Is No News Really Good News?

Maybe not. The current project delivery systems do not integrate or incentivize going back for feedback after a project is complete and the employees have moved in. Afterall, what would be gained by conducting a post-occupancy Evaluation (POE)?

Much has been written on the benefits of POEs, the process of assessing workspaces after they have been occupied for some time duration, using rigorous and systematic tools. Yet, according to a 2015 U.S. study, POEs are conducted in less than 5 percent of all projects. POEs are often viewed as time consuming for project teams and the evaluation participants, expensive to conduct, costly for addressing findings and potentially harmful in revealing negative information. Despite perceived challenges, there is much value and opportunity in conducting and integrating POEs into the project delivery service. Ultimately, facility managers can assess the strengths and benefits of these tools for their organizations.

Benefits of post-occupancy evaluations

A proactive method to maximize the connection between employees and their workplace, POEs offer a short-, medium- and long-term payback for feedback, assessments, benchmarking and continuous improvement.

Short-term (1 year) benefits include:

• Assessment of employee experience indicators.

• Improved employee attitudes through proactive involvement in the process.

• Refined employee fit and space utilization through fine tuning, training and procedures.

• Tested application of new concepts, processes, protocols.

• Validated decisions –– the justification of actions and expenditures.

• Identification of intended use changes.

• Feedback loop for continuous improvement.

• Decisions based on data – leading to cost/time savings.

Medium-term (3-5 years) benefits include:

• Optimize and refine employee experience.

• Adaptation of facility to organizational change and growth over time.

• Translation of feedback into application knowledge for decisioning.

• Accountability for building performance by the owner-occupier and design teams.

• Identification of evolving improvements and operational efficiencies.

• Decisions based on data – leading to cost/time savings.

Long-term (10+ years) benefits include:

• Integration of employee experience into the fabric of facilities’ decision making.

• Improvement of design databases, standards criteria and guidance literature.

• Quantitative measures of employee and building performance.

• Decisions based on data – leading to cost/time savings.

Using POEs over time identifies patterns, providing insight and foresight into workplace issues. Access to long-term workplace data provides robust evidence when presenting to leadership for project approval. In addition, POEs forge ongoing partnerships with employees, building trust. FMs realize the most benefits when POEs are integrated into an overall project delivery strategy.

POE myths busted

While POE is a commonplace term, it often comes with negative connotations. Lack of understanding on the use and benefits lead to incomplete or inaccurate assumptions.

Myth	Busted
Too complex	When you measure everything, you measure nothing. Start small. Plan the study to assess project objectives.
Time consuming	Short surveys, observation studies and focus groups can be executed and analyzed within short time frames.
Expensive to conduct	Incorporating POEs into the basic scope of services integrates the costs into the project.
Will set unrealistic expectations with employees	Level set the purpose of the POE with employees before undertaking the study.
Too much risk and liability	A+E Professional Liability Insurance does not consider POEs "a direct factor in underwriting (not getting) that granular in the application… Ultimately, it was determined that the benefits of lessons learned outweigh the risks."
Findings too complex and expensive to implement	Only assess what you have the power and resources to act on. Many findings can be implemented via operational changes or training.

Ardent detractors of POEs might ask their consultant teams, “Why should we pay you to assess work we just hired you to do?” On the contrary, the biggest winners in POE findings are the FM team’s organizations. Actionable insights into employee experience and how the workspace supports the business practice are acquired from a variety of POE types.

Purposes of post-occupancy evaluations

POEs are not one size fits all, rather POEs offer multiple options depending on the project objectives, the timing, the reporting audience, the nature of the questions investigated, the data collected, and the time and resources available. POEs generally assess technical environmental issues (6) or functional human-centered perceptions. Vischer outlines four POE purposes:

• Pre-design programs informs decision making in the early stages of a project.

• Strategic space planning aligns workplace with strategic business goals, improving functionality and reducing costs.

• Capital asset planning combines assessment of the physical workplace with interior environmental assessments to diagnose overall building performance.

• Accumulation of knowledge applies research to increase the body of knowledge to the organization, thus increasing the body of knowledge to the industry at large.

