Piloting: Adopting a prototype mindset for today’s workplace

This paper is designed to help corporate real estate (CRE) leaders adopt a ‘learning by doing’ approach to workplace strategy and design to improve employee experiences and organisational outcomes. While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought lingering uncertainty relative to the future of the physical office, it has also spawned a spirit of openness to change and a willingness to experiment. In this paper, we discuss ways to learn by doing at various scales, with a focus on the largest-scale methodology: piloting. We show how pilots provide a low-risk approach to introduce flexible work policies and new ways of working within a sustainable financial model. We demonstrate that by generating data and insights, pilots can drive plans to scale and inform future space types within the larger real estate portfolio. This paper draws upon years of research and exploration conducted by MillerKnoll brands and our customers on pilots of varied types and scales. It provides a roadmap to implement a pilot, including questions to ask, selection criteria for teams, and locations and methodologies to measure success. Case studies illustrate various approaches and results achieved.