Where on the campus should you be investing to stay relevant and competitive?

Staff campus and workplace evaluations

The way that staff spend time at university campuses has seen a prolific shift since the pandemic. Whilst these changes were slowly emerging, flexible working has accelerated the need to re-assess what the “future workplace” looks like for higher education. Institutions we work with are seeking to optimise their estate, but also understand what they should be prioritising in campus design for the attraction, recruitment and comfort of staff.

We understand the deep connection staff have to traditional office environments, and through working with multiