About this episode
Workplace strategy is being rewritten in real time—and this conversation makes the shift unmistakable. Frank Cottle sits down with Sue Asprey Price, a workplace and real estate strategist at JLL, to unpack how organizations are moving beyond “office vs. remote” and into a more precise question: how do we design an experience that improves talent outcomes and business outcomes at the same time? From space utilization and the ROI logic leaders demand, to amenitization (including why food and proximity matter), to neurodiversity in workplace design, Sue shares what’s changing—and why it’s becoming more strategic, more data-driven, and more personalized. They also explore how AI is shifting planning from guesswork to real-time insight, helping companies justify every dollar while keeping the office relevant as a hub for connection, culture, and brand.
About Sue Asprey Price
Sue Asprey Price is an expert in modern workplaces and how businesses are having to adapt their policies and physical spaces to meet new requirements and needs. She is a former Canadian rugby international and is passionate about the role of sports and outdoor learning in shaping future generations.
What you’ll learn
- Why workplace strategy is moving toward hyper-personalization and an “experience” mindset
- What “flexibility” really means, and why it doesn’t automatically mean fully remote
- How leaders should think about utilization and the economics of underused space
- How amenitized workplaces support connection—and which amenities actually matter
- What neurodiversity means in workplace design (lighting, color, concentration space)
- Why smaller companies rely on ecosystem solutions like flex and “vertical campuses”
- How AI is making workplace planning more scientific through real-time data and better modeling
- Why the office’s purpose is “crystallizing further” in response to AI disruption and talent strategy
Transcript
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:00:00,000 ]What organizations really need to be thinking about is how do they relate to their workforce, and of course, we have multi-generations in a workforce. Some of our clients are very focused on associating with a brand. Some of them are focused on how do we give people the true experience. That we want them to have. And a lot of them are thinking around how do we not only attract and retain talent, but ensure that we are maximizing the experience and the effectiveness of that talent. It’s a concept of almost hyper personalization right now, where it’s becoming a bit of a B2C model rather than just a B2B model.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:00:41,930 ] So. Welcome to Future Work Podcast. Really excited to have you here today. Gosh. What a background.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:00:50,330 ] Basically, in my interpretation of everything you do and have done, you are an incredible strategist working on behalf of JLL, helping portfolio companies and clients at JLL to figure out what’s next. So you’re the perfect spokesperson for the future of work. We’re really grateful to have you.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:01:10,090 ] Well, thank you very much for having me, Frank. I’m very flattered by my introduction.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:01:15,650 ] I’ve been in the real estate industry for a number of years. I won’t date myself yet, but very, very excited about what we can do with our clients and help them navigate the journey of the future of work. So thank you. For having me here today.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:01:31,140 ] Great point. As a strategist, we’ve. both saying uh well we’re not dating ourselves It’s apparent at least on my part. um that I’ve been around a while so we’ve seen lots of transformation through the years through the decades five decades that I’ve been doing this in this particular industry um What’s next? What do you think?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:01:57,160 ] Companies have to be thinking about today to be prepared.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:02:01,920 ] For the future, not just on a broad base, because that’s too big a thing, but in their strategic thinking about how to manage their portfolios or how to manage their workforce relative to their portfolio.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:02:15,140 ] Yeah, great question. And as you rightly so have said, we’ve gone through many, many different variations of ‘What is the rule of property?’— around talent attraction, people, connections, all those things. I actually think right now, what organizations really need to be thinking about is how do they relate to their workforce and, of course, we have multi-generations.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:02:41,300 ] Yeah. And it’s how do they relate to that workforce and some of our clients are very focused on associating with a brand. Some of them are focused on how do we give people the true experience? That we want them to have. And a lot of them are thinking around how do we not only attract and retain talent. But ensure that we are maximizing the experience and the effectiveness of that talent. So I’m going to dig into that a little bit more, if that’s okay, Frank. You talk about multi-generational workforce, you talk around disruption of AI, you talk around people relating to a brand.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:03:21,800 ] It’s a concept of almost hyper-personalization right now, where it’s becoming a bit of a B2C model rather than just a B2B model.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:03:30,560 ] I agree. It’s almost B2B, yes, B2C, but almost B2B2C.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:03:37,750 ] No, it really is. The stepping of generations, the transformation of the services, real estate, and I’ve argued this for at least three decades.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:03:51,010 ] I’ve said it’s not a facility or a physical industry, it’s a service industry. Um and people go, ‘Oh no, you know, buildings and blah blah blah.’ So yeah, my building. It’s a real estate-dependent service industry.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:04:04,290 ] I couldn’t agree more. Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:05,630 ] We’ve also been saying since, oh, 2000.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:09,480 ] 15 or 16 that there are no occupiers anymore.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:13,910 ] There are only travelers.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:17,120 ] And you have to think of everyone as a traveler instead of an occupier, because we all work in multiple locations in generally a single day or certainly in a single week.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:04:27,040 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:28,900 ] How to manage that transit is critically important to your point of living the brand.