - Rob Fretwell, Airbus

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Timestamps

[00:16] Episode overview: Workplace of The Future Initiative

[01:15] Who is Rob Fretwell (and his role at Airbus)?

[06:16] How did Airbus manage operations and protect staff in the pandemic?

[11:31] How long did it take for Airbus to adapt to the pandemic?

[13:32] Dealing with technical difficulties while working from home for Airbus.

[16:36] What is the Workplace of the Future and how does Airbus create customized work environments?

[23:42] One amazing thing Rob Fretwell looks forward to going forward.

[26:15] How Airbus figured out how to transform their office space.

[28:35] Should companies go back to how they used to operate pre-pandemic?

4 Key Highlights

The pandemic has helped companies introduce technological innovations much quicker than possible. It goes to show that many challenges we consider technological are just behavioural challenges. A mindset shift can be all it takes.
The Workplace of the Future initiative aimed to create a new way of working for Airbus employees that allows them to work how, when, and where they want to maximize their productivity. It is based on three main pillars: people, behaviour, and policies; the office environment; and technology.
Gen Z and Millennials are entering the workforce after graduating from very flexible, open, and collaborative university environments. The workplace (as it stands) doesn't match this energy; it stifles creativity and doesn't inspire young people.
Returning to how things were before Covid-19 completely misses the point of our experience in the pandemic. We must value the ride we have been on since March 2020 by learning the lessons it taught us and staying agile.

Links

Connect with Rob Fretwell: LinkedIn | Twitter

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Why There Should Be More Play In The Workplace with Tim Ahrensbach, LEGO

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Head of Workplace Experience at LEGO Tim Ahrensbach joins Kursty to discuss how play can revolutionise the workplace. It is his job to make sure LEGO’s offices are as fun and as awesome as their LEGO sets and throughout the episode, he talks about how he does that.

Tune in to learn:

The six layers of workplace experience;
What it means to play at work;
Why being a fully remote workplace might stifle creativity.

“The aha moment for us was realising what our colleagues were missing was play” - Tim Ahrensbach

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Timestamps

[00:23] Episode overview and who is Timothy Ahrensbach?

[02:16] What was happening at LEGO before the pandemic?

[04:05] Adding a little bit of play to the interview! (walking the walk)

[07:29] How play helped keep people connected during the pandemic (does it matter if it’s forced?)

[08:16] What does unconventional productivity look like (much more than getting through a to-do list)?

[10:56] Why and how people have struggled to do strategic creative thinking remotely.

[14:45] How LEGO was prepared for the pandemic.

[16:46] The big aha moment for LEGO in the pandemic.

[24:54] The SIX layers of workplace experience.

[30:06] How play revolutionized the LEGO workplace in the pandemic (what is play in the workplace?)

[33:04] Examples of what play can look like in the workplace.

4 Key Highlights

Activity-based working gives people a lot of variety in their work. However, activity based working is not very community centred.
Our conventional measures of productivity can be completely misleading (eg: how many emails you send per day). For example, investing time in building relationships is not a conventional measure of productivity. That being said, it is through building relationships that you can get work done more quickly and in a fun way. Creative outcomes don’t just come from sitting at your desk for hours. They also come from having coffee with a colleague.
Working remotely is much easier when you already have a strategic creative plan that you are following. It is much more challenging when you don’t have a plan and need to create one remotely. Collaborating creatively is easier face to face. One of the reasons for this is that it is much easier to pick up on body language face to face.
The pandemic compelled people not only to be their best working selves but also their best working colleagues. The future of work post-pandemic needs to work for people personally but also for companies as a collective. This is why work cannot be fully remote nor fully in person.

Links

Connect with Tim Ahrensbach: LinkedIn | Twitter

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Should You Trust Your Staff At Work? With Graham Marshall, Shell

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 01:00:00 -0500

Graham Marshall, Head of Organization Development at Shell, joins Kursty to discuss autonomy in the workplace.

Tune in to learn:

How employment can be a force of good in the world (not just financially);
The worst thing about working from home during the pandemic;
Why the demise of the office is completely untrue.

Graham also describes how they developed leaders as role-models during a big HQ refurbishment and how they used the move to leverage engagement and introduce new behaviours.

Recording took place towards the end of 2020. Apologies - the sound quality isn't perfect, but it's full of insights, so well worth a listen!

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Timestamps

[00:30] Episode overview and who is Graham Marshall?

[02:07] The organizational development philosophy at Shell.

[03:37] The different types of workspaces at Shell (where do people do their best work?).

[08:22] How does autonomy in the workplace empower staff and make companies thrive?

[11:35] Training leaders to be welcoming hosts: why it matters.

[17:44] What you had to learn and unlearn about managing the workplace when COVID hit (And what is legacy-free reinvention?).

