Sarah Davis Director Of Strategy At Pophouse | Human Centered Design, Driven by Data

What you’ll learn

• What does human-centered and data-driven design mean?
• How to create a seamless transition between remote work and office work?
• What impact can a physical environment have on an individual?
• What questions should you be asking about your office?
• What direction do you see the future of office design going in?

Transcript

Sarah Davis [00:00:00] For an organization to be able to clearly express. This is the importance. This is why the function of the office in our business and then being able to diagnose how to set the office up to then function to support that. Why? Because the office of yesterday may not support the office of tomorrow and the needs of tomorrow. Right. The team of tomorrow. So how can we repurpose? And if we’re doing things, we may not get it right. But we talk to a lot of clients about piloting and experimenting. Right? Let’s just start trying something. And as we do, we’ll learn.

Frank Cottle [00:00:55] Welcome to the Future of Work podcast. Today’s guest is Sarah Davis, who is the director of strategy at Pop House, a full scope design studio focused on the built environment. Sarah has over 70 years of experience working in business intelligence and has designed extensive research and marketing strategies. Has been instrumental in developing the strategy that informs and designs many pop houses projects. Prior to joining Pop out in 2018, Sarah was the director of business intelligence at Rocket Mortgage Quicken Loans, where she began her career as a data analyst serving her bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Michigan. Welcome, sir. We’re really happy to have you on and know that you’ve not only done some exciting projects in your career, but you’ve done some very, very interesting research. And that research, I think, is honestly, the outcome of that research is what will be the most interesting to our particular audience today.

Sarah Davis [00:02:01] Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for having me today.

Frank Cottle [00:02:04] Well, you know, you talk about the built environment, designing for human centered and data driven design. Yeah, it’s not really me.

Sarah Davis [00:02:14] Yeah. So, it’s been an evolution for us over the course of the last four years. And I’ve been part of the pop house team. And when we started it, we weren’t quite sure what it meant for us either. So, we started off gathering survey information and that was really the core of what I was doing. And it really has been an evolution over those four years to understand the impact that we can make by really layering in these, as you mentioned, data driven insights and thinking about those in the scope of our design work. And so, as we start a project, we’re really thinking about that human centered experience, which I think now more than ever is so important, which I think has been part of the evolution of my role and the work that we do at Pop House, bringing in the idea of what is a human’s experience when they’re in any physical environment. And as you mentioned, as you were giving us a synopsis of your overview of our company, we’re a company that really focuses on strategic, human centric and unconventional design. And the idea for us is that we know from the research that any physical environment has an impact on an individual at any particular point of time. We want to make sure that that has a positive impact. So, by doing these the research and integrating these layers of thought into our design, we can actually bring more thoughtful, intentional, purposeful design into the built environment, which will then have a positive impact on people. Our niche happens to be the workplace. So, we focus a lot on the workplace and the office and what we can do within that built environment. What we can layer into the design to make sure that when people are in space, they’re as engaged as they can be, they’re as productive as they can be. They want to be where they want to be. They want to come into the office, and they really see it as a place that helps accelerate business outcomes. And it’s really great for their wellness as well. So, there’s a lot of layers and thoughts that we get into how we can manifest that thought leadership into our design process.

Frank Cottle [00:04:20] What you know, you discovered about nine topics in all.

Sarah Davis [00:04:24] Start big.

Frank Cottle [00:04:25] Right now in the world of work we have how kind of the workforce is divided into two different activities or two different types. We have people that are working in the office and then people that are working remotely. And then what everybody is calling a hybrid, which I don’t think is a greatest term, but people that are working in both environments.

Sarah Davis [00:04:50] Yeah.