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:04:36,660 ] Hmm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:37,400 ] For companies, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:04:39,770 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:40,680 ] And I think, on a generational basis, a question I’d like to explore is: You’ve got a lot of boomers exiting the workforce.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:04:49,250 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:04:50,030 ] Work. I don’t say a lot because a lot of them are choosing to stay. Our own longevity, technology, and flexibility allow us to work as long as we like.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:05:01,819 ] In today’s world. And you’ve also thought that exiting millennials now.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:05:08,500 ] Mhm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:05:10,120 ] Will that change how the workplace is focused in the future on the younger generations that are in and will occupy the workforce?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:05:20,420 ] Does that materially focus the strategies on flexibility?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:05:24,650 ] I know. Randstadt tells us that, for instance, the largest employment management company in the world. When they run an ad for an opposition, they include the word ‘remote’ or ‘flexible’ or anything to do with flexibility in the workplace. They get a five-to-one response.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:05:47,400 ] Hmm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:05:47,945 ] That means people that do that. will ultimately win the war for talent.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:05:55,470 ] What’s your view of the change?
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:05:57,590 ] I think it’s hinging on the term, Frank, of flexibility. And I think flexibility doesn’t mean remote working all the time. And if you look at our employee barometer, so JLL does research, not just on the big corporate occupier, but we actually speak to employees. And what I found fascinating in our most recent employee barometer was that over 75% of what we would classify as Gen Z had a strong desire to be in an office environment. And I think that means that going back to the Randstad stats, yes, they desire flexibility, but being a remote worker 100% of the time. our research is saying that they don’t want that.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:06:45,280 ] Well, I agree. Human beings are gregarious by nature.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:06:50,240 ] Week. We all lived together in the same cave back in the old days, right? We liked that. And we still like that. We still like each other.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:06:59,490 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:07:00,010 ] You and I don’t know each other, but I’ll tell you, I’ve enjoyed meeting you and interacting with you and the conversations we’ve had in the past. So we like that. Uh, Gen Z is the most remote.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:07:14,580 ] Natives. Digital population that we have.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:07:18,340 ] Great.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:07:19,960 ] Where older generation might take a break to go digital.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:07:25,330 ] Hmm. He takes a break. To go in person.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:07:29,110 ] Yeah, it’s a good, it’s a really good summary. Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:07:32,280 ] Big change in the way things are happening or have have sorted themselves out so I agree but how do you manage that because You said flexibility. Gen Z says, ‘Yeah, I kind of like, I sort of want to maybe be there three days a week, different days each week.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:07:49,660 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:07:49,920 ] Not always the same. Not only for the same purpose. How do you manage the facility side and do the strategic work for a real estate portfolio? For a large company or a small company, just a 50-person company.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:08:06,100 ] So that they have real estate efficiency because even when everybody was supposedly in the office. We did a study and we did it with one of the major tech companies, Big Five or Big Ten. Um, And we all calculated that their at-desk utilization was 42%.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:08:25,060 ] Yeah. Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:08:26,950 ] How do the economics of that work for somebody strategically, or how do you master that?
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:08:31,770 ] Yeah. What I love about it is this: it is where, when people challenge me and say, ‘Where is AI and is it going to disrupt real estate?’
Frank Cottle
[ 00:08:38,770 ] What I love about it is— It’s right on, just to my left, by the way.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:08:41,960 ] Yeah, yeah, well there you go— but it’s allowing us to be quite scientific about your point, utilization of space. If I reflect on conversations that I have with CEOs of organizations, whether they be big multinational or, to your point, the 50-person company, they want to know how they’re spending their capital wisely. Right— they want to know that every dollar they’re spending has a return.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:09:05,850 ] And to your point, around utilization levels, how do they get that right?
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:09:11,570 ] I’m going to I am going to date myself a little bit now, Frank, and go back to workplace strategy, which I was doing even 20 years ago. Where we had a concept called activity-based working and we were designing spaces to accommodate those different activities. And even back then, utilization rates were in the 50 to 60% and especially it depended on what day you were looking at. I think now, with this concept of personalization, we’re actually enabling companies to be more scientific on the type of space they need and when. And I’m going to give you an example. I was chatting to a tech firm the other day. And. I said, ‘you know,’ what are your utilization rates? And this was in Europe. It was in Dublin and London, the two cities we were talking about. And they said, ‘our utilization rates are up to 70%.’ I went, ‘wow.’ But he said, ‘but only Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.’ I said, ‘okay.’ And then he said, ‘which I thought was a really clever.’ They said, ‘we open our doors to visitors on Mondays and Fridays.’
