The Team Around the Table: A CRE Podcast

We have had another fantastic year of guests on the What’s Next in Corporate Real Estate podcast and we are grateful to all of our listeners for being on the journey with us. As we reflect on the past year, it's hard not to consider how our perspectives on the world - how we live in it, how we work in it, and how we do business - have evolved. From the ongoing debate around the reason for the offi...

Adele Blakebrough , MBE, co-founder, senior advisor, and previously CEO of Social Business Trust, understands the worlds of the third sector, the public sector and business, and how to get the best out of people in all three. She believes in the importance of social enterprises in addressing society's problems and what benefits working in partnership with business can bring. Social Business Trust...

Philip Ross is an author, speaker, futurist and commentator on the new world of work. He specialises in predicting the impact emerging technology has on the way we will live, and he frequently runs workshops with organisations about workplace evolution. He is founder and CEO of UnGroup, which includes companies Unwired (WORKTECH events and WORKTECH Academy) and Unwork. Philip’s latest book, co-aut...

Michelle Ferguson is an author and founding member of Chief - a private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. Prior to that she was senior VP, Global Business Services and Senior VP Global Real Estate Strategies and Services at Standard & Poors. In her new book, Women Mentoring Women , Michelle addresses the primary issue that she believes holds women b...

Today’s complex business environment calls for a new approach to leadership. Modern organisations are shifting from traditional views of leadership that prioritised structure and control, towards organisations that are agile and empowered. How can 21st century leadership promote connectivity and human-centric purpose? How can leaders put the needs of their people at the heart of workplace decision...

The hybrid movement has just begun, and there is no single blueprint for successfully implementing it. Each organization must approach its transition with the question, “What does hybrid mean for us?" Listen in as Michael Creamer and our global experts discuss the new realities shaping hybrid workplace strategies. In this time of cautious confidence, office space is increasingly in demand. However...

Julia Hobsbawm OBE is a British entrepreneur, writer and public speaker on Social Health, Simplicity in a Complex World, and the future of the workplace post-pandemic. She coined the phrase "The Nowhere Office" (and authored book of the same name) to describe the hybrid work era. As remote working becomes the norm rather than the exception for many office workers around the globe, The Nowhere Offi...

Rianne Appel is an Associate Professor in Corporate Real Estate & Workplace at the Department of the Built Environment (Eindhoven University of Technology). Rianne researches the management of Corporate Real Estate (CRE). She focuses on location, building and workplace design choices as drivers of user experience. As mental health problems continue to increase across the world, any return to a...

Listen in as Michael Creamer , Chairman GOS EMEA at Cushman & Wakefield discusses how companies think about the impact of their real estate portfolio and more with Jane Muir-Sands , Vice President Global Real Estate and Operations at IBM, and Richard Middleton , Head of Client Delivery EMEA, Global Occupier Services at Cushman & Wakefield. The move to net zero is under way with more than a...

It's no secret that the right data drives better decision making, and with more data points than ever, businesses are using insights to inform their portfolio strategy and optimise the spaces they occupy. But there are still so many questions when it comes to corporate real estate, like which data is the most valuable? Can we use wellness and productivity data to shape the way we design space for...

More and more businesses are focusing on their purpose and making a difference to society, embracing the desire to be purpose-driven. Blending the aim of benefitting customers, employees, stakeholders, as well as the shareholder, is paramount for the best businesses.   What is business purpose? How are certified B Corporations considering the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers,...

We know that a creative workplace culture nurtures creative behaviours which in turn promote  innovation. Research has also shown that the benefits of engaging with art can include decreased stress, overall better mental health, emotional wellbeing and a deeper connection with culture and community. How can an engaging workplace art programme, in both physical and digital spaces, play a role in en...

When it comes to university accommodation, today's students have increased expectations of value across the accommodation experience. With more choice than ever before, providers have had to build for a generation that have been concerned with sustainability in their formative years and expect wellbeing, a sense of community, and hassle-free living.   How can we build and operate spaces that promo...

The past year has seen Facilities Management (FM) thrust into the spotlight and an acceleration of pre-existing trends. From enabling the mass transition to homeworking to ensuring employees can work in clean, safe environments, workplace and FM practitioners have played a key role in the response to the global pandemic crisis. What role will FM now play within hybrid workplace ecosystems? How can...

The digital world has revolutionized how consumers shop. Digital retail experiences have rethought the customer experience across channels and devices, and have empowered the customer. What lessons can businesses learn from the retail world - which is much further down the digital transformation road? How can real estate leaders seek to create workplace experiences in hybrid work-from-home models?...

There is a fundamental misunderstanding that changes to how we work, post pandemic, are merely an acceleration of trends that were already underway. Are we in fact witnessing the start of a revolution that will utterly transform the dynamics of the real estate industry?   As we move to hybrid working a variety of working patterns will emerge. How will we need to change the way we operate as indivi...

The world has endured systematic disruption in recent years with increasing global temperatures, rising income inequality and deepening geopolitical tensions. Now with a global pandemic and businesses reimagining how they want to operate, the world's largest investors are placing sustainability at the centre of their investment approaches. An imperative to focus on sustainability is emerging with...

We live in extraordinary economic times volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. In the service sector, many traditional approaches are no longer relevant and the landscape of brand identity, employee engagement and customer experience is changing.   Purpose and values set the foundation for an organisation’s culture, and are core to its way of working. Culture is not an initiative or a project...

In an age where the pace and complexity of change is only increasing, the activation of what drives our behavior – our human dilemmas – is causing many of us to experience a heightened degree of anxiety. The pandemic crisis has been a powerful catalyst to thinking differently - to find greater success and fulfilment in our current times many business leaders have paused and reflected on their own...

The last year has seen a monumental rise in climate and decarbonisation commitments. With COP26 later this year, 2021 promises to be a year of action as businesses map a route towards net zero carbon commitments that require significant changes to business-as-usual products, practices and policies.   What does sustainability have to do with inclusion? Delivering on stretching decarbonisation targe...

In today’s dynamic, highly connected and digital environment, there is a need to live and work differently. Businesses are now realising the importance of wellbeing initiatives to empower their people to make healthy choices and create communities who inspire and motivate each other to make small, sustainable changes that demonstrably improve their personal and professional lives.  During the pand...

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution businesses have benefitted from a 'captive audience' when embedding their corporate culture, with employees present in the physical workplace. With business leaders planning to maintain a hybrid work-from-home structure even after the COVID-19 threat has passed, everything has changed. How should businesses now think about culture and what it means? Are...

The world's supply chains have endured a uniquely challenging year, with a universally seismic set of circumstances. Companies find themselves operating in an increasingly complex world, navigating trade tariffs, shifts in transportation costs and capacity, and unprecedented surges in demand amidst a global pandemic. As global supply chains continue to be stress tested, the logistics market contin...

Recent years have been marked by increased awareness of the challenges organizations face in identifying and putting a value on differences in workplace culture. During the global pandemic, much has been spoken about where we are going to work - much less has been discussed about how this will affect different groups of people. As employees across the globe engage in discussions of racial justice,...

The property industry has long considered investment in sustainability to be important, but often at odds with the profit-driven pressures many companies face. Proactive approaches to increasing sustainability credentials should now be the norm for future-proofing commercial property, creating better long-term returns and satisfying occupier demands and needs.   So what do we mean by ESG? How does...