Four years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that brought work-from-home and hybrid work conditions to the forefront for office workers across the country, employers are starting to respond to trends that are developing in the workplace.
Commercial real estate and investment company JLL recently released its 2024 Global Occupancy Planning Benchmarking Report that revealed signs as to where the industry is headed with regards to work trends for office workers in commercial and institutional industries.
The takeaways include:
JLL recently announced a collaboration with Microsoft on using a workplace app, Microsoft Places, to help address the changing trends. The company has been piloting the app at its global headquarters in Chicago since March. The app is designed to help employees and teams coordinate in-person office time.
The app is designed to help streamline the booking process for meeting rooms and shared seating and works with Microsoft Teams to incorporate out-of-office employees. The data compiled from the Places app also provides facility managers and team leaders with data on occupancy and space utilization trends to improve the workplace experience.
Examples of this include adjusting lighting and temperature settings as well as planning cleaning schedules when the space is in use.
“A data-driven approach to facilities management, combined with human insight, delivers the best outcomes for occupiers and workers,” says Jim Whittaker, senior group product manager with JLL Work Dynamics.
Dave Lubach is executive editor for the facility market.