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:10:14,930 ] And he said, ‘some of those visitors might be clients we’re interacting with. or we promote a lot of our kind of brand associated events on those days.’ And he said, ‘the reason we’ve done that is not to hit utilization levels or to even use the space.’ It’s to give the feeling of people’s connection. To give the feeling that if you do come in on a Friday, actually, it’s busy going back to our comment around. Why do people come into the office? One of the reasons is human connection. It is to step away and actually, some of our data is now saying that Gen Zero has come to the office for digital detox. So that they can get away with that and having these environments that have multi-purpose, you know, nothing ignites the CEO conversation. If I say each dollar you spend is actually serving three or four purposes.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:11:05,060 ] And as long as we can articulate what the purpose is and the profile of the individuals that it is impacting, then they’re okay spending those dollars and again, a lot of our research has very real time data that can show to them. That spaces are being used for multi purposes. That spaces are being used to align to their business strategy, not just to an individual talent strategy. And that’s where they get excited about spending the dollars on real estate.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:11:35,040 ] You know, we had, and this is dated, 15 years or so. Um, similar conversation with again a very large tech company and their utilization was not quite where you’re saying because it was, That was then and this is now.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:11:51,360 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:11:52,540 ] One of the problems they had with the concept of bringing outside companies in, because that was one of our recommendations, is you segregate the space and you turn a section of your space into what we’ll call flexible workspace.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:05,960 ] Interact.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:07,390 ] Literally, can turn it into a profit center. You interact with your suppliers, with your clients, engineers from other firms, et cetera, in this one zone.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:12:17,230 ] Hmm, hmm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:18,330 ] Utilization or as you’re talking about. Use-based workspace.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:25,680 ] And they went, ‘Ooh, we got security issues.’
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:12:29,956 ] Yeah, okay.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:30,852 ] First there were a primary uh government uh contractor. Yeah. Or both.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:37,750 ] Standard and uh, department of defense contract, so we can’t have people just walking in here. The distance from that space to the lunch counter goes right through. So they didn’t plan for that.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:12:50,310 ] Mm hmm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:12:50,900 ] Therefore, they couldn’t take advantage of it back then. Yeah. Our company’s planning for this. Use. Because if you’re at 60% utilization, that means you’re at 40% non-utilization. Mm-hmm. That means you’re paying for the space for that 40%.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:13:10,290 ] That means you’re negotiating harder with the property company.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:13:14,920 ] Etc., etc. Saying, ‘Hey, I can’t justify the total cost of allocable overhead for these work states.’ How does that all work out?
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:13:24,580 ] Yeah, me.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:13:26,160 ] It says, ‘reduction in the value of the plant, of the facility.’
Frank Cottle
[ 00:13:31,430 ] That puts stress on the property company and even more stress on the asset management and financial institution that’s financed behind them, which is a cascading event financially.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:13:41,770 ] Mhm.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:13:42,660 ] I think there’s no one size fits all, Frank. I think, for big organizations, going back to your question of how do they use that space, really what you were learning, too, is how do they configure it, right? So what we do know as well is that that every workspace is still a combination of spaces. We talk a lot in the industry around collaboration space. Well, collaboration space can mean it’s for your employees. It can also be for your external whether it be clients you know, this organization that I was referring to is a big tech company, but they also offer big training. And therefore, being able to relate to the companies of which they are engaging with, the training. Their collaboration spaces are multifunctional and that they can their new space.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:14:30,440 ] This is a new space design. I pretty much get it, but retro.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:14:35,440 ] Oh, no. Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:14:36,790 ] Built you on campus.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:14:39,050 ] 15 or 20 years ago. Yeah, a lot of reorganization and redesign to do.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:14:45,850 ] Yeah, completely. Yes, sorry—I didn’t mean to interrupt you. There but you know, some of this space has been space they’ve had for quite a long time, and they have spent money on reconfiguring it to your point or ensuring again that the dollars they were spending had multiple purposes to that dollar— it wasn’t just meeting rooms and internal collaboration space; they thought around that kind of outward-facing and it goes back to Frank. You and I. Again, I’ve been in this industry for a while. We’ve worked with tech companies that used to have product display areas, right, where they would have their hardware that, you know, they would have their next phone or their next laptop or they wanted clients to come in and have it. playful journey with whatever product they were selling. So I think. It’s not a new concept, but to your point. With a knowledge economy, how they are doing it is a little bit different. But I’d also say, at the other end of the spectrum, you’re right, highly regulated financial services organizations.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:15:39,210 ] They want to be able to bring visitors in. But at the same time, they’re going to have restricted areas and their security and access is going to be one of the barriers of entry into that space. This is where I go. It doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all. For smaller organizations and for more remote locations, a lot of even the big corporates are saying, actually, flex is part of that journey. So I think it goes back to. you’re creating an ecosystem for whatever organization that you are designing for and that’s why I’m really happy because that that requires strategy, it requires data, it requires strategy, return on investment of every dollar that you’re spending. We are not seeing that. The value of real estate in highly amenitized, high quality assets in key urban locations. We’re actually seeing a premium bidding put on those assets. I do agree with you more remote locations. That aren’t in big urban centers that are grade B that need retrofitting in a challenging market.