'Create A Magnet, Not A Mandate': Companies Look To New Amenities To Drive Office Workers Back

With many employees still preferring hybrid work environments more than four years after the pandemic started, companies are leaning on innovative amenities and fresh locations to make the office more of a destination for their workers.

Companies that invest in their office spaces to create that destination that workers feel compelled rather than obligated to come to are having the most success, CBRE Vice Chairman Josh White said Wednesday at Bisnow's Future of DFW Office event, held at Spectrum Center in Addison.

Whether it’s having their coffee waiting when an employee walks through the door or ordering groceries to be picked up on the way out at the end of the day, Gensler Design Director Justin Bashaw said there is now technology that companies can use to make those things a reality.

“All the buildings we're doing now come with apps,” Bashaw said. “That's kind of crazy, but [it’s about] how can someone experience a workplace when they're not at the workplace?”

Creating a holistic digital integration, like that at the AT&T Discovery District in Downtown Dallas, for employees can impact their experiences in the office. The digital integration for AT&T employees is so immersive that arriving at Whitacre Tower in the morning can be a very different experience than leaving for lunch or at the end of the day, Bashaw said.

And while Bashaw said digital integration doesn’t have to be expensive, Perkins & Will principal Sarah Wicker said there are also some expensive ways to create immersive environments for workers.

“We're seeing things like [radio frequency identification] integration so that they know my exact preferences of temperature and lighting,” Wicker said. “I even worked with a client where it's about music, where they walk through a certain hallway and your favorite song would play, which is super, super cool. Not cheap, but cool.”

Integrated heat mapping can also be used to help neurodiverse employees find a space by themselves or one that won’t have distracting shadows from a natural light source. Perkins & Will is also working with a healthcare system on a large pediatric project slated for Dallas in 2031 that is looking at ways it can curate patient experiences through technology, Wicker said.

“I really believe this will come to the workplace as well, where it will start to get to know your exact preferences,” she said. “It will start to know the spaces that you need and … how to make them optimized for how you want to work, when you want to work and who you want to work next to.”

When designing amenities for a company, it is also important to understand which ones a company’s team will actually use, Wicker said. 

“When you try to build for everyone, you build for no one,” she said. “We really want to understand what our people need and what will create a magnet, not a mandate. We want people to want to come into the office, not feel like they have to come into the office.”

Some companies have ramped up office mandates this year. Last month, Amazon announced a five-day-per-week requirement starting in January. Office usage remains at around 61% of prepandemic levels in the 10 metro areas Kastle Systems tracks, but the majority of CEOs think hybrid work will be over within three years. 

A JLL report in March found that amenities can have a material impact on a building's occupancy and rent price, with rooftop terraces, outdoor courtyards and gyms with showers garnering the biggest premiums. 

Health and wellness amenities can go beyond offering a gym and should include mental wellness as well as physical wellness, Wicker said. Those amenities could include offering treadmill desks or even positioning desks around access to daylight to allow people to reset their circadian rhythms to help increase productivity.

“We really hound our clients when we're at the front end of this process to develop guiding principles and an understanding of what the real objectives of the space are,” White said. “Those who are willing to make that kind of investment in the project end up being wildly successful.”

Design can go a long way toward creating a successful work environment, but Bashaw said it is important to keep in mind those “free building materials” provided by nature. 

“A really great example of a project that capitalizes on wellness is Southstone Yards up in Frisco,” Bashaw said. “It's a mass timber product, but when you step in there, you feel it. The impact of wood on your parasympathetic nervous system is huge. … It's palpable in the building when you step into it, and I think it's something that sticks with you when you leave.”

Having an organizational culture that supports employees using amenities like a yoga room or a meditation room is also important. Wicker said it isn't enough to have them — companies need to get people to use them.

“It's really, if you program it and create a culture of it, then they will come,” Wicker said. 

Location can also be an amenity, especially if that location is part of a walkable community.

“The No. 1 amenity for people is people,” Bashaw said. “People want to be at the heart of the action. That's why cities matter and that's why the offices in the heart of mixed-use environments matter.”