With a global pandemic, racial injustice, and climate change at the constant forefront of our minds, by now it is clear that we are all living through a major turning point in history. In health care, providing places that protect the health, safety, and welfare of all occupants has never been more critical and yet other demands have not subsided. Consumers continue to expect more personalized care, outside disruptors are pressuring established institutions, and everchanging codes and legislation are affecting facility construction and reimbursements. 2020 has felt both like an eternity and a blink of the eye. On November 4, 5, and 6 we welcome you to join us in conversation on what we have learned in the past year and the opportunities to move health care forward together. Teri Oelrich and Ryan Hullinger from NBBJ will be presenting the Car Care Concept. Register here to support our colleagues!

On Wednesday, September 23 Tammy will be participating in The Center for Health Design's Behavioral Health Strategic Design Workshop, specifically on safety in care settings. For more details, click here. And come join us in supporting her. "Safety is essential in behavioral health care settings to ensure the health and wellbeing of both patients and their caregivers. However, at points the safety and supervision of behavioral health patients can hinder their needs for feelings of health, wellness and personal autonomy. Join this panel for a thoughtful discussion about the challenges in balancing these two needs." #BehavioralHealth #DesignWorkshop #Safety

Co-Contributor: Bryan Langlands Read our latest article here featured in Forbes that explains how healthcare facilities can make creative use of their spaces in order to reduce the social isolation felt by healthcare workers and patients. #COVID #reducesocialisolation #healthcareworkers #patients #Forbes Image Credit: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES

This post was co-authored by Harsh Kedia and Pragya Gupta. With COVID-19 keeping many of our urban centers closed, the ten-year-old Seattle Design Festival is going virtual with 'About Time' as its central theme. NBBJ will debut the Urban Harmony Digital Seattle app - a virtual collaborative audio-visual experience to build a sense of community and connect with the city while keeping the distance . To start using the app, click here: urban-harmony.vercel.app/ When many of us are disconnected from family, friends and the city at large, often only leaving the house for essential purposes, emerging digital tools can play a helpful role in fostering connections. Urban Harmony encourages users to connect with the city and their neighbors through a unique audio-visual experience. HOW IT WORKS Urban Harmony Seattle is an app that allows users to create, listen and “view” the sounds of their neighborhood, to create an ever-changing audio and visual experience. There are two ways to engage: RECORD When selecting “record,” users record a short audio snippet which will be time-stamped and geo-tagged to their location. LISTEN Playback will be offered in two formats: As an audio diary of users’ personal recordings. As a compilation of recordings from neighborhoods. These will be accompanied by graphic representations, providing a visual soundscape to the city. Each sound appears on the map as an iconic radial soundwave, which encapsulates a piece of audio in a single image. The radial soundwave can become an interpretive image of harmony and togetherness, as each bar comes together to create a cohesive image. The user can explore an area by zooming into the region on the interactive map and playing the sounds from their chosen neighborhood. Have you used the app yet? How do you connect with your family, friends and the city at large? We'd like to hear from you, drop us a line at socialmedia@nbbj.com.

This Wednesday, August 12 at 5 pm, I look forward to joining a conversation with Herman Howard, Marsha Maytum, and Megan Feenstra Wall to share design action steps we can take to address current and future challenges. Design can make a difference! Tune in to see how our profession is changing the future of our communities. Join me for an @aianational learning event about the ways design can build change on Aug 12. More details at https://crm.aia.org/s/lt-event?id=a1Y1U000002jeMZ#/Details.

Registration is now open for the CarbonPositive RESET! 1.5°C Global Teach-In. The global teach-in is free, scheduled as full-day “how-to” events in different global regions, and will showcase the most effective building materials, construction methods, design tools, architecture, and planning strategies,  practices and policies for dramatically and rapidly reducing the embodied and operational carbon emissions as we take this critical moment to RESET targets and actions to meet the Paris Agreement. Join Architecture 2030 and experts from around the world this September to learn and accelerate the changes needed to make carbon reductions that can limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures. CarbonPositive RESET! will be segmented into morning general sessions and afternoon breakout sessions that will explore all aspects of the built environment - check out the agenda for more information. We look forward to seeing you online! #climate #carbon #2030 #design #sustainability

Co-authored with Bryan Langlands As more people use telehealth options during the pandemic, Bryan Langlands and I explain how healthcare providers can adjust their offices to improve patient care and streamline operations accordingly. Read our full article on Forbes. Telehealth options enable practitioners to see more patients without compromising care. KATHRYN SCOTT OSLER/THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES #forbes #covid19 #telehealth #improvecare #streamlineoperations