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:16:43,670 ] That’s where we’re seeing dampening valuations. So I’d say right now. We have been saying this for quite a while. We are looking into a bifurcated market where the top assets in key locations actually are getting a premium. Other assets are now having to look into and justify.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:17:01,570 ] Capital deployment into those, if they’re in the right locations, is becoming more attractive. And dare I say it, I’m going to date myself again, Frank. Location, location, location is back on the agenda.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:17:12,359 ] I disagree with you entirely.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:17:14,450 ] Okay.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:17:15,069 ] Timing, timing, timing.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:17:16,960 ] Fine, perfect timing and location. Can we agree on that?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:17:20,780 ] Timing, timing, timing. No, I really think that what you just described, let’s see. I said, I saw that in 84. I saw that in 93. I saw that in 2002.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:17:31,100 ] Right now, you’re in London. Yeah. Okay. Tell me, how many cranes are out there? Not a lot, just a few.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:17:38,090 ] It depends on where you are in the city.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:17:40,520 ] Review. How much? Office space had been converted to residential in the last 10 years, a lot, particularly in the primary locations. Yeah, reduce that and new space wasn’t built. So I would say the big percentage of the pressure you’re feeling is the change in the space utilization, without the equal acceleration to develop new space correspondingly. We see that issue going on in major markets. That has started in Manhattan now. Also, it takes a lot longer to build new buildings to replace the loss through residential conversion than it does to do the residential conversion.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:18:26,020 ] Yeah, I would also say there are new assets, certainly in Manhattan, that are going up. And there’s a lot more of the organizations that are in Manhattan that are investing in their office space, Frank.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:18:37,970 ] And I agree.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:18:40,040 ] Yeah, and when we talk about Yes, there was definitely in here in London, there was a conversion to Resi. for some of those assets that we’re never going to realize the value of office.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:18:54,080 ] That goes back to the economics we talked about before that were just being realized— right underutilized assets that had an ability to be converted. were converted.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:19:05,470 ] Hasn’t changed based upon the last few years. Again, what we are seeing though is that organizations, as they get the science right and they understand the return on the investment, are seeing more and more dollars go into creating highly amenitized spaces that are used effectively. So, the office environments and the returned office and the demand for offices in key city centers, we’re continuing to see an increase in that space.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:19:34,750 ] When you say ‘highly amenitized,’ and I agree with you that that is a
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:19:39,000 ] ‘Mm-hmm.’
Frank Cottle
[ 00:19:39,630 ] material change in the way office space is developed today.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:19:42,700 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:19:44,860 ] The ping pong table.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:19:46,920 ] Oh. Your. Um, for the in the tech world—oh, we’re cool— we’ve got a lounge, you know, the bro society, that’s all dead. That’s all gone. What amenities are key?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:20:01,110 ] For. People developing space today for their own use or maybe for in the shared uh workspace environment co-working business centers, etc. What amenities are key to maintaining the longevity of the customer requirement that you see.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:20:21,620 ] I think a lot of it is, dare I say it, associated with food. With environments that feel like people can relax and do something in a different way. We still are seeing, in some of the key assets and core markets, that having things like a gym facility, having different things that that, you know, individuals can go and personalize their day, is really critical. I’m going to go back to food, though. Like, you know, never underestimate the value of good coffee. That’s one of the things that I’ve talked about for a long time.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:20:55,540 ] Never overestimate the value of a beer tap. Yeah, you know, that uh we’ve seen people go that route as well and that proved to be a bridge too far.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:21:07,510 ] Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. But it is, you know, you think about going back to the start of this conversation. Frank around humans want to be human. They want to associate with other people. They want to learn from other people. They want to interact with other people. And one of the things that draws humans together is food and a good food offering and little things like standing waiting in, I’m going to say queue, waiting in a line to get some food and chatting to the people beside you. We actually are doing micro surveys and people enjoy that within a limit. They don’t want to wait more than a certain amount of time, but. They enjoy that interaction because sometimes it’s with somebody they’ve never met before. Then you go and you have a coffee and you have a bit to eat. and the connection of food is extremely powerful so a lot of the amenitization that we see is oriented around where are they creating those connections, one of them which is very good food offering.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:22:01,630 ] Yeah, no, I agree with that.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:22:04,430 ] even if a company we’re looking at relocating one of our own offices from one it’s in a major market from one major building to another one Yeah. Our discussion about physical space is overshadowed by our discussion about: ‘Is there a gym nearby? House a parking house security? What’s the ability of restaurants?’
