With Labor Day Weekend behind us we march on towards the season of pumpkin spice lattes, trick or treating, and hopefully a fruitful Q4. During the month of September Collective will be writing about the highly debated subject of productivity. We’ll also be sharing more resources around that subject in all of our platforms as well. We hope this newsletter finds you recharged from a final summer break and ready to tackle this new season.
This week’s newsletter is a 7 minute read, or the time it takes to get all the sand out of your car after that final trip to the beach. Collective Bookmarks is sponsored by HQO, the world’s leading workplace experience platform.
In This Week’s Issue:
- Three Things You Should Know
- A Person You Should Know: Amina Moreau
- A Product We’re Into: InMapz
Events We’re Attending:
The W.E. Moshpit: 4th Annual Post-Labor Day Return-to-Office Battle Featuring Amina Moreau and Brian Elliott: Friday September 8th
The VergeSense Occupancy Intelligence Summit featuring workplace leaders discussing the strategies they’re using to tackle today’s challenges: September 12th
Books We’re Reading: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
As always, if you have feedback or questions please reach out.
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Three Things You Should Know
From The World of Work and Place
1.Redefining Productivity
The boundary between work and home has always been fluid, a reality that became even more pronounced during the pandemic. The author of the article Jaime Teevan who is herself a mother & researcher innovated ways to utilize micro-moments productively, leading to the concept of “microproductivity” at Microsoft. The pandemic’s onset in March 2020 blurred work-home boundaries further, prompting Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub to launch the “New Future of Work” research initiative. While traditional productivity metrics remained high during remote work, many employees felt overworked and disconnected from colleagues. Their research suggests that a new definition of productivity is needed, one that emphasizes well-being, social connections, and collaboration. Managers should prioritize well-being by recognizing the unique benefits of both remote and in-person work, foster collaboration by setting team norms and ensuring inclusive hybrid meetings, and drive innovation by determining which tasks are best suited for remote or in-person settings. The ultimate goal is to shape a future of work that enhances well-being, collaboration, and innovation.
What We Think: In order to enable change for the future of work we must reconsider every aspect of how we work and how we measure the outcomes of work. Expanding our mindset of how we measure productivity is absolutely an awesome first step towards changing the way we think about work. In order to make that a broader reality we must also update the way we measure the effectiveness of our physical and digital workplaces at enabling those goals. What’s incredible as well is that this article is from 2 years ago, and we still have a long way to go.
2. Employee Engagement Eats Productivity For Breakfast
Jennifer Paxton‘s latest Collective Thoughts article dives into how engaged employees can significantly impact overall business outcomes and productivity levels. If you’re eager to boost your employee engagement, check out Jen’s three key factors to get started.
3. The Other Work Remote Workers Get Done
In a recent article for the Atlantic, Stephanie Murray, looks at the impact of remote work for caregivers. her article focuses on Carolyn Vigil, a long-time Big Tech employee and primary caregiver to her autistic son. She faced challenges balancing her career and caregiving responsibilities, especially during the pandemic. While remote work allowed her to manage both roles effectively, she was concerned when her company, like many others, began retracting remote-work policies. Despite the appeal of remote work for many American workers, some employers believe it hampers productivity. However, this perspective overlooks the significant, uncompensated caregiving that many provide, which is crucial to the economy. Traditional economic metrics often exclude household production, leading to a skewed understanding of the economy. Remote work not only offers flexibility but also supports caregivers, potentially boosting labor-force participation. Murray notes that while remote work can address some caregiving challenges, other policies, such as paid family leave and flexible scheduling, are essential to fully support caregivers in the workforce.
What We Think: For those of us that work in workplace, stories like this can be hard to read. Many of us are also caregivers and had to deal with the same issues during the pandemic. Were it not for the flexibility many employers adopted during the pandemic, things might have become even more difficult. Now with policies seemingly changing on a quarterly basis, this can exacerbate these existing issues for caregivers. As workplace professionals we should be advocating for policies that provide flexibility and support to all our teams so that we can enable the caregivers on our teams to ensure they stay on our teams.