The healthcare environment is inherently stressful. Staff are working long shifts, rotating shifts, and are dealing with life and death every day; they must be error free in every action they take and every medication they administer. COVID-19 has intensified this stress. Short-staffed facilities are relying on the same staff, shift after shift. Nurses are taking on more jobs and activities ranging from patient care to cleaning patient rooms. The added burden of wearing PPE makes a twelve-hour shift, in which nurses typically walk four to five miles, even more physically exhausting. Studies have shown that fatigue impacts a caregiver’s physical health, because of the increased risk for needle stick injuries, and mental health, because of sleep deprivation and psychosocial functioning; and that, in turn, affects patient outcomes. Caregivers working twelve and a half hour shifts or longer have increased risk of committing a healthcare error, yet little has been done in the built environment to mitigate fatigue and enhance wellbeing. Initiatives have sprung up around the country to try to improve the work environment for staff. Some of these strategies include hiring dedicated staff to cover breaks and providing structured restorative break activities like yoga and meditation. There has even been legislation to enforce breaks for staff. What has not really been addressed by the design community is the environment for staff breaks. Studies have examined the physical environment and impact on healthcare outcomes but only focus on the patients. There is some research on other environments that may be applicable to the healthcare setting, but to date, little has been done focusing on staff. These interventions include access to nature, daylight, and fresh air. Are your Caregivers Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired? An approach that is being studied to help support staff and minimize fatigue and medication errors is HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. An initial small-scale study showed a decrease in medication errors by thirty one percent over two months. However, it did not address where the activities should occur to mitigate HALT. From my own clinical experience as a nurse and now as an architect, I’ve taken the approach that supported and cared for staff will provide supportive care to their patients and the built environment should enable that and help to further mitigate HALT. Here are some of the simple strategies I’ve implemented over the years working with clinical teams: Decentralize Small Break Spaces and Place Them Close to Nurse Stations Staff are reluctant to go far from their patients and often don’t have more than five minutes to have cup of coffee or eat a snack. The reality is that food and beverages often end up in the nurse station, especially on the night shift. By providing a dedicated space that is easily accessed near the point of care allows staff a place to step aside, have a cup of coffee or a granola bar, and reboot. Providing distributed break nooks or rooms, large enough for a couple of people, close to the areas of work for brief nourishment breaks addresses the Hungry. Hydration is even more important with COVID-19 and extended wearing of PPE leads to dehydration and more fatigue. If there is room in the existing nurse station to carve out a small nook as a decentralized break space, do it If not, try to find another small office or storage room and set it up close to the nurse station where staff can go sit down with some privacy and have a ten-minute break for coffee or to rehydrate and refuel Furnish the spaces with a small café table and a couple of chairs or a pair of lounge chairs with a table arm for someone to sit at with a beverage These simple changes will send the message that you are taking care of them in the flow of their workday. Update Your Staff Lounge The staff lounge is the only code-required support space for staff. Unfortunately, they often fall into “leftover” space during planning and placed in a landlocked area that has no access to daylight, views of nature, or the outdoors. As a result, it is a dismal and depressing space and not a welcoming or supportive environment. Staff comment that they are the lowest priority when healthcare facilities are planned. Staff spaces should be required to include windows, daylight, and ideally located in a more discrete