A workplace app may help someone find a quiet place, book a room, or navigate a large campus. The same platform may give a workplace team utilization data and give human resources another way to think about employee experience. Drew DePriest explained why those audiences cannot be given one generic value story.
The workplace decision begins with the person or group being served, then works backward to the experience and building data required to support it.
The value case changes with the stakeholder
Drew DePriest said workplace technology teams had to speak to multiple people in different languages. Workplace leaders might focus on space use and the value of a capital or operating expense. Human resources might focus on attraction, onboarding, engagement, and the daily employee experience.
Those were proposed value areas in the 2019 conversation, not measured results for every workplace. The practical point is that the team has to name what each stakeholder expects to learn or improve before it can judge whether the same tool serves them.
Technology and hospitality shape the experience together
Drew DePriest described mobile tools that could help people find a room, discover an event, or reach a meeting. He paired those functions with people trained in hospitality who could welcome guests, help with onboarding, and guide employees through the workplace.
Drew said, “you cannot just do that with technology alone.” A useful interface does not replace the human work of helping someone feel comfortable, informed, and able to choose where to work.
The conversation also included the phrase return on humans. It was a people-centered way to keep health, comfort, and experience beside the financial case, not a formal metric or a promised return.
Building data and project timing set the limit
Drew DePriest identified a basic barrier underneath advanced analytics: getting data out of building systems consistently. Even similar buildings could use different names for equipment and data points, leaving an integrator to translate each system.
That work is easier to plan before design and construction decisions harden. Drew described early conversations about hardware, sensors, network requirements, protocols, and information security before the first beam was set.
When a workplace tool is proposed, place the human outcome beside the building information it needs. Bring that pairing into the early project conversation so workplace, human resources, IT, security, and operations can see their part before the system is specified.
A workplace becomes more useful when the experience people need and the data the building can provide are designed together from the beginning.
