Creating a More Agile and Employee-Centric Workspace in the Middle East
confidential pharma client
As the lead consultant, I successfully led and delivered comprehensive workplace strategy and planning initiatives for Company’s offices across the Asia Pacific and the Middle East regions. Building upon the initial success of projects in Bangkok and Mumbai, which focused on enhancing employee experience and workplace effectiveness through strategic team co-location and separation, I spearheaded the establishment of a standardized strategy process that consistently yielded positive results and insightful data-driven analysis for the client. This led to the creation of a Center of Excellence within the Gensler Bangalore office.
Subsequent projects in Riyadh, Dubai, Seoul and Pune further solidified this reputation. Our engagement with the Company achieved three key outcomes:
Our reports were adopted by the client as benchmark standards for evaluating the impact of strategy processes, both regionally and globally.
All future projects in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions were managed by the Bangalore office, ensuring consistency and quality.
Project management and client engagement templates developed by my team were requested for global implementation across all Roche projects.
PROJECT DETAILS
Project Experience: November 2019 - January 2020, Dubai
My Role: Lead Strategist
Contribution: Workplace Strategy, Space Planning, Change Management and Consulting
Team: Gensler - Shravan Bendapudi
Project Copyright Gensler. All rights reserved.
Challenge:
Integration of two distinct business units: The consolidation of Diagnostics Middle East with the Diabetes Care division presented a need to create a unified workspace experience.
Low WPI Score: The existing Dubai office had a relatively low Workplace Performance Index score, indicating dissatisfaction with the support for various work modes.
Need to Better Support Variety of Work Styles: Interview and survey data highlighted the necessity to increase the capacity for employees to collaborate with others, but also individual focus.
Action:
Comprehensive Assessment: Conducted leadership interviews and employee surveys to understand workstyles, challenges, and aspirations.
Data-Driven Recommendations: Developed strategic recommendations focusing on:
Desk Sharing: Promoting a flexible environment with unassigned workstations.
Workspace Rebalance: Creating a mix of space to support individual, collaborative and wellness activities.
Privacy & Distractions: Providing spaces to support increased focus.
Champion Team Collaboration: Increasing collaboration through design interventions.
Celebrating Roche: Displaying Company Brand on a cohesive design.
Enable Health and Wellbeing Including spaces that allow employees to step away from their workspace.
Outcome:
The project delivered:
A strategic framework for optimizing the Dubai office space to accommodate the growing headcount of both divisions and align it with Company’’s global workplace expectations.
Targeted design solutions addressing the challenges identified by employees, including noise levels, privacy concerns, and lack of adequate collaboration spaces.
Recommendations for improving team adjacencies, space allocation, and promoting health and wellbeing in the workplace.
This initiative showcases a data-driven approach to creating a workplace that is not only functional and efficient but also supports employee wellbeing, fosters a strong sense of community, and reflects Company’s commitment to innovation.