part of the patient care environment. Privacy from family and visitors should be provided, as a dedicated lounge and not serve multiple functions like a training room, locker room, or someone’s workspace. In an ideal world, all staff lounges would have direct access to an outside space. When you can’t start new, update your staff lounge by: Cleaning it up using the 5-S method: Sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain Giving it a fresh coat of paint, new furniture, and remove work related material Removing notices of in-services and other work information. Post these in another location and make this space an oasis that staff can utilize to refresh and reboot. Providing healthy snacks. This an investment by leadership to maintain healthy behaviors in this stressful time Adding images of nature on the walls if it is an interior location Assuring the mechanical system is properly balanced to quickly dispersed any food odors Removing the TV and add soothing music. At the very least, turn off the news, it is overwhelming, and your staff are living the news real time, twenty-four hours a day, every day. The lounge should be a respite from the unit and the rest of the world. Provide Respite Rooms Providing Respite Rooms for calming and destressing is necessary to address the Angry and Tired components of HALT. Some clients have dubbed this space the “Zen Den” or “The Oasis” and have used aroma therapy, visual and audio distraction, and massage therapy to de-stress. This is especially important now with the amount of deaths and patient volumes staff are experiencing because of COVID-19. They need a place to go cry or scream or just de-stress. Look for an office or small storage room in your patient care environment that can be temporarily or permanently relocated to create a respite space. It doesn’t need to be large, eight by ten feet can work Repaint, add dimmable lighting, and furnish with a comfortable lounge chair. Provide music or other positive sensory elements Plants or images of nature can be calming and restorative, especially if the room does not have a window Add acoustic seals to the doors to provide additional privacy and translucent film on any windows from the corridor into the space Avoid the temptation to combine this space with the decentralized break room; these spaces serve different functions and address different needs Another alternative is to take a larger space and subdivide it into two spaces, one for a decentralized break space and one for the respite space While it is still unusual to find Respite Rooms, they are used by some facilities as nap rooms and furnished with a recliner, thus addressing the Tired. They should be located on the unit and easy to access, but in a quiet area. Make the Conference Room a Sharing Room It is important to have space for staff to debrief, review incidents, hear the experience of their colleagues, and share feelings in a space like a conference room. It’s critical to let the staff know they are not alone and that others are feeling the same stressors. This debrief process helps to mitigate the feeling of being Lonely. Schedule regular debriefs with the staff Give them a forum to share their thoughts, feelings, and emotions Make it a safe space to be honest and open. Bring in therapists to run the discussions and try to have them on all shifts, not just weekdays. During this time of COVID-19 staff are feeling overwhelmed and often unsupported. Studies are underway to assess the impact of the pandemic on healthcare workers, and information from other countries who are ahead of us have revealed disturbing trends. Frontline providers are experiencing higher rates of distress, anxiety, and sleep disturbances. They can also feel isolated as many are staying away from families from fear of infecting loved ones. Sharing coping strategies with others, taking breaks, eating healthy, and minimizing alcohol or drug use are all recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Stress has always been part of the healthcare working environment, now critically amplified because of the pandemic. The simple interventions recommended here can be implemented with minimal cost and provide staff with the physical spaces to implement the recommended WHO strategies and cope with these stressful new working conditions. #WHO #covid19 #wellbeing #healthcarestaff Image courtesy Adobe Stock.

