The Future of Work: Smart Buildings and Designing for Diversity

Did you know that office temperatures can affect cognitive performance? This episode of the Propcast explores the concept of creating smart and empathetic buildings, addressing crucial topics like gender bias, neurodiversity, and office space design. 

Host Louisa Dickins speaks with two pioneers developing innovative solutions for workplace efficiency and employee satisfaction, Dr. Ken Dooley, Chief Product Officer at Haltian, and Dan Drogman, CEO of Smart Spaces, who share insights into their companies' growth and trends in the smart building space. 

The conversation extended to the evolving preferences of the modern workforce, with Ken emphasizing the value of offering options like warmer zones or quiet spaces to create a more inclusive and productive environment, and Dan sharing how Smart Spaces uses data-driven design to address these challenges, giving people the flexibility they need while avoiding tokenism. 

Tune in for an exciting discussion on smart buildings, inclusive workplaces, and the evolving needs of today's workforce. 

 

Shoutouts 

• Elizabeth Nelson, Author of The Healthy Office Revolution

 

Episode Highlights  

• Ken’s journey from consulting in energy and sustainability to working in the field of smart buildings 

• The evolution of Smart Spaces from providing meeting room booking software to offering smart building solutions 

• "Hotelification" of offices, where offices aim to provide amenities and experiences better than home to attract employees back to the office 

• Why personalization in office environments is crucial to cater to different needs, preferences, and neurodiversity 

• The evolving workforce, including the great resignation and changing employee expectations 

• The growth of PropTech in the Nordic region 

• The importance of educating end-users about energy consumption to achieve sustainability goals 

 

Key Takeaways 

• Our purpose at Smart Spaces is optimizing environments for the people and the planet. - Dan 

• We allow the organization to create beautiful spaces, communicate that they exist, and measure if it's popular enough. - Ken 

• It's about offering people personalization. You want to create the future workplace where everyone wants to work. - Dan 

• Yes, there is a gender bias. There's a brilliant article called Battle for the Thermostat that really talks about how female employees in office buildings would prefer maybe two degrees warmer. – Ken 

 

About Our Host 

Louisa Dickins 

Louisa is the Co-Founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market-leading global built environment recruitment platform and search consultancy, specializing in finding the best strategic talent for the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia-Pacific and MENA. 

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.