The opportunity: The global head of real estate at one of the world’s largest financial services organisations wanted to uncover why some office projects delivered better outcomes than others and use those insights to make future investments more effective.

With an office-first strategy and a clear belief that workplace quality directly influences employee productivity, the team needed evidence to guide smarter design decisions.

The approach: We brought together multiple sources of workplace data to understand how employees actually experienced and used their offices. Combining our proprietary methodologies with longitudinal workplace experience data, videoconferencing, occupancy sensors, attendance and network analytics, we identified the behaviours and environmental factors that had the greatest influence on employee experience.

From this, we developed a series of data-driven personas that gave the real estate team a far richer understanding of who was using their spaces, how they worked, and what those employees needed to perform at their best. The client also had us perform a series of site visits to see beyond what the data could tell us, identifying site by site why each location was underperforming.

The results: The insights directly informed live capital projects, enabling design changes before construction was complete and ensuring investment was focused where it would have the greatest impact.

Beyond individual projects, we identified the non-negotiable design principles, or “design red lines”, that consistently supported a high-quality workplace experience. These now underpin the organisation’s workplace design guidelines, helping ensure future investments deliver greater value for both employees and the business.

The opportunity: A rapidly growing fintech was preparing to open a major new office in one of India’s largest cities on a very tight timeline. Beyond appointing a design partner, the client needed to ensure the new workplace reflected its culture, delivered a world-class employee experience and could keep pace with the company’s rapid growth.

The challenge was to move quickly without compromising quality.

The approach: To establish a strong foundation, we evaluated three recently completed workplaces across the client’s portfolio, identifying the design decisions that had delivered the greatest value and those that should be reconsidered.

We then brought the client and their appointed design partner together in an intensive multi-day co-creation workshop at the organisation’s highest-performing workplace. By immersing the project team in the client’s culture, aspirations and ways of working, we aligned expectations early, accelerated decision-making and rapidly evolved the initial design direction.

The results: The collaborative approach enabled the project to get off the ground quickly, creating strong working relationships that made remote collaboration faster and more effective throughout delivery.

Beyond the immediate project, we reviewed and strengthened the client’s space planning tools and design standards, helping build a more robust foundation for future workplace investments. The process proved so effective that it has since become the blueprint for how the organisation initiates major capital projects across its portfolio.

The opportunity: The global workplace leader at one of the world’s largest technology companies wanted to unlock the value hidden in their workplace data. Rather than simply reporting office attendance, they wanted to understand what the data was really saying about employee experience—and use those insights to become a more strategic partner to the business.

The approach: We combined qualitative research with quantitative analysis to build a complete picture of workplace performance. Through interviews with more than 30 stakeholders across regions and functions, we uncovered the challenges facing different business units. We then analysed workplace experience data, attendance patterns, and team and manager colocation to identify the factors that most influenced employee experience. Finally, we audited four major capital projects through on-the-ground mystery shopper visits to understand how workplace quality varied across the portfolio.

To define what success would look like and co-create the solution, we brought a small global team together in a series of intensive workshops, turning insights into practical workstreams and creating momentum for change.

The results: The workplace team shifted the conversation from occupancy metrics to business outcomes. Armed with a richer understanding of how different teams experienced the workplace, they were able to tell a far more compelling story to business leaders and strengthen their role as a trusted strategic partner.

We also helped them redesign of their capital project delivery model, creating a more responsive, data-led approach that better reflected the needs of individual business units while delivering greater consistency and predictability across the global portfolio.

The opportunity: When a global asset management firm couldn’t find a workplace app that met their needs, they built their own. They built the first version as a desk-booking tool but had ambitions to build a platform that encouraged meaningful in-person collaboration, helped employees navigate busy office days, and give the business real-time insight into the workplace experience.

The challenge was understanding how to evolve the app from a transactional tool into one employees would genuinely value.

The approach: We assessed how the app was being used today, analysing user behaviour and existing functionality to identify opportunities for improvement. Working closely with leaders from the Real Estate and People teams, we facilitated a series of workshops to map user journeys, explore where and how feedback should be captured, and define the principles for the app’s next phase of development.

We worked with the client to shift the conversation from features to outcomes by focusing on how the app could influence behaviour, improve the employee experience and support better workplace decision-making.

The results: The team left with a clear product roadmap that extended well beyond desk booking. They saw how the app could encourage more intentional office attendance, reduce friction during periods of peak demand, and create a continuous feedback loop between employees and the workplace team.

Alongside recommendations for new functionality, we helped develop a communications strategy framework to drive adoption and identified future features that would strengthen both the employee experience and the organisation’s ability to make evidence-based workplace decisions.

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The approach: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

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The opportunity: As an industrial mining and minerals company prepared to open a new office in a major South American city, the real estate team faced a familiar challenge: plenty of workplace data, but little clarity on what it meant. They wanted to know whether a recently completed office elsewhere in their global portfolio could serve as a blueprint for the new workplace and, crucially, whether local employee needs required a different approach.

Getting it right meant balancing global consistency with the realities of a local workforce.

The approach: We transformed a complex set of workplace data into actionable insight by identifying patterns in how employees worked and what they needed from the office. From this analysis, we developed a series of data-driven personas that captured distinct workstyles and workplace requirements.

We then tested these personas against precedent floor plans, lease test fits and design standards to understand where the planned approach would support employee needs as well as where it would fall short.

The results: The personas became the foundation of the new workplace’s spatial programme, giving the design team confidence that the office was being shaped around the people who would use it.

Our analysis also uncovered an entirely new employee persona that had previously gone unrecognised, revealing a set of workplace needs that would otherwise have been overlooked. Finally, we identified which elements of the existing office could be successfully replicated and where local adaptation was essential, helping the client make informed design decisions with greater confidence.