The Center for Active Design is authoring a set of guidance documents for the real estate industry as we prepare to reactivate the workplace, Research to Action: Building Health for All® in the Face of COVID-19 . As the creators of Fitwel, a workplace wellness certification system, the Center is thinking holistically and scientifically about how to ensure health in all aspects is considered as we go back to the office. There are several webinar opportunities posted on this page, including one on May 21 addressing the guidance documents, and a session for the Living Future 20 seminar series on The New Resilience — How the Global Pandemic will Influence Building and Community Design. Highlights of that one include Howard Frumkin and Dr. Richard Jackson, notable public health leaders. Great to bring the science of wellbeing into the conversation!

Editor’s Note: This post was co-authored by Jonathan Bahe and Kelly Griffin. Questions to Consider and What to Do If You Don’t Have a Strategy in Place The coronavirus crisis and social distancing are reshaping how we work on a global level. For some of us, our homes are now our offices. Even when it’s safe to return to the workplace, some will feel most productive completing solo tasks from home at least part of the time. As such, the workplace may evolve to become the “central nervous system” of organizational culture and collaboration, offering people the flexibility and professional trust to find spaces that serve their needs best. While the office of tomorrow will look different for each company, the COVID-19 crisis presents a moment for all organizations to pause and ask key questions about their real estate strategy. Below are a series of nine questions to help determine the right pivot approach, if you have a strategy in place, as well as ideas on how to help adapt the workplace — not just in the short term, but for the long term as well. If you don’t yet have a strategy in place, we also outline steps to create one toward the end. Re-Think Existing Real Estate Strategies 1. Is your real estate strategy aligned with your workplace strategy? Do you distinguish between the two? For many organizations, a real estate strategy might be more financially and macro-scale focused, while the workplace strategy might be more people and micro-scaled focused. These are both critical components to a robust plan for the future. 2. Has the pandemic shifted long-term business priorities for your organization that would also require changes to your real estate and workplace models? Perhaps you are a healthcare organization that has both heroically supported our communities through one of the most difficult times in our history, and yet face significant financial headwinds. How might this moment shift thinking about your real estate strategy and portfolio? Do people need to work on campus all day, every day? Can organizational hierarchy in the assignment of real estate give way to creative models for allowing people to do their best work? Or perhaps many members of your organization were already out of the office frequently, meeting with clients or executing client work. Will the realization and acceptance of video conferencing at scale actually keep people in the office more frequently? Or perhaps the economic headwinds have slowed the growth projections of your company, and you are asking what’s next? How do you be smarter about real estate costs in the future? 3. Is your existing real estate strategy focused on financial metrics or on people metrics? If financial metrics are your biggest driver, you might choose to take this moment to re-examine what and how you measure success. Newer, modern workplaces, particularly those that embrace a more flexible workplace, will have different metrics than traditional cost per SF or SF per person than previous environments. If people metrics power your business, how can your workplace support dispersed teams and flexible work modes, while still maintaining (or increasing) your organizational culture? What are existing people metrics — net promoter scores, employee engagement survey results, etc. — telling you about workplace environments, or about your culture that a new workplace might address? 4. Do your HR team members have a work from home policy in place that aligns with your real estate strategy? If not, what steps might you need to take to align them? 5. What is your organizational approach to seat sharing and/or hoteling? If seat sharing is part of your strategy, how will you operationalize the needed resources to ensure the safety and cleanliness of the workplace? If seat sharing is not a part of your strategy, how are you going to effectively manage workplace capital spending for a future where more people will work remotely, versus being at their desk 100% of the time (which was already the case for many organizations pre-COVID)? 6. What elements of your strategy were already working well, and have proven effective as you’ve responded to COVID-19? Maybe you already embraced flexibility, or had begun making investments in video conferencing and virtual collaboration platforms. If so, you’ve likely been more successful than others at the transition. 7. What are key elements about your culture that you want your workplace to reinforce, and is the design of your current workplace doing that successfully? Will it still be successful if you have a blended approach to working from home and working in the office? Do you have the right mix of collaboration spaces, focus spaces and amenity spaces to support your culture in a more flexible work environment? 8. Have you reviewed upcoming leases to see if any shifts in strategy might be implemented immediately and generate near-term savings opportunities, versus which might be implemented on new projects moving forward? Do you have any lease termination rights, or the opportunity to exercise an early termination option on part of the portfolio? Or perhaps you are in a position to negotiate an early extension with your landlord in return for concessions? Having a committed team in place as a key part of your real estate strategy can help you answer the variety of questions and scenarios that will support the implementation of your new approach. 9. For projects currently in the design and construction pipeline, what shifts (if any) might you need to make to adapt to this new strategy? If you are currently planning a 1:1 approach to seating, but your new strategy indicates that hoteling (at even a small ratio) might be a good fit, what redesign or renegotiation might need to happen to support that change? Create a New Real Estate Strategy Of course, the questions above are only relevant if you’re among the companies that already operate with a real estate strategy in place. If you don’t yet have a strategy, which would put you in good company as the majority do not, it’s not too late! Whether you are the CEO, the COO, a corporate real estate executive, or a leader in your organization, the development of a real estate strategy can: 1) Provide your organization with a clearer map for the future; 2) Better align your talented staff, the way they work and your organizational culture; and 3) Better project, manage and perhaps even reduce CapEx and OpEx real estate expenses for your organization. A win, win, win all around. An integral step in developing a real estate strategy is establishing an effective workplace strategy, highlighted in the “congruence model” below. This model aligns multiple systems to create a holistic workplace experience and enhance human performance. Once you determine how your space will be utilized now and in the future — as well as how remote work policies and virtual collaboration tools will be deployed — your teams can make better decisions about their real estate needs. Embrace Uncertainty to Adapt to the Future No company could fully prepare for the difficulty of our current times. How we recover and go back to work (pre-vaccine) will continue to be debated, tested, and adapted as we learn more. The next 12-18 months will be filled with questions, uncertainties and unknowns — all of which will increase stressors on leaders and our workplaces. Yet with a robust real estate strategy as your guide, organizational decisions about the future will become clearer. As optimists, we’re excited about workplaces that nurture employee health, connection and creativity, while also aligning design strategy with organizational strategy. Leading organizations will embrace this moment as one of the many inevitable, unknown disruptors to their best-laid strategic plans, and flex their organizational muscles to adapt for a new future. How are you and your organization dealing with the coronavirus? We’d like to hear from you. Drop us a line at socialmedia@nbbj.com. Banner image courtesy Edmon Leong.