Frank Cottle [00:04:51] How do you how do you connect those environments rather than say, oh, the office environment is perfectly built based on all this research, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wellness, wonderfulness, energy. Oh, but they’re only there one day a week. Right. What about the rest of the work time that they’re that they are on their own, so to speak? Do you think I know remote work is both a positive and negative connotation. Oh, gosh, I’m working independently and remotely. Gosh, you’re very remote from me and have both positive and negative connotations. We think of it more as a distributed work structure than a remote work structure so that it can be part of a singular whole. How does that relate to your design work? I just asked you seven questions…

[00:05:48] That’s okay we’ll go big. No, I think you bring up some really great points and I think. But when people are all in the office, when people are all remote, it’s a little bit easier than that in between, which is what you described as distributed or hybrid, where people are moving between environments. And we have just recently really been digging into this, and we had conducted a survey because we really wanted to think about work uninterrupted because as you mentioned, as people are moving from one environment to the next, are we having some tension as we change gears right from one place to the next? And we don’t want that to be the case. We don’t want people to lose momentum as they go through these different environments. So, there’s ways that home environments or remote environments can be optimized. And our company has looked at those so that people can really be the best when they’re in a remote environment.

Sarah Davis [00:06:42] And like you said, there’s a place for remote work. However, when they’re in the office, how can we also optimize that environment? And then how can we make the transition between both seamless as possible? Technology really fills in the gap there. And a lot of our clients are looking to see how we can bolster technology. How can we think about acoustics in our spaces in a new way? I think that’s been the hottest topic that has continued to rise with our clients and their concerns because now, as opposed to before the pandemic, people are coming in. And what is often the case is there are a lot of Zoom calls, there’s a lot of video calls that are happening. How can we think about acoustics, not only for the people that are in the office, but for the people that are on that other end? Right. How can they hear the people who they’re speaking with who are onsite as well and make sure that that’s productive and functional for everybody?

Frank Cottle [00:07:32] You know, you mentioned technology and maybe that’s the bridge between those two work modes. And we are all familiar with the ubiquitous zoom now.

Sarah Davis [00:07:44] Yes, we are.

Frank Cottle [00:07:46] Every variation thereof. Two things, and maybe you can apply the thought process here. First, on a personal level and on a business level in our organization, we don’t believe there’s such a thing as an occupier anymore. We don’t believe offices are occupied anymore by anybody. We believe that all of us are merely travelers, are merely travelers going between different modes of work, different types of facilities, all of which allow us to accomplish our daily goals. So again, beyond Zoom and thinking of thinking of the workplace as being a place full of traveler’s rage each and different modes of travel. What kind of technologies have you seen beyond the zoom that help is helping companies today to manage their facing augmented and virtual reality starting to work its way into the offices? Are you seeing just organizational structures that help people log in and find their desk? Going to the hot desk of 1980, 96, 97 Deloitte Days. What are you seeing in technology?

Sarah Davis [00:09:07] Our clients are trying out many different things and I think you’re hitting on such an important topic because when people come into an office, they have to fiddle with the equipment. I read a statistic that that’s fiddling. If you have to set something up and it takes the first 10 minutes of your meeting time over the course of a year, that can equate to a few weeks’ worth of lost productivity. So, but it’s it really is something that in aggregate can make a huge dent. And so, we want to eliminate that. And I think in today’s day and age the expectation is that we have more of a push button type solution. So, there are a lot of different technological solutions that are on the market. I think part of it is the right solution for your company. However, it also has to be coupled with the design of the space that accommodates and supports that particular technological solution to function at its best. So, if you have a zoom, zoom meeting or teams or whatever your platform is, but you’re not in a space that allows that to be acoustically contained where people can hear. The other thing is writing on a whiteboard. You know, if someone’s still writing on the whiteboard and the people who are the participants on the call can’t see that they’re not having that full experience. So, we really want to think about what people’s experiences in an IT workspace, whether again, they’re like you were saying they’re travelers, whether they’re in a remote setting or whether they’re on site. Really optimizing that for everybody.

Frank Cottle [00:10:38] In the physical environment. Regardless of whether it’s remote or back in the office, what personal impact does that have on individuals? What is that? You’re sitting in a very nice office environment. I’m sitting in my personal office, and you can see you’re in a public office. I’m on a personal level. You can see I like to be surrounded by my staff. So, you can look at my office and say, hey, I bet Frank’s a sailor, but it’s a serial killer. Okay. So, I like to be surrounded by my stuff, whether I’m at my corporate office or at my personal office. How do you manage that? When people are travelers moving from one environment to another to maintain the same comfort level, they will need in order to be productive. Because none of us can be as productive if we’re anxious about something or not. Just not in our zone, our comfort zone, where we can rely just a great.

