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As hybrid working strategies continue to gain momentum, physical workplaces are adjusting to transform into destination workspaces. These work environments are intentionally designed to prioritise employees’ preferences and needs, aiming to be attractive and desirable. Before investing in more user-centred approaches, management companies must understand the optimal allocation of resources and the most effective strategies for implementation.
Enjoy-Work approached Arup to improve its services to users for its Chiswick Park estate, encompassing 185,000m² of office space across 12 separate buildings. We undertook a Building Use Studies (BUS) Methodology survey to gain a better understanding of occupant satisfaction on the site, which covered the estate’s green spaces, building image and design, occupant needs, thermal comfort, lighting, noise, health and productivity and facilities. We have worked on Chiswick Park for many years providing numerous services drawing on our technical expertise.
The survey offered the opportunity to gain feedback on each building individually and at an estate-level. Focussing on occupant satisfaction, the survey provided insight into access to events and networking opportunities, and allowed comparison against our benchmark database. A mix of scale rating and open comment boxes gave a rich set of information about each building, allowing Enjoy-Work to see where to invest time and money to create a more attractive workspace for occupants.
Greater insights
As Estate Manager at Chiswick Park, Enjoy-Work sought to assess the park against comparative offices and identify specific areas for improvement. Our client wanted to gain insights around occupant satisfaction, and we were appointed to lead the survey and analysis to ensure the reliability and validity of the results.
The BUS Methodology survey provided a 360° multidisciplinary view of a wide range of factors in the building, including thermal comfort, lighting, noise, health, productivity and facilities. For the first time it offered a portfolio overview of the buildings enabling the client to prioritise its future action plans with guest companies.
Benchmarking for success
We provided bespoke benchmark data on individual buildings and across the client’s portfolio that could be shared with investors, operational and asset leasing teams. The BUS Methodology survey, which has been continually refined and consistently applied to more than 850 benchmarked surveys worldwide, was used to collect the occupant satisfaction data. Online survey links were distributed to all occupants at the park, with incentives used to improve response rates.
“It simply is the best environment to go into work. Going into and out of work just relieves stress for me. Thanks to the team for all the hard work. ” Chiswick Park Occupant
As Enjoy-Work offer a range of wellbeing and enhancements for their guest companies, they wanted to capture how effective their events, services and communications were across their portfolio alongside occupant data on building performance. Once the survey closed, the data was processed and compared against our benchmark data set for UK offices, and we produced a summary report to highlight the key findings and areas for improvement that were not previously apparent. The feedback provided unique insights into occupant needs that would help transform Enjoy-Work’s asset portfolio into destination workplaces.
The results for the Chiswick Park estate:
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Ranked in the top 5% of our data set.
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Included scores at the top or our benchmark data set for overall building design, productivity, and overall comfort.
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Demonstrated that over 98% of occupants would recommend working at Chiswick Park.
Future action plans
The survey captured the views of occupants across an array of different metrics which were used to improve how each building operates. In addition, feedback from users on summer thermal comfort, provided a specific recommendation around raising internal air temperature set points during summer (and thus reducing the cooling load of the buildings). The survey results were shared wider with investors and owners of Chiswick Park, to implement actions plans for the next 1-3 years based on the feedback. These results are able to be shared with future prospective companies looking to join Chiswick Park as their office destination of choice.
The BUS Methodology
We were chosen to work on the project due to our wealth of experience in conducting occupant satisfaction surveys in buildings. This combined with our technical expertise in building performance evaluation allows us help our clients create more desirable environments for occupants and reduce environmental impact.
Learn more about our commissioning and building performance evaluation expertise
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