Organizations Should Keep These Three Responses in Mind When Strategizing Their Return to the Workplace by Kelly Griffin Principal, Workplace Strategist, NBBJ Editor’s Note: This post was co-authored by Kelly Griffin, Andrew Lazarow and Samuel Liberant. For more than 100 years, neurologists have been looking at the ways stress can pull us out of our comfort zones and free us to achieve at higher levels. But what does one do when that source of stress is a pandemic? Weeks into the worldwide shutdown in response to COVID-19, many organizations are asking themselves, When can we get back to normal? What will the new normal be? These are understandable questions; however, it’s important for organizations to reflect on how they’re reacting before bringing employees back to the office or making changes about future policies or office design. The Three Zones An organization’s response to crisis typically falls into three zones, through which one may move sequentially, almost like the grieving process. The Fear Zone The “Fear Zone” is a reactionary phase in which an organization follows impulses. The Fear Zone is a stance of loss aversion, an attempt to mitigate a painful situation as quickly as possible. This is a common mindset, as it is human to seek comfort. We are built to develop routines, and the emotion of fear may often direct our actions. Importantly, this is usually a temporary place that can be an enabler of change and an improved mindset. – The Learning Zone Next is the “Learning Zone,” when an organization develops new confidence that enables reflection on thoughts and reactions. The Learning Zone is a time of increased awareness, not only introspectively but also of how others respond to the situation. The organization gains new skills and experiences that allow it to deal with challenges and problems. – The Growth Zone Finally, in the “Growth Zone,” an organization is empowered to make swift decisions in support of a greater purpose. Now that it is more resilient and comfortable with being uncomfortable, it asks how to grow from it, how it will be affected going forward, and to whom it might reach out for help. An indicator of being in this zone is a new mindset, characterized by acting with immediacy after reflection. Performing at this level, the organization is free to see new goals and objectives, or new solutions to existing objectives. What the Three Zones Mean for the Workplace An organization in the Fear Zone will focus on immediate mitigation and attempt to return to its comfort zone as quickly as possible. While this response is understandable, even necessary, in the early stages of a crisis, an organization that never progresses beyond the Fear Zone can make short-sighted decisions. For instance, responding to the coronavirus threat by tearing out workstations and putting everyone in 8’x8′ cubicles with high partitions, thus undermining everything we know about the importance of daylight and human connections to personal health and organizational performance. Or by installing infrared fever monitors, which are of limited effectiveness when anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of people can transmit the disease while exhibiting no symptoms. When an organization moves from the Fear Zone to the Learning Zone, it is working hard to make itself better. It begins asking, either internally or with the help of experts, the questions that spur reflection: What is your underlying vision as an organization? How can you remain authentic to that vision amidst changing circumstances? What is critical to your work, and to our basic need as humans to be social? What makes your staff feel valued even through this moment? Finally, in the Growth Zone, the crisis becomes an opportunity for an organization either to confirm its purpose or to question and refine it further. Most organizations will say yes, their vision and purpose continue to be relevant, but it’s a powerful question to ask, because it serves as a reminder of who you are and what you stand for. It puts a crisis in perspective and allows an organization to align around a meaningful, intentional path forward, regardless of whether or not it reveals immediate design solutions. This renewed purpose can also be used to refine ideas — or potential design decisions — developed in the Learning Zone. Everyone starts in the Fear Zone, but the sooner an organization can access what’s true to itself, the faster it can move into the Growth Zone and physicalize the changes it needs to make. Potential Implications Potential changes to collaborative vs. focused work locations Organizations in the Growth Zone will reflect on what worked and what did not work in their response to COVID-19, and will take the opportunity to connect those lessons to their purpose and social sustainability before driving to real estate outcomes. An important task is not to solve problems but to explore possibilities. Maybe an organization will permanently locate 50% of its workforce in the office and 50% at home. Or maybe the office becomes a more social environment with fewer desks and more support for team-based collaborative interactions, while the home becomes a place for more focused work. Regardless, successful organizations will engage in a purposeful, growth-minded dialogue about what best supports their vision. Potential changes to protocols and operations Nor will we solve all the problems of COVID-19 through physical changes alone. There will always be pinch points where people gather — and potentially spread a contagious illness — in elevators, in restrooms, by the coffeemaker or in conference rooms. Journey mapping — helping people understand all their touch points on the way back to work — can reveal changes to protocols and operations that mitigate those pinch points, perhaps by opening up stairs and limiting the number of people in an elevator. Perhaps an organization will hire a barista so there aren’t dozens of employees’ hands touching the coffee pot and sugar packets. Perhaps when colleagues brainstorm together they wear masks or bring their own set of markers to the conference room. The point is to ask what an organization needs to fundamentally achieve its mission while eliminating the touch points that pose a potential threat — primarily in the short term, but potentially for the long term as well. Potential changes to emphasize wellbeing and social connection For many of us in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, our world has narrowed to two questions: Will I get sick? And how can I cope with isolation? For many organizations, their response to COVID-19 may double down on those two issues, wellbeing and social connection, which we already knew were vital to the health and performance of both individuals and organizations. Perhaps we’ll create more environments incorporate nature, encourage movement and connect people to each other to boost employee health and performance and each organization’s triple-bottom-line. What People and Organizations Should Do in Response to COVID-19 Notice where you are. Pause and give space for reflection. Allow yourself to pursue an intentional journey of greater purpose with a renewed sense of spirit, commitment and engagement. As yet, no one knows for certain whether the coronavirus pandemic will be forgotten quickly — because unlike a natural disaster like a flood or volcanic eruption, it leaves behind no dramatic physical evidence — or whether it will spur major societal changes. Either way, once the immediate threat passes, an organization’s long-term challenges and goals will continue to exist, and those who are able to align around their vision will be the ones most positioned for success. #kellygriffin #covid19 #workplaceresponse