Sarah Davis [00:11:50] Yeah. When people feel like they don’t belong in space, right? They don’t have that identity and.

Frank Cottle [00:11:55] An airport would be the perfect example of that. You know, working in an open airport area is awful.

Sarah Davis [00:12:02] Right? It’s more out of necessity. So, we, as I mentioned, have just conducted a nationwide survey. And just to set up what we’re going to talk about. One of the questions that we asked was the look of the space where I work says something about who I am as a working professional. And 63% of people agreed with that statement. Right. So, the look of that space, the esthetic of the space regarded, we weren’t we weren’t asking if it was remote or if it was an office space. We were just having a look at the space. And overwhelmingly people agreed that the look of the space mattered and it was a reflection of them as a working professional. So, I agree with you that, you know, thinking about what that office looks like and how we can bring culture and team into these spaces potentially in ways that we weren’t looking at before because we weren’t maybe as concerned about that in the past. But like you said, we’re travelers, so we’re not always going to be onsite full time anymore. But when I come into that space, I want to feel that sense of belonging and connection, just like I did when I was there full time. Right. So, I think it’s really for the organization to think potentially of different ways that they can incorporate that for people, because the ability for people to connect with their environment is really central to them feeling productive and like you said, having that sense of comfort and then doing their best at the work that they’re doing.

Frank Cottle [00:13:25] Well, what would be some specific examples of creating things that create those comfort levels among all people? Just because I like things may be different than you do, and maybe you like them differently than some of your other colleagues that you might be comfortable in a crisp contemporary environment. And I like it like kind of an old, cluttered environment. What how do you blend those things so that you can do it and. We talk a lot about corporate culture and the impact of culture on design and the impact of design on culture. We talk about those things, but when we go home from the office, we’re not all in the same culture no matter what.

Sarah Davis [00:14:11] Right?

Frank Cottle [00:14:12] So the things we bring to the office when we arrive, we bring a little bit of our home to the office in our brain overall. How do I know I’m sandbagging on some of these questions?

Sarah Davis [00:14:24] No, it’s okay.

Frank Cottle [00:14:26] I think it’s really important in this regard.

Sarah Davis [00:14:29] No, absolutely. I agree with you. And, you know, we do surveys, and we ask people their opinion on things. And just like you alluded to, when you ask people what color the wall should be, you’ll get every color in the rainbow. Right? Nobody is going to agree on the color or the materiality or the palette or anything like that. So, I think that it is something that that’s where we go a lot to the research because it is one type of foundational way of using our benchmark to think about the environment and think about how we can integrate layers that people may not be able to put their finger on. Why does this space feels good to me, but it just feels good, that type of idea. And there’s a lot of thought in the realm of neuro esthetics and cognitive functioning about how we can put conditions into a space that will help people be their best. So, for instance, there’s research around the idea of curved walls, right? Not something that someone might be able to pull or point to or say, I really like that. It’s probably not in a lot of people’s general conversation, but the inclusion of curved walls actually increases cognitive functioning, right? The height, ceiling, height in a particular room can impact the ability for us to be creative.

Sarah Davis [00:15:51] So there’s different layers and level of levers that we can pull on and think about and really increasing that that variety of space, I think is the other answer to it. So, it’s a mixture of for us of thinking about and leaning on the research. But then more than ever again, I’ll go back to the idea that before office was a little bit bland. Right? It was a little bit more vanilla where we had the workstations, private office and conference rooms, and it kind of ended there. And now what we see a lot of clients leaning into is more variety of space. So, to the point you are making, they’re able to find a place to fit the type of work they’re doing. And if they need to go into a one person focus room, there’s the option to do that. If that’s the way that they’re learning best and working best, that’s an option for them. Right? A lot of collaborative zones and things of that nature. So, people can gather in different ways, whether it’s a traditional meeting where we’re sitting around and someone’s presenting to us around the table, or if it’s a room that like I’m in right now where it’s more open, casual seating options, amenity space, where people can ideate together, think they can pick different postures. Right. So, they have more choice, more autonomy in that environment. And I think those types of elements really being introduced into the environment help what you’re describing, which is how do I feel like I belong? How do I feel comfortable in this environment?

