The Difference between Smart Buildings and Smart Workplaces
Smart Buildings, Smart Workplaces, Digital Twins, Offices of the Future… these are all buzzwords we hear every day and are often used interchangeably.
In this episode of Creating Smarter Spaces, I discussed the differences between Smart Buildings and Smart Workplaces.
On a weekly basis I hear these terms used almost interchangeably and so I wanted to level set on the who I draw the line between the two.
When we talk about a Smart Building, we should be talking about an entire structure, from the core and shell, operating in a ‘smart’ way, being controlled by some type of technology. This ‘smartness’ is in the common building systems and services that keep the core structure operating, along with any shared services the building provides to the one or many tenants that may exist inside it.
Things like plumbing, core electrical, vertical lift, core security and shared services. This also extends into HVAC and BMS systems for the vast majority of scenarios. But let’s also be clear, having a HVAC system connected to a BMS doesn’t make a building smart.
A smart building is typically operated by the landlord (or their delegated management company) in an attempt to optimize their own operational costs or improvement of services they are seeking to provide to their tenants.
A Smart Workplace on the other hand, is the space you build inside the shell, inside the envelope of services your landlord provides to you as part of your lease.
It should be designed to optimize the experience of the people visiting your specific tenancy, or your operational teams keeping the space running, inside the leased envelope. These can be physical systems, such as lighting and access control to your tenancy. But also, often include many more soft systems such as digital signage and wayfinding, visitor management, space booking, mobile apps, lockers and the smart workplace topic’s du jour, occupancy systems and indoor air quality.
The Smart Workplace is the space, the experience and the services you can control. It’s the space where you can drive consistent services, consistent systems and consistent experiences across all your portfolio. Think of it as your space within their space.
Smart Workplaces add value to you, the Corporate Real Estate, Facilities Management or Workplace leader, in 2 very specific areas.
Operational Efficiency
Using technology inside your space to automate manual tasks like checking the coffee machine isn’t empty or doing routine maintenance checks for things like leaking pipes in risers. They get you real time insights into what’s happening in the space, things like occupancy at very granular levels… and no I'm not talking about badge data!
Smart Workplaces also enable you to manage your space with far more agility. You can move from time-based service providing, like cleaning the restrooms every 2 hours, to cleaning them whenever 100 people have used them, as an example.
You can close down floors, or wings of buildings when you know attendance for certain days or weeks is going to be low. And these decisions are based on the accurate data you’ve been gathering from your smart workplace. These activities save you real money on operations, utilities and services. These are hard dollar savings you can achieve and if used properly, can easily justify the cost of implementation of a whole smart workplace program within the first year.
Employee Experience
The other, more intangible, is in the improvement in employee experience and efficiency inside your spaces. Smart Workplaces use technology inside the workplace to remove what I refer to as ‘friction points’ throughout the day of an occupant. They use technology to automate, predict or assist those that consume your space and do so more efficiently and effectively.
It may be real-time wayfinding services that help your people navigate to the room of their next meeting across a campus.
They could be digital signage that shows the real-time and upcoming availability of meeting rooms, phone booths or other spaces they might like to use. All without needing them to roam the floors looking for one.
It could be a mobile app that enables your people to reserve a desk and access any building across your entire global portfolio. This same app also tells them when those they work with the most virtually, are in the same office as they are.
And it could be as simple as a sign outside a meeting room, telling you whether it’s booked right now by someone who’s abandoned it, and when the next meeting is due to start.
These are just some very simple examples of what a Smart Workplace is capable of delivering when it comes to experience. And while it’s difficult to derive a hard value for these as no-one is sending you a bill with a cost of how many hours people roamed the floors looking for someone to sit or find a meeting room each month. There certainly are other ways to measure the impact they have on your business.
The thing about creating a smart workplace, it’s not about having ‘a system’ or ‘a tool’. A smart workplace is created by you, for your people, to give the experience you want. It’s part delivering standardized, optimized, operational rigor to how you operate services in your portfolio. And part crafting a unique experience, to both improve the efficiency of your people when they are in the space. I also believe it forms part of your brand, your employee value proposition, to help make come to life who you are as a company, and what it’s like to be part of the team.
So that’s how I think about the delineation between the two.
Smart Building, the services offered to you in the core and shell by your landlord that you typically have little to no control over.
Smart Workplace, the services you build for your employees and operations teams inside the container your landlord gives you to operate in.
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