The Challenge
We experienced fascinating challenges with this project that was sparked during the global pandemic with just one year to complete.
As one of the initiatives supporting the UTS 2027 strategy, the ways of working change also involved consolidation of space to two floors. The caveat was that V+C was not permitted onsite due to lockdown restrictions and was limited to virtual assessment of the space.
Veldhoen + Company developed a 4-phase strategy, including the post-occupancy evaluation (via surveys + focus groups) to grasp how the physical space supported the 4 Cs (community, connection, collaboration, creativity) practically and made recommendations for further improvement.
The Results
UTS College opened its doors to the professional staff on December 13th, 2022.
The result was a purpose-built environment that supported their hybrid working strategy and the new way of working.
Through a post-occupancy evaluation, employees reported that the new ABW workspace enabled:
- Up to 34% improvement in workplace experience in which the workplace better supported knowledge sharing, work-setting choices, improved employee pride, sense of community and productivity.
- 72% agreement that the workplace exceeded their expectations.
- Of the 4Cs aspirations, creativity had the highest level of agreement with 80% in agreement that creativity was strongly supported in the new workplace.
- A reduction in people indicating they want to work entirely remotely from 10% (pre-move) to 0%. The more enjoyable environment led to an increase in people wanting to work from the office full-time.
- A range of well supported activities in the workplace: dialogue (74%*), recharge (63%*), coordinate (61%*), duo work (60%*), and process work. *These percentages reflect the total % of employees that indicated their full support for those activities.