Frank Cottle [00:17:14] You know, I think that’s critically important. And it’s funny. We built our own buildings for our own project years ago. And the architect that we use with a very, very well-known contemporary architect of Oasis, and he said, well, we’re going to use the high-quality materials to design space that will offend the least number of people possible for the longest period of time. And we’re going to fill it with plants. Ooh, that was simple. That was that was the whole theory. And we built 42 buildings like that. And what we found is that no one ever came into one of our buildings. And I remember when that used to be built, where that device, just the building became very timeless right away. And I don’t know whether they were more or less productive, but that that theory of making sure that no matter what you weren’t trying to design to impress, you were trying to ensure that your design didn’t make someone uncomfortable.

Sarah Davis [00:18:25] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:18:26] And so that, I think, was a very good philosophy. And then to fill it with Green, which today would be, we’d be talking about sustainability, I think. But back then it was just a plant.

Sarah Davis [00:18:40] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:18:41] What we were doing there. So how do those issues that I’ve just brought up and how about feelings? How, how do sustainable goals, what role do those play? In the comfort, not in the goodness or madness of the design, but in the comfort of design the people feel. How do you translate sustainably to a feeling that matches a culture, aside from knowing that you used recycled plants or recycled bottles to create your carpet? That’s a nice thing to say, but how does it make you feel better?

Sarah Davis [00:19:20] Yeah, I think in today’s world there’s so much more value placed on that than ever before. I think there’s more options in the marketplace as well to meet that demand, which is great to see. I think it’s something that as organizations think about their workspace, they can really start to dial into those types of layers, whether it be Biophilia, whether it be sustainable materiality and design because of the people that work in that particular organization. Right. And a lot of the clients that we’re talking to are looking at their office space as a tool to attract and retain great talent. And people can decide with their feet whether or not they want to continue to work in an organization for a variety of factors. But if your office space is not up to snuff and they’re and that’s something that’s really important to the people that work at your organization, I think that that’s definitely something that you should consider and look at. And also, there is a lot of research specifically around Biophilia about how it actually helps people work better, feel better, have a higher level of wellness to be in places where there’s natural light. That’s incredibly important. To have organic natural materials around them is important. And then to your point, plants specifically as well. So, all of those things can come together and create a very healthy environment for people to live, work and play in.

Frank Cottle [00:21:00] No, I think that that’s really, really right. And thank goodness we’ve moved beyond ping pong tables and things of that.

Sarah Davis [00:21:09] Yes.

Frank Cottle [00:21:11] Oh, it’s funny. Just a short while. Design was very much of large companies and all companies. In many respects. The space was designed to impress their customers and their clients. Today, as you point out rightly, it’s really designed to create a productive environment for their teams, for their talent, and to attract and sustain that talent and then let the talent impress the client. But there has been a major shift on that. And I think as we look at remote and the way space is used, that the office we go to in the future won’t be used as a place to work. It will be used as a place to create and meet, and that we spend the rest of the time traveling our customers or client offices working remotely from anywhere.

Sarah Davis [00:22:17] Right t in.

Frank Cottle [00:22:23] What we used to call digital nomads, which were old hippies like me, that grabbed a guitar and a surfboard and a computer, and we’re going to be thinking of people that move maybe six months at a time to live an experience in different cultures but remotely from their company and come back for a while, then maybe come out just are a local nomad. We call nomads our local travelers. Maybe they work at home, at their office, at the coffee shop, at the gym, at their private club, wherever.

Sarah Davis [00:22:55] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:22:56] Around the custom client spaces. So, all these things mixed together is what we’re seeing from, I guess, the culture of. Sort of always being part of something. And you can look at different cultures and say, well, I know I live in this country or that country, but I am X. I come from the x tribe. Culture that I try to keep alive with my tribal culture. And in many respects, I think that that’s where we’re going from a work culture point of view. The tribe is based here and that’s where we came from and our use of X and Y, but where we live and where we work doesn’t matter is values. So back to design, back to all of your neuro design, research, etc., how do you manage the that that extension? I’m working in Germany for three years. How do I sustain the culture of my tribe, which might be in Europe but work or Silicon Valley or somewhere else? It’s an entirely different environment. How do you. Is there any way for design, any way for your built environment to match those two things? Not for you to say, no, no, that that doesn’t work. We do that in a different way, not crossing over from design to culture.

