With the advent of Hybrid Working, we entered a new age of mobility. The pandemic validated the WFH (Work From Home) model. This brings home and office into the same category of complimentary workplace and lifestyle, freeing many in the workforce from challenges managing lives, roles and family demands. Work-life and wellness becomes more balanced, commutes are cut down, and people can be trusted to manage their schedules and coordinate with their teams. Offices can save over 20% in space, capital cost and utilities and devote resources to creating better, more supportive & exciting workplaces

As we look to the future, workplace and real estate strategies will continue to act as a tool to support existing employees and attract new ones. This panel will offer different perspectives on the discovery of workplace strategy and the challenges and opportunities faced by business leaders as they adapt their strategies to accommodate employee needs. Our experts will discuss latest trends and considerations, sharing insights across environmental elements that play a key role in shaping the experience of work and workplace as a destination.

Dr. Burcin will cover a range of topics on the changing world of work including smart offices and intelligent buildings that sense user data, model user behaviour, reason and interact with their users through the applications of AI and human-machine collaborations. The topics in this talk will cover work from home, smart office workstations that sense worker preferences, control office environmental conditions for promoting work performance and creativity, automate ergonomic assessments, and detect worker’s stress and provide solutions for stress reduction & recovery.

The age of the “anywhere office” has accelerated multiple workplace transformation trends that were already well underway before the onset of COVID-19. Workplace trends such as smart workplace technology integration, human experience enablement as well as the emergence of diverse ‘hybrid workplace’ behaviours. Our panel will explore the emerging “Intelligent + Experiential” Workplace and what we can expect for the near term and longer term as we shape the future of work with the continued development and evolution of enterprise workplace ecosystems.

Inclusive leadership is synonymous with great leadership, but do the managers in your company know how to practice behaviors of inclusion? In this interactive mini-workshop, we’ll share research on what makes inclusive leaders different. You'll learn skills to help managers leverage difference, make sure every voice is heard and create a space where people can be themselves and do their best work. You'll also leave with an assessment of inclusion at your company, simple micro-inclusion habits you can use immediately, and tips for gaining leadership buy-in.

For some organizations, their reasoning for employees to return to the office is rooted in logic—certain job functions must take place in person, spontaneous collaboration and ingenuity can occur, and social interactions build positive culture. But, many organizations are unaware that the human brain makes 95% of its decisions based on the subconscious. In this presentation, Dr. Dustin Jackson will use research and findings from psychology and neuroscience to analyse the office’s impact on feelings of connectedness within the workplace.

Hybrid work has proved both a challenge and opportunity for many organizations. Many have embraced this as an opportunity to rethink and redefine the role of work and the workplace, while others have been challenged to find their way in this new environment, creating tales of two worlds of work. We will review two different organizations approach to the same problem and show how two very diverse perspectives on defining work and place provided diverse solutions resulting in two different world views. We will present Gensler's latest research into methods and metrics around hybrid working.

As companies determine what their offices will provide going forward, anew design partner is emerging: the employee. Dani Gelfand, Design Director at Studio O+A, talks about how priorities around wellness, diversity, sustainability, and inclusion are driving designs at some of the world’s most influential workplaces. There’s climate change in the work environment too.

Dr. Agustin Chevez walked in isolation for 42 days from Melbourne to Sydney expecting to incubate a unique idea about workplace design. Over a million steps later, his pilgrimage delivered unique insights which he refers to as Signposts – named for their promise to point to a better place to work for both, organisations and the people who inhabit them. In his talk, Agustin will take us in a journey that revisits our assumptions about the way we use space to host the ever-evolving notion of work – an expedition leading not only to better workplaces, but a better version of ourselves.