Integrating post-occupancy evaluations into the design/delivery process

From the architecture and design consultant’s perspective, the POE is the end of the project delivery scope. From the FM team’s viewpoint, the POE is just the beginning. Adopting the “Facilities Day One” vantage point expands the value and potential uses of POEs. Actionable findings from assessments can be acted on by the FM team in concert with IT, HR, training teams, corporate communications and other organizational resources.

Generally, POEs are considered on a project –by-project basis. But what if there was an organizational commitment to POEs and the expense for this scope of work was built into the annual capital budget? The financial commitment could be minimal to start. Undertaking small projects would demonstrate value and could be relied upon for future validation and foresight in cost avoidance planning. Start by committing a small annual budget for POEs and identify a few manageable projects. Collect and report on the benefits of the POE findings, translating into metrics that make sense for the organization.

Two models for integrating POE into the project process:

1. Include POEs in the contracts and service agreements with the architecture and design consultants.

• Clearly spell out the objectives, scope and expected outcomes.

• Engage the procurement team.

• Allocate a small percentage (say 0.025 percent) of the construction budget for POEs.

• Do not make POEs a part of the contingency budget.

• Assign the POE a different project number from the base project, so the main job can be closed out.

2. Develop an internal standard Do It Yourself POE process.

• Establish robust overall project goals, with objectives that can be adjusted by project.

• Build an internal governance group to integrate into existing project delivery processes to enhance POE adoption.

• Integrate reports and recommendations into periodic management updates.

Whether the chosen model includes outside expertise or adopts the in-house approach, the POE process can examine individual projects or can undertake the assessment of a series of projects. Access to POE workplace data can integrate into other internally established reporting mechanisms, including performance score cards and annual employee opinion surveys. Access to POE workplace data also informs decision making on future design and construction projects and informs the cycle of corporate real estate capital planning.

Implementation tips

Consider these tips to overcome conventional POE obstacles and begin planning how to undertake in your organization:

• Build an integrated cross-functional team to establish multiple points of view.

• Align with leadership and the study participants on the goals and their participation in the POE(s).

• Outline a few carefully selected indicators based on the project objectives.

• Develop simple repeatable, reliable methods for collecting feedback, vetted by an experienced researcher and piloted before implementation.

• Collect actionable data by judiciously integrating multiple data streams.

• Define resources for data collection and analysis, integrating into available resources.

• Identify the consumers of the POE findings and their role in the execution of recommendations.

• Adopt a standardized approach for reporting that can be comparable over time.

Building employee trust and enhancing the employee experience begins by including them in the process via surveys, focus groups or other feedback mechanisms. Starting small, building on repeated efforts and strategically broadcasting successes, POEs can become an integral part of project implementation by systematically including them in each project.

The pitch for post-occupancy evaluations

POE planning and implementing, of course, requires the support of organizational leadership. The pitch to the executive team should include two points: 1) workplace measures are essential; and 2) people are the businesses’ most important asset.

1. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Access to data provided by POEs enables proactive and predictive decision making. Quantitative and qualitative information informs the allocation of resources. POEs are leading indicators, providing baseline metrics and longitudinal data for strategic forecasting.

2. People cost 10 times more than space. The physical workplace is one significant aspect for providing the best employee experience possible. Small increases in employee productivity have the same impact as cutting real estate costs. Employees are demanding seamless consumer technology experiences at work, and the war for talent hinges on this for all generations and demographics. Understanding employee experience is good for business, as organizations with strong employee experience outperform on the S&P 500 Index.

Go forth: Measure quantitatively & experience qualitatively

POEs are a powerful means for FMs to assess and attain the best workplace for their employees and organizations. Being proactive and getting ahead of issues, closing the loop and building trust with internal stakeholders are immediate payoffs for implementing POEs. Informing subsequent projects, identifying operational improvements and paying the knowledge forward are additional benefits. POEs solve problems and build knowledge, finding causes and predicting effects. Using both quantitative (the what) and qualitative (the why) measures, POEs provide robust, actionable results within time and cost constraints. Plan a POE today because no news is not good news.