Phil Kirschner - Strategic Productization of Work Experiences

Phil Kirschner, Founder of PK Consulting, is an innovator at the intersection of employee experience, corporate real estate, organizational effectiveness, and technology strategy. Drawing on his background at Credit Suisse, WeWork, and McKinsey, Phil shares insights about professional and personal responses to workplace changes. He discusses leaders’ and employees’ intuitions and the frictions affecting trust. Phil explains the cultural impact of co-working environments and how a hospitality mindset helps achieve strategic human-centric productized work experiences to meet employees’ modern work needs.   TAKEAWAYS   [01:57] Phil shares his experiences in corporate real estate, workplace strategy, and employee experience. [02:45] Cost management taught Phil the importance of understanding workplace dynamics. [04:20] Phil loves the dimensions of workplace change recognizing people’s emotional responses. [05:41] How work-life integration can mean the physical manifestation of a policy in the work world. [06:38] Place is personal, affecting choices, relationships and how people communicate. [07:44] How office changes impact managers’ perceived control over their teams. [08:45] Executives visiting WeWork’s offices were often surprised by the energy and vibrancy. [10:12] Employees embracing the WeWork hospitality, community culture, and work patterns typically had better experiences than those who resisted. [14:00] How smaller companies smaller office investments allows them to be more responsive than large organizations which often struggle with underutilized space. [15:15] COVID revealed more humanity at work—executives were seen differently and trusted. [16:22] The Edelman Trust Barometer shows the first ever dip in trust in corporate leadership. [16:50] Employees’ and executives’ different intuition about what was ‘better before’ and for whom. [18:22] Discrepancies in pre-COVID experiences change expectations for new work environments. [19:22] Phil shares how a real estate company failed to extend workplace flexibility to frontline staff. [22:00] A critical missing question: what needs to be true to allow greater flexibility and not have core metrics dip? [24:40] Remote work enables business continuity and offer an operational risk mitigation framework. [25:00] Digital-first companies have better organizational health by adapting for being distributed. [25:45] Experiencing inefficient processes to develop metrics and optimize operations. [29:02] HR, IT, and Facilities Management need to collaborate to enable modern workplaces. [29:54] Work experience needs productization and someone in charge. [31:07] Real estate reporting to HR help shift the focus from cost control to employee experience. [32:35] Hospitality oriented experiences are typically revenue lines not expense related. [34:31] Companies with “virtual-first, but not placeless” mindset rethink workplace strategy effectively. [35:53] Many executives assume office presence is essential without analyzing why. [39:10] Organizational health and connecting business objectives and work experience. [40:30] How corporate cultures can connect and align employees with purpose enabling change. [43:06] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: The first questions to ask at the start of any good change program: who thinks something is wrong? What do they think is wrong? And who else knows?     RESOURCES   Phil Kirschner on LinkedIn Phil Kirschner, Contributor – Leadership Strategy, Forbes     QUOTES "Many employees are feeling gaslit when they hear leaders say, ‘It was better before,’ because that doesn’t resonate with them." "Trust in organizations dipped for the first time in Edelman’s latest trust barometer report." “When I walk into the building, if the experience of getting in or registering a visitor or attending event is, is not a great one, at that point, I do not know or care whose problem it is. I want one place to go easily and I want a hospitality feeling in the response to that, which is really difficult for groups that are viewed as an expense.” “The companies that say place isn't the thing, then tend to come back around with much more interesting and studied uses and new designs of place, whether that's somebody's house, whether that's a coworking space, whether that's an “office” that they retain for gathering purposes, right? These are the same companies that tend to staff up on workplace experience. They staff up on customer success for tools, they staff up for gathering.”