[22:57] What is the intimacy paradox? (working from home vs. working AT home)

[28:44] What is the BIGGEST challenge we all face at work because of the pandemic?

[30:33] Why are the rumours around the demise of the office greatly exaggerated?

[33:45] How can you shift mindsets about working from home and diversity and inclusion?

4 Key Highlights

The workspace matters. Space influences how people work. Space has to enable people to do their best work. Different personalities require different spaces and different types of work require different spaces.
Giving people autonomy in how they organize themselves, their time, and their work creates thriving workplaces. Autonomy is inclusivity.
People’s personal circumstances heavily affect their work from home experience. The work from home experience varies from country to country, it also varies by health condition and financial wellbeing. People require different types of care.
The biggest challenge of working from home during the pandemic is the monotony of work. Being around people brings about spontaneity and variety.

Links

Connect with Graham Marshall: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Workplace Innovation Born Out of The Pandemic with Masha Osherova, Warner Music Group

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 08:00:00 -0500

Masha Osherova, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Warner Music Group, joins Kursty to discuss how they survived the digital disruption of the music industry and how that experience enabled a quick and resilient response to the pandemic. Throughout the episode Masha discusses the interesting new approaches to work at Warner Music that were born out of the pandemic.

Tune in to learn:

How to nurture a sense of belonging in your employees.
How to thrive rather than just survive in the pandemic.
The difference between creating an equal vs. equitable workplace

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Timestamps

[00:29] Episode overview and who is Masha Osherova?

[01:59] How is the Warner Music Group (WMG) work environment unique?

[05:43] How are employees treated at Warner Music Group?

[07:38] How was work from home viewed at Warner Music Group before the pandemic?

[10:10] Thriving in the pandemic rather than just surviving (WMG experience)

[18:00] How did WMG improve team communication and sense of belonging during the pandemic? (Go Contribute Initiative)

[22:11] Should you keep pandemic workplace initiatives after COVID-19 is over?

[23:34] What other initiatives were born out of the pandemic at WMG?

[26:28] 4 key ways COVID-19 is changing the workplace at Warner Music Group.

[32:35] How do we create more inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplaces post-pandemic?

4 Key Highlights

Before the pandemic, it was viewed that you have to be physically present at the office to be considered to be working. This has shifted dramatically because of COVID-19. To have mass remote working was unprecedented before COVID-19. WMG held a one day test before going fully remote.
Approaching the challenges of the pandemic with a survival mindset can really limit the heights you can reach. Instead, it is best to strategize for the following challenge: how do I use the restrictions of the pandemic to thrive and improve my company? When crisis strikes, don’t put life on hold - innovate and adapt.
The pandemic has created a lasting effect on the workplace. Lots of initiatives that were born out of the pandemic will be kept up and running after the pandemic ends for good.
Creating inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplaces post-pandemic includes having options to work from home and work from the office. Some people thrive by working in solitude; for other people, it is almost like a death sentence. The best way to figure out what to do is to extract data from your workforce and make sense of it to create the best workplace possible.

Links

Connect with Masha Osherova: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Why the Future of Work is NOT Fully Remote with Ange Pattico and Susan Stanley, MVF

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 05:00:00 -0500

Ange Pattico and Susan Stanley join Kursty to discuss why the future of work is not fully remote. Throughout the conversation, they discuss the adverse effects of long-term remote work on people’s mental health, the importance of physical office space, and ways employees can stay connected when working remotely.

Ange Pattico is Chief People Officer and Susan Stanley is the Head of Space at MVF.

MVF is an exciting fast-growth business which started off as 5 friends in a basement flat with an ambitious mission to transform how businesses find new customers. Fast forward 10 years and MVF are world leaders in marketing at a global scale and use proprietary tech, data and smart marketing to grow some of the world's most notable blue chips. With over 500 people, operating in over 50 countries across the globe they won the Sunday Times' Best Company to Work for in 2020.

“When you’re in the middle of a pandemic, meeting daily is really essential because things change so quickly” - Ange Pattico

Tune in to learn:

Why the future of work is hybrid;
How having a crisis response plan makes your workplace resilient;
Why you need a workplace environment manifesto (even if you only work remotely).

Timestamps

[00:33] Episode overview and who are Ange Pattico & Susan Stanley? (How Susan got the title ‘Head of Space’)

[05:44] Why the Head of Space/Facilities should NOT report to the finance department.

[08:31] How were things before the lockdown at MVF? (Getting a COVID case at work before the lockdown)

[15:40] How did the workspace strategy change once COVID-19 hit?

[18:24] The crisis response triangle built at MVF.

[20:04] Tactics you can use to keep your employees connected when working virtually.

[22:34] Why MVF is not going to be working remotely long term.