Weeks into a “stay at home” order, those of us who can work remotely quickly discover the pros and cons of our new routines. Kelly Griffin asks: is your company culture and workplace ready for longer-term change after the peak of the coronavirus has passed? Keep reading Kelly’s article from nbbX below or click here. Low utilization rates in the office, access to top talent, improved virtual collaboration tools and opportunities for staff flexibility are long-held drivers for organizations to consider work-from-home strategies. Since many of us are now weeks into a “stay at home” order, this is the first time we’ve all been given a chance to try it for ourselves. If you considered a remote-work strategy before COVID-19, this moment becomes an unexpected opportunity to learn what works for your organization. When we return to our offices, our workplace strategies will expand beyond the typical office or campus. They will include hundreds of extra remote work sites and leverage office locations for their highest value — to bring people together. In the meantime, we can learn from our current experience and bring these benefits back to the office. Here are a couple of ideas to think about: Deeper Connections Strong personal relationships are critical to effective teams. Thanks to video conferencing, we now have an unexpected window into our colleagues’ lives. Having a child or a pet wander across a screen gives us more insight into who they are and helps us build deeper connections. We can embrace these unexpected, personal moments to build relationships that go beyond the current state, and carry them with us even after we return to the workplace. Today, we can practice our virtual interactive skills by shifting a face-to-face breakfast meeting to a virtual coffee to stay connected over the things that usually bring us together. Adapting Culture It’s also important to consider whether your culture is ready for this kind of change longer-term after the peak of the coronavirus has passed. So much of organizational culture is defined by face-to-face interactions, how people react in a crisis, and how they build trust with their colleagues. While each organization is unique, there are some key considerations. Have your teams been able to turn to each other for support, working together to meet the needs of the business? Have managers been able to let go and enable teams to perform their work without in-person monitoring? you been able to share stories and celebrate how people have shown up for each other despite the current disruption? Ideally, this moment is bringing out the best of your teams and is showing that your culture can thrive and be ready for more intentional remote work. An Evolving Workplace Finally, this is an unexpected opportunity to think about the workplace itself. The definition of a real estate portfolio may evolve beyond a single office location or a campus to a collection of sites — including people’s homes that are supported by a real estate team in close collaboration with people and technology teams. We may consider our offices as more of an organizational hub or “passthrough model,” shifting toward more effective group space. If most of our work can happen at home, we will be drawn to the office for the social interactions and the energy we derive from when we feel like we are a part of something — and can tangibly see the direct impact our efforts have on others. In addition, being given the choice of where to work matters too. When we can expand our range of workplace options beyond only those in a traditional office, we can work where we are most productive. Despite our resilience, and how quickly many of us have adopted to a work-from-home approach, there are still things we miss and can’t wait to get back to soon: the daily, unplanned interactions with our colleagues; the ability to effortlessly build on ideas and brainstorm as a team in one room; the unexpected insight that forms when running into someone you don’t normally work with on a regular basis. Furthermore, we benefit from a change in scenery — from selecting spaces that align with our mood and the type of work to be done — that isn’t always available within the limited real estate we have at home. And while we may approach a room full of people with some trepidation in the future, we are still social animals that rely on human contact for survival. Although the future is uncertain, it’s important to use this time to consider what’s right for your organization. #KellyGriffin #DeeperConnections #AdaptingCulture #EvolvingWorkplace #Covid19 #RemoteWork