Frank Cottle
[ 00:22:29,690 ] We uh there’s only about 100 person office, so it’s not going to have a big food structure within it. But access to those amenities within a one or two minute walk or three minute walk is critically important. Uh, overall, and So I recognize that importance.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:22:49,050 ] Let’s change the bandwidth a little bit here.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:22:54,950 ] Neuro-inclusive. Diversity. In space design.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:23:00,540 ] Mhm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:23:01,400 ] Big words.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:23:02,940 ] A lot of people use them. I don’t think everybody understands them or is really focused on the importance strategically.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:23:12,450 ] Not just in the short term, but in the mid and long term of those concepts that are being utilized. At the highest levels today. Can you? Define and give us some thoughts around that because this is a something that you didn’t discuss 10 years ago.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:23:33,500 ] No, it’s true. So maybe I could start just with defining a little bit of what neurodiversity is.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:23:43,320 ] I speak to a lot of heads of real estate and being able to accommodate physical abilities is something that we have gotten quite good at in the real estate industry. Accessibility, but it’s something that we’ve accommodated to a certain extent. Yeah, neurodiversity is just the way that people’s brains work and that brain functioning can be different. And it can be triggered by a lot of environment.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:24:15,410 ] So when I say that, Frank, you think about autism. athd I have a highly dyslexic daughter. And I’ve learned a lot about neurodiversity. I’ve learned around what environments—helper. which environments actually make her less productive. and the frustration that she has. with those environments. So when we talk about neurodiverse design, things like lighting. I know that if I sit in a room that has neon strip lighting in it or the equivalent of it, if I’m in that room all day by the end of the day, I have a headache. So that is not improving my productivity.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:24:53,600 ] I have some colleagues that I work with that really bright colors. Actually, are quite disturbing and off-putting, and they’ve walked into some environments where they have been neurally disturbed. By that. So thinking about all of that. Optimization of we go back to this concept of almost hyper personalization. Which is the utopia. But where we can be designing spaces that consider those needs which may not be obvious.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:25:23,030 ] Is exactly where a neurodiverse design starts to really take those into consideration. I’m going to go back to kind of activity-based working. Things like having concentration space. I think now that we’ve got more people coming back into the office. We are moving away from the assumption. That concentrated work is only done at home or in a remote location. You need that in an office environment now. Where a person’s day will be intermingled with the type of work that they’re doing. Those things now need to be taken into further consideration not only for neurodiverse candidates but just for the type of work people are doing in offices again. Thank you. So designing the space to be able to accommodate that and be thoughtful of it. The organizations that are doing that have a much higher feedback on their satisfaction scores of that type of space.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:26:19,380 ] How do you blend the space, or is it even difficult? I don’t know. I’ve not designed space to this need effectively.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:26:28,340 ] When we built buildings and design space specifically for our own customer base, we had a couple of theories.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:26:38,190 ] One theory was—uh— never designed anything they’re going to say, ‘Oh, I remember when that was cool.’ Yeah. So really focused not away from fads overall, and then we— we would also— I think— in neutral. We always thought in high school, ultra high quality materials, but everything being very neutral. Your energy, your color, came from your technology and your artwork.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:27:08,650 ] But everything else was pretty vanilla. Uh. We’re all. And that seemed to work for us. Comfortable in.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:27:20,380 ] Um, I’m like some of the people you described. I’m very sensitive to the environment that I’m working in. It’s why I’ve worked from home for almost 40 years. I like working in my personal environment and then going out for my gregarious energy with others. Oh. I was just going to a facility yesterday. I was, I was out of town. I live in Fort Worth as you know and I was up in Ohio at a meeting yesterday and it was a shared work environment.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:27:53,470 ] Thank you.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:27:54,420 ] The two or three pods which were privacy pods, yeah, for a couple of people for phone calls and that quiet, quiet work. They were very nice, by the way. They were very nice.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:28:07,360 ] I walked to the restroom.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:28:11,330 ] And in the hallway to the restroom, there was a guy on the phone.