Together with
HqO, ranked No. 75 on the Inc. 5000 list, is transforming how people connect with each other and the places they work. The HqO Workplace Experience Platform and App makes it easy for companies and commercial property teams to create modern workplaces through world-class amenities and services that allow people to thrive and produce the best results. Active in over 250 million square feet in 25 countries, 57% of the Fortune 100 rely on HqO to enhance their workplace experiences, improve employee satisfaction, and drive operational excellence.
One Big Thing
70,000 – The number of childcare centers at risk of closing as funds from pandemic relief efforts dry up according to The Washington Post
3 Questions With Someone You Should Know
Amina Moreau
Q: How’d you get into this wild world of work and place?
I’ve been an employer my whole career, having built 5 companies over the last 20 years. So in some sense, I’ve been in it all along, managing teams, prioritizing employee engagement and fulfillment at work. But a major pivot took place mid-pandemic when I thought up the idea for Radious, an online platform that lets companies book work-equipped homes for team meetings and workdays. It was then that I dove far deeper into how other leaders think about team engagement, especially as the world rapidly adopts more flexible ways of working.
Q: Now that you’re in, what’s keeping you here? Why do you care so much?
It’s increasingly difficult to draw a clean line between life and work, which means when you are fulfilled in one area, it often has a trickle effect into the other. If you feel dissatisfied at work, it can bleed into your home life. Conversely, when you have a healthy sense of balance and flexibility at home, you’re often poised to do your best work. I have had the privilege over the course of my entrepreneurial journey to get to define my own sense of purpose and feel its effects first hand, and am excited to pay that forward and help others find greater fulfillment in their work, at home, and beyond.
Q: How are you accomplishing your mission and moving the future of work forward?
By building Radious, my team and I are mitigating proximity bias and increasing access for folks who may already struggle for equality in the workplace. By offering workspaces right in people’s neighborhoods, our community is taking cars off roads and making togetherness more accessible and sustainable. And through the on-demand nature of our workspaces, companies can redirect saved dollars from fixed real estate to workforce training, fair compensation, and additional benefits.
What’s Happening in The Collective Connect Community?
We’re very excited for our next live session that we’ll be hosting within the community at the end of September. Denise Broder of SwayWorkplace will be sharing insights on leading hybrid teams. This is the work that Denise lives and breathes every day so we’re very happy she has agreed to come and both share information, but also answer the community’s burning questions about making hybrid work. To join the session you can apply to join the community below.
A Product We’re Into
InMapz
Founded by MIT and Caltech engineers, InMapz is a proptech software platform that creates digital twins of commercial buildings through an automated process. InMapz integrates floor plans, mechanical layouts, devices, sensors, and controls into one wholistic digital model of a building. Each element in a digital twin can become a smart object with its own attributes such as GPS location, model number, serial number, photographs, and so forth. For example, conference rooms, HVAC equipment, IoT sensors, etc. can be extracted from the floor plan. Users can easily add, edit, and delete other mechanicals. Rather than having to go to the office to pull up paper floor plans and cross-reference spreadsheets, users can access their building’s digital twin via the InMapz app or web browser on the phone, tablet, or laptop. Through selection and filtering options, users can both visualize on the digital twin and see a list of whatever smart objects are specified.
InMapz saves time and money for facilities managers, building auditors, third party maintenance teams, emergency response personnel, airport travelers, trade show organizers and attendees. The company has mapped billions of square feet, including over 300 international airports, 1500 worldwide malls, hospitals, schools, universities, trade shows, office buildings, data centers, factories, and hotels.
What We Think: InMapz helps create a frictionless experience for any end user trying to navigate a physical space with their digital twin application creating a digital and interactive floorplan. We like this product because it’s mobile friendly and is a great informational tool to better understand your physical space, both from an end user and Workplace Professional perspective.
That’s It For This Week
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