Sarah Davis [00:24:37] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:24:38] But that’s what you’re designing for. And you’ve got you guys are famous for that. And they’ve done one of the most impressive jobs with that anywhere in the world. So, we expect a longer answer.

Sarah Davis [00:24:55] No pressure? No. You know, when you were starting to talk, I think that you made a great point. And so many of our clients are figuring out what that is right now, which is how does the office place unite our team? Right. And I think that we’ve gone through this experiment over the last couple of years and to be glass half full about it as much as we can, what can we take from it that will help us be better in the future? And to the point that you’re doing a lot of what you’re asking, maybe up to the organization itself, what type of culture they have, how people integrate with one another, how they connect. And some of that may be ingrained in the roles and responsibilities of that particular culture of that organization. However, there could be ways that design can help the type of work that they’re doing, the better. And if we can use the environment to bring people together, even if that person may come onsite once a quarter, they may not be in the office all the time. So when they are in the office, how can we make sure that this space is set up to completely be supportive of this group of people so that they can not only potentially work very successfully, but they also can socialize and they can gather and they can start to network in really effective ways because we know that the work environment, right, when you put people together, they’re going to run into each other.

Sarah Davis [00:26:25] There’s going to be those casual collisions, there is going to be that organic conversation that starts to come out, that starts to thread things together, whether it’s people, whether it’s the work itself, the process, but it’s going to unite people and that’s going to be really strong for culture. And I think as a lot of companies that we’re talking to have been saying, you know, we’ve hired a lot of people in the last couple of years. There’s been people that we’ve never met right in person before. And how can we use this office space now to bring people together, even if it’s quarterly, even if it’s just once in a while, in a way that helps us go back into our environments, in a way that reinvigorates work, that helps accelerate those outcomes and helps to really build our team. Because to the point you made, they’re going to be legacy people and they have values. But we want to make sure that the people who are just coming on board also get exposure to that and experience with that and make sure that they’re part of networks. Because what the research has shown is that over this pandemic, the direct networks have stayed tightly coupled. Right. You continue to talk to the people that you were always talking to. Microsoft just did research on this. But those indirect networks, those people that you may have just run into in the hallway, they weren’t really on your team, but you had a relationship with. Those are the ones that have started to settle. Right. And we haven’t really been able to stoke the fire of those indirect networks as much. So being onsite brings us together. It helps the culture and can help unite us as a team behind the mission of the organization.

Frank Cottle [00:27:59] Well, you know, you said something that I’m going to challenge across, not take not take exception to a challenge. And I’m probably. Taking it even out of context a little bit. But you said go back. In terms of moving back to the way we did; things are back to the way things were done so that everybody’s comfortable. And I would say, you know, our context here is a future of work. Mm hmm. Okay. So, a lot of people look at work and the workplace, and right now, they look at them. Back to the office versus remote almost as a tidal environment. Tides ebb and flow. Ebb and flow and economies ebb and flow. So, we’re all used to that sort of thing. I rather think of it. It’s more like. The old saying is that it’s more like a river. There’s a continuous flow forward. And as they say that a person who stands in a river never feels the same water twice.

Sarah Davis [00:29:07] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:29:09] Of having a flow. It’s a continuous movement. Hmm. Also, as we. Seek talent for all of our businesses as we bring these cultures together. How do we make sure that we’re on a river instead of going back and forth, you know, because, you know, the ocean never moves. It just goes back and forth, back and forth. Back and forth. Right. Look at Florida right now. In which case it’s.

Sarah Davis [00:29:37] Yes.

Frank Cottle [00:29:38] But it’s an ebb and flow versus a river which is constantly moving.

Sarah Davis [00:29:44] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:29:45] And we need our future of work. Concepts to be more like the river.

Sarah Davis [00:29:52] Right.

Frank Cottle [00:29:53] So I don’t know if that’s even a question that I’ve asked as much, but how would you address something like that?