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:28:15,430 ] And I thought this guy had to go to a hallway to the restroom to find privacy for a call—yeah, not good. This is not—yeah, so little things like that are so important because.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:28:28,250 ] Okay.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:28:29,150 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:28:30,360 ] Comfort. Just comfort is critical and it comes down to. We used to talk in design about ergonomics—yeah, we’re well past that. We used to talk about access, you know. We’re not fully past that, but we’re working on that constantly. Just like we were doing in economics, but neurodiversity and design and total environment.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:28:52,720 ] Which I think plays into the amenity issue. Um, Very, very important today. Yeah. Um, How does a small company that has 10 employees— Um, that.—move into spec space? Than a developer build. MM-HMM, small company, a startup, deal with these things effectively. They don’t really have the same level of control that a Fortune 500 or tech company would. That says, well, we’ll solve this. We’ll build a three million foot campus just for ourselves. It’ll be amazing. Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:29:28,430 ] How does a small company, because most companies are small.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:29:32,020 ] Yeah.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:29:32,430 ] Yeah well, I think first and foremost, you know, this is where Flex comes into for the very small companies, and I think some of the Flex organizations have done a brilliant job of amenable space and making it open space for those small user groups. I also find, again, I’m going back to probably relating to here in London, Frank, but we are seeing this in other key city centers. What we’re seeing is what I would call the development of vertical campuses, which are multi-tenanted buildings, and a lot of the organizations that are taking space in there are taking them because of the amenities that are available in the wider open spaces. So I’ll give you an example. We’ve got an asset here in London. Uh, it’s an address of it. It is 22 Bishopsgate, and it became quite famous because it had highly amenitized. It has an art gallery within it.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:30:32,630 ] It has a climbing wall in it. It has a gym. It has a spa. has one of the most phenomenal food offerings. It has a high-end restaurant up at the top of it.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:30:42,070 ] Cock-a-ling.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:30:43,290 ] Yes, there you go.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:30:46,760 ] One of my favorites. There you go. Perfect. In fact, it’s funny because it’s one of my favorites. I’m in the flex world. Industry as you know, and it’s also one of the favorites of the biggest guy in the flex industry, and we meet there all the time.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:31:02,100 ] Perfect. There we go. So there you go. And you think about it, a company. That whether it be a 10-person or a 20-person, we actually did work with an organization.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:31:13,960 ] There was a big company, but they wanted a small amount of space in a building.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:31:20,650 ] That could be very client-facing and that they could have all these amenities. I go back to that asset. It’s getting premium rents because, for two reasons— excuse me for interrupting— but that asset 30 years old now.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:31:36,340 ] Yeah, it’s been ripped, it’s been upgraded, it’s been upgraded.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:31:39,220 ] That’s not a new design concept, yeah, it’s a concept though that has been very well refined.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:31:47,580 ] Yes. It’s in a somewhat rarefied marketplace.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:31:53,340 ] It’s on the edge of the city, right on top of a tube station. There’s two tube stations on either side. It’s got, to your point, location, location, location. It was the perfect location for a highly amenitized building, which when it was built, there were none in the area.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:32:11,440 ] Now, they are everywhere. I’m in the west end of London, and I’m in central London. You have it—Canary Wharf has it. Canary Wharf has done some tremendous things. And then I translate that footprint to Manhattan, where you’ve got Midtown, you’ve got Hudson Yard, you’ve got— You’ve got these areas within cities now. Where you get, whether you be a small company or a big company, you’re drawn to it because, when we talk about highly amenitized space. It doesn’t mean that you have to provide that yourself.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:32:41,640 ] Being in an environment, I think, you’re almost better if you don’t. Because you get more variety and less institutionalization. It’s funny, you mentioned. Building inside of cities and neighborhoods and such, we worked with a very very large Chinese development company that was developing in China. Their little motto, if you will, was: ‘We build cities within cities Their projects were massive, massive, giant mixed-use projects built inside of city cores. They had the density to do so.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:33:18,040 ] And I see that. Also, there’s a company over in the continent.