[28:30] What COVID workplace changes will stay and which will be discontinued? (the biggest lessons they learnt from COVID)

4 Key Highlights

How you use space is how you convey wellbeing (or lack thereof) in a building. It also sends a message to employees about how you feel about them.
Creating a response chart for crises can be a great way to give your employees clarity during stressful times.
Pre-recorded videos, live streams, and live Q&As can be useful tools to stay connected during mass remote work periods.
Working remotely (only) long term can be bad for your mental health. According to MVF, the hybrid model would be the healthiest. The effect of physical interaction cannot be replicated online. Oxytocin levels rise when you see people in the same space.

Links

Connect with Ange Pattico: LinkedIn

Connect with Susan Stanley: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

The AstraZeneca Workplace in The Pandemic with Kate Derrick

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 13:00:00 -0500

Kate Derrick, Director of Workplace at AstraZeneca, joins Kursty to discuss how AstraZeneca is handling the pandemic in their own workplaces (no, not just in terms of producing the vaccine).

“People drive culture and to keep it remote it’s really difficult to drive that culture”
- Kate Derrick

Tune in to learn:

The mindset shift that managers have had to make towards flexible working;
How activity-based working acts as a strong base for what's next in hybrid working;
How different personalities benefit or struggle with home working.

This episode was recorded just as the UK went into its second lockdown since the COVID crisis hit.

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Timestamps

[00:20] Episode overview and who is Kate Derrick, Director of Workplace at AstraZeneca?

[00:47] Why did they manage to work from home overnight with no problems?

[01:54] Best practices of working from home at AstraZeneca.

[06:02] How COVID-19 empowered employees to lead executive management.

[08:53] AstraZeneca’s crowdsourcing event: gathering opinions about working from home.

[12:18] Why the press around working from home can be misleading.

[13:41] How does working from home affect inclusion and equity?

[16:44] What workplace changes will continue after COVID (and what won't)?

[23:58] How do cultural differences affect responses to the pandemic in the workplace?

[25:00] Why did people WANT to come into the office after remote work?

[26:43] How did office space at AstraZeneca shift because of the pandemic?

4 Key Highlights

Encouraging flexibility is the future of the workplace. When work from home began, people were excited about it, however the excitement started to wear off once remote working prolonged. The opposite is also true. Therefore, we need to find a solution that encompasses the best of both worlds.
Remote working does not always lead to equitable working environments. Some people live in much smaller spaces than others because of the real estate market in their areas.
Seeing people and collaborating with people face to face are amongst the top reasons people want to return to the office. On the bottom of the list of reasons people want to return to the office is focus.
Remote work added another place to the mix of spaces where work is possible: the home. This does not mean that corporate office space must be reduced. Rather, it compels companies to think: how can I make my space work better for us?

Links

Connect with Kate Derrick: LinkedIn

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

Are Physical Offices Dead? With Tracy Hawkins, Twitter

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 13:00:00 -0500

Tracy Hawkins, Vice President of Real Estate & Workplace and Remote Experience at Twitter, joins Kursty to discuss whether offices are dead.

Tune in to learn:

If you should reduce your office space post-pandemic;
How you can create a workplace culture even if you only work remotely;
How to keep people connected even when everyone is working remotely.

Support the show

Timestamps

[00:19] Episode overview and who is Tracy Hawkins?

[03:00] What does it mean to be in charge of remote work experience?

[05:41] How did Twitter support employees to adapt their homes to remote work?

[09:38] What are the main lessons from dealing with the challenges of the pandemic at Twitter?

[12:26] Is the office dead?

[16:00] Are the COVID changes in the workplace temporary?

[19:14] Useful tools for remote work.

[21:08] How do you build a workplace experience if you are only working remotely?

[23:35] Will Twitter be reducing its office space?

[27:35] Twitter’s office re-entry plan.

3 Key Highlights

Asynchronous work will likely be part of the future of work. People in the future will be able to work on their own schedules, at times that are convenient to them.
The office is a tool. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to kill it or declare it dead. Rather, the way we use the tool (that is the office) will merely shift.
Useful tools for remote work include Google Docs and Salesforce. They can also be great for managing health check ins.

Links

Connect with Tracy Hawkins: LinkedIn | Twitter | Real Estate and the Workplace Twitter

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.

The Office Chronicles - Series Intro

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 08:00:00 -0500

A podcast that charts the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on workplaces.
Join author, professor and workplace consultant Kursty Grovesas she gathers stories and learnings from influential organisations as they tackle the question: will the office ever be the same again?

Each episode explores the moments during and post-pandemic when extraordinary people are reimagining and reshaping workplaces to support people through this unprecedented time – from tech giants with extended work-from-home policies, fully-remote businesses to COVID-safe coworking and collaboration hubs.

Support the show

Support the show

Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.

Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.

For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.

To suggest a theme or guest, email jen@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.