Sarah Davis [00:30:01] I mean, I agree. I feel like the statement of return to work is a bit flawed and the idea of return we’ve been working the whole time back but returning to the office is really what we want to think about. And we don’t want to go back. We want to return to the office, but we need it to be supportive of the way that we need to work in today’s environment, which is different than it was in the past. And it’s a bit more flexible, right, than it was in the past. And it has to take into consideration again that people may be, like you said, travelers and coming in and out in this dynamic area of the office place so that it can really capture that fluidity. Right. Those people aren’t going to be stagnant and doing the same thing Monday to Friday, but it’s going to change throughout the week. And how can the office really be set up in a way that’s adaptable to support the needs of the team now and into the future?

Frank Cottle [00:31:06] The as we look towards, and I wonder when we talk about all these things whether the physical workspace is enough. Culture certainly is a critical part of how we design the space and how we use the space and really how talent is attracted attracted and kept overall. But as we move back to the office, I’ll use that as a negative term to the people that are working remotely today. A lot of what you’re saying, I’m not coming back now we see an awful lot of that movement going on and rightfully so. In many cases. It’s just not necessarily the cost of returning to the office, to the employee. Our huge cost to returning to the. The employees returned to the company that actually reduces their costs somewhat or allows them to justify a fixed asset, which they may or may not actually need it. So, do you see the core? Corporate structure, physically, the built environment on behalf of companies shrinking or growing in the future, physically, more or less square footage.

Sarah Davis [00:32:31] That’s been a good big riddle for a lot of our clients to grapple with and figure out what they’re going to do with the real estate. And I think a lot of it is starting to dig into the why. What does your office represent in the future and being able to clearly communicate that to your employees. Because, as you said and was part of our survey, too, there were a lot of people who had a lot of different factors, of reasons of why they maybe wanted or did not want to come back into the office. Right. And they’ve said, we’ve been here for a couple of years. Why come back? So, for an office, for an organization to be able to clearly express this is the importance. This is why the function of the office in our business and then being able to diagnose how to set the office up to then function to support that. Why? Right. Because the office of yesterday may not support the office of tomorrow and the needs of tomorrow. Right. The team of tomorrow. So how can we repurpose? And if we’re if we’re doing things, we might not get it right. But we talk to a lot of clients about piloting an experiment team. Right? Let’s just start trying something and as we do, we will learn and will gain more information and every client is different. There’s no one solution or one size fits all that’s going to be a panacea for everybody. But if we start learning a bit about what’s working with our organization and get feedback, people are invested, they care.

Sarah Davis [00:34:04] You know, when we do surveys and we do this before the pandemic and even after we have huge response rates and people care about the office, so they’re invested in it, and they’ll give you, their feedback. They’ll you’ll learn as soon as they start working in these environments what starts to work, what doesn’t, what rises to the surface. We do that with our own office and we’re starting to refine as we build our new headquarters that’s coming next year, what’s going to really ultimately be the right space for us. So, I think a lot of it is just starting to start to play, starting to experiment and discover and describing what that why is learning from your employees, why they’re coming back in, what they need in the office, and then thinking about the programing to really ultimately determine, to your point, are we shrinking, are we growing, are we staying the same size? That’s really dependent on what you need to do with your office and what your team ultimately needs to do with space.

Frank Cottle [00:34:59] Well. Your design decisions and the applications of your design decision. An awful lot of it is done based on data, data, your surveys. And I think that’s something that’s not necessarily new but is something that’s not a well-disciplined product despite many others is. I really like this. I really like that. I question, why do you like that? Are you going to like it next year? The built environment is expensive to build, expensive to tear down, and even the most expensive when it’s not being used.

Sarah Davis [00:35:37] 100%

Frank Cottle [00:35:38] Overall. Well, so we’re running out of time. And I apologize because we could probably do this now. Flowers. Great to have you back again sometime and really explore some of devil in the detail on these things. But I guess we can say that data driven decision making around the Y for design is one of the most important things that people can be paying attention to today. Whether they look at them like I do as travelers or like some of your clients, maybe as occupiers or halfway between. So, we want to thank you very much. We’re grateful for your time and your expertise, and I look forward to chatting again.

Sarah Davis [00:36:20] Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Thank you for having me.