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:33:23,880 ] That all they do is go into the pop the buildings that you said are the difficult ones, the B and lower a class buildings, and the where the high rise is sloped down a little bit in the mountains of the rise buildings they go into those buildings. All they do is you sit down with the owner, and build out amenity packages inside of those buildings, and they’ve seen about a 15 uplift in the combination in the value combination of occupancy and rate on those buildings. and they make; they were in the serviced office business; they were in that business; um, uh; but they translated their model, after selling that company, they translated their model to this specialized amenity model. They’re doing quite well and the properties that they impact are doing quite well. So I think this is a trending thing that we will see on the retrofit side is service providers as opposed to the property companies themselves.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:34:24,429 ] I couldn’t agree more. It goes all the way back to the start of the podcast of what do we build these spaces for? We build them for an experience. Now the experience a company expects is one experience, and then an experience that the employee expects. And ensuring that you get it— it isn’t just gone in the days that a property is a utility; it’s just something that you deliver for people. Right? It is. And this is what I love. I’m at the C-suite table, whether it be a big organization or a small one.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:34:58,050 ] Because the conversation is strategic now. It is. How do I give this experience but create the outcome? That I want as an organization. And I do think, you’re right, that’s a fantastic business model. Bringing that service mindset. Bringing environments where, again, you can confidently say, were impacting the employee’s performance, whether it be their wellbeing or whether it be their satisfaction or whether it be their output. We’re up. Point in our industry now where we can say we’re doing that. It’s the holy trilogy you and I were trying to solve probably 30 years ago. Frank, impacting human productivity, do you remember that?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:35:37,000 ] That is true. That is true. You know. I. I want to explore AI in for a second. Uh. Overall. Um.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:35:45,450 ] Okay.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:35:46,870 ] Impact on AI on employee structure and your comment about strategic, we believe that Flex became strategic about 2014 or 15.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:36:00,390 ] Mm-hmm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:36:01,080 ] And we believe that. Flex. became strategic at that point based on large companies, not just tech companies, but large companies.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:36:11,570 ] Focus on winning the war for talent as opposed to just the way they build their space. And Flex became remote, hybrid, et cetera, was well before the pandemic. The pandemic just kicked everybody across the threshold, said, ‘Oh, we got to do it. We got to do it now.’
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:36:29,650 ] Why?
Frank Cottle
[ 00:36:30,230 ] Well, because otherwise everybody’s going to quit. Yeah. Okay, and commute became the issue there.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:36:38,120 ] Everybody likes being in the office. Sometimes. Nobody likes. Getting an hour and a half on the train to get to the office.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:36:46,720 ] The ability to cut out the commute one or two days a week became more important than working away from the office. It was really the that became at least in our deal. Beautiful. So strategic is the key word now. Winning the war for talent is elemental to running a successful business. But winning the war for talent. I’m like an old sailor. Some people say an old pirate. AI is like, you know, a parrot on my shoulder.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:37:16,810 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:37:17,290 ] A little bit of that attitude.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:37:22,680 ] We ourselves went through a decision last year to a little almost a year and a half ago now. to have a hiring freeze.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:37:33,580 ] We still want to grow. We still want to do this, but we’re going to have a hiring freeze. We’re going to force ourselves to.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:37:41,460 ] Embrace new technologies and this and that. And we’ve grown 30 since that time and we’ve hired two people.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:37:48,750 ] Okay, we broke our rule— we hired two people. Which we trained a lot of people. And we basically say that: Every individual, every single individual in every position in our company has to have a customized AI executive assistant. For their specific role.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:38:10,420 ] Hmm-hmm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:38:10,615 ] In order to be economically productive in tomorrow’s world, not today’s world, yet but in tomorrow’s world. So we said, well, let’s do this early. We can we can do this overall.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:38:21,930 ] That decision, we didn’t fire anybody. We changed some positions around. But to not hire anybody.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:38:30,720 ] Huge impact on office space overall. We’re thinking of, we’re just moving right now. And it completely changed our view of what we needed over the next five years.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:38:42,160 ] Mhm.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:38:43,060 ] Are you seeing the same thing in companies?
