The most resilient, attractive office will be located near or infused with amenities, helping drive innovation and creativity through interdisciplinary collaboration. This flexible work experiment began a living lab to research occupancy for better real estate investments. At times throughout the discovery process, findings seemed counterintuitive, yet the patchwork of voices made way for more unconventional and inventive design conversations. HKS offered employees free reign to envision an office interior with a variety of floor levels, seating areas, meeting spaces, and social zones. Collectively, they created a co-creative social community center that would attract talent to join the team.

This innovation paradigm-shift decoupled talent value from space allocation as employees are no longer tethered to a geographic location or a workstation. HKS Atlanta studies foot traffic and realized only 60% of the staff in the office at any given time. From a sustainable perspective, this LEED/WELL Platinum office saved 20% of their real estate lease costs by looking at average and peak occupancy rates across the week confirming HKS could operate better if unassigned shared workstations were offered affording more amenity space typologies. The result right-sized the HKS real estate portfolio, lowered our environmental footprint, improved employee well-being and expanded employee work-points.

This collection of work-points navigated the intersection of functionality and creativity to inspire and empower employees. The office placed a high priority on efficiency, organization, and usability with adaptable layouts, seamless technology, digital equity, and ergonomic environments. Functionality for acoustics and focus demanded that everyone have the same access to every work-point based on their temporal personal needs. Reservations were needed for workstations, focus rooms, quiet zones, and meeting spaces. To create a truly exciting work environment, informal activity-based work lounges, an elevated stage for collaboration, crits and brainstorming fostered a sense of community and creativity. Digital equity supported a global workforce to help seamlessly combine creativity and utility. The freedom and agency to work in ways that best suit the project’s best interests and maximized personal productivity help the workplace meet the varied demands of working styles boosting happiness, engagement, and productivity.

HKS partnered with the Center for BrainHealth to apply brain-healthy habits that facilitate neurodiverse moments including strategic attention, creative brainstorming, and brain breaks. This is not a disruptive innovation, but a slower continuous progress of smaller improvements that grew skills in employees who were practicing new ways to work conducive to achieving peak performance metrics. It was uncomfortable at first, but innovative results like their surge in diverse employees, community and industry influence emerged.