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:38:46,300 ] Yes, I definitely and I think you’ve definitely taken that step. A lot of organizations have, and some organizations are even thinking—knowing that we are doing work processes now with people that will be done by AI. So going back to your comment. Um, you didn’t get rid of anybody, but therefore your future demand for growth didn’t necessarily have the same demand profile for offices.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:39:12,130 ] What I would say, though, Frank, going back to what our discussion has been here, the purpose of the office is crystallizing further because as we have AI disruption and we have organizations wondering what work processes will be done by AI. The human connection, the need for human connection, the war for talent. Offices very much so at the heart of that. Where again, they’re saying we need spaces. That associate with our brand that do bring the talent in. Yes, we might in the back end be looking at what work processes are going to be disrupted by AI and what functions are gonna be impacted by it. But actually, weirdly, the demand in terms of total overall space, yes, it’s a shifting profile. But the need for the office. Is actually crystallizing further because of the need for human connection.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:40:04,380 ] Well, I agree with that. I think our growth profile of employment, our employment growth profile, though, is going to materially change, hugely change, not just at the office level, but across all work. The entire global workforce. Uh, overall, I now have my imaginary friend that sits in my with me. Uh, yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:40:27,800 ] Uh, candidly. What I love about. is I don’t have to have.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:40:35,260 ] two assistants that I asked. to do things for me.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:40:39,920 ] Um, hey, I need some research on this, I need some this and that, I I don’t have to lose anything in the uh discussion. He goes, oh, I didn’t really understand what you meant. Bye-bye. Do any of that anymore. I can just thank you.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:40:56,400 ] So I know it’s changing the profile of what people will do and how you’ll hire, who you’ll hire, and how you’ll train. Training, training, training— an opening.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:41:08,880 ] Positions to people inside of your company. Lit. um can learn and embrace technologies.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:41:18,190 ] Rather than trying to get rid of a group of people. Is critical.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:41:22,930 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:41:23,520 ] Hugely critical to the spirit of your company. You talk about living your brand if you’re a service company. Your first obligation is to ensure the security of your own team.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:41:32,430 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:41:32,940 ] I couldn’t do that by servicing your customer well, but your first obligation, if you hire somebody and you’re responsible for their family.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:41:40,530 ] Yeah.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:41:41,060 ] More. It’s very true you’d better be thinking about that overall. Um.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:41:49,140 ] New talent, we’ve talked about. Amenity, a little bit about AI. What’s your add something to the AI conversation where you think it’s going to how you think it’s going to impact Um, occupancy or amenity structures or the way space will be used in the future.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:42:08,040 ] Yeah. Well, I think we have to see where it’ll all play out to your point exactly around how is it going to disrupt the way that companies work? I think that still has to play out. There’s still a lot of theories around that. It’s going to make people more productive and therefore they’re going to be able to do other things, just like we’ve seen in other periods of history where a major impact, a major shockwave of a technological change. So I think how it plays out is still, I’m not able to predict it. I don’t think anyone is right now, Frank, but. To your point around going back to how space is being used, I’m excited around how AI can give us real-time data that we used to just guess at things, right? We used to guess at how you design spaces.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:42:57,280 ] AI is going to help us do that. In a more scientific way, I go back to ensuring that when a company spends a dollar, that they’re getting a return on that dollar—or, more accurately, that ability to reflect that becomes a lot more accurate by using and implementing AI. We talked about design and design features, and going with your gut feel. Actually, AI and where we’re using AI for design right now. You can instantly see and feel an environment. Without having to spend a lot of dollars building it. Before you go and spend those dollars. So for me, looking at how AI is enabling our organization to advise companies, but also seeing how organizations are really embracing it. I go back to them wanting human connections, so they are willing to spend dollars on their real estate. But ensuring that they’re spending it in the right way. That’s where I’m seeing AI be really brought into that conversation. As a tool, as an enhancer, rather than something that is a threat to we don’t need office space anymore.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:43:59,940 ] For us, we have worked very hard over the last few years. As you know, AI is a wonderful tool, but you need the data. And you need the right data for it to be drawing from. For you to give insightful insight and for AI to train to be able to improve what we’re doing. You talked about research. We all know as well that AI can scrape from research in an open source versus proprietary data, and we’ve really really worked hard as an organization to compartmentalize that proprietary data. So the advice that we are giving to our clients is accurate. And we’re now trading on that accuracy.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:44:38,240 ] I think the capacity today, I know when I built my first building, big name architect doing the thing. He sketched all the modeling up with a pencil.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:44:50,040 ] Okay. It was brilliant.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:44:53,030 ] Today, the modeling that you’ve got on utilization and the speed with which it could be done is amazing. Mhm. Amazing. Though.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:45:04,110 ] Strategically, the thinking that goes into strategies as opposed to build it and they will come. There is.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:45:12,140 ] Are huge leaps forward as well, I think. The world overall.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:45:18,030 ] I just want to thank you very, very much for sharing your strategic thoughts, for sharing your knowledge, everything that you do at JLL. I’m obviously a fan, and I just want to thank you for your contribution today.
Sue Asprey Price
[ 00:45:32,160 ] Thank you, Frank. Thank you for having me and for a very enlightening and enriching conversation. So thank you.
Frank Cottle
[ 00:45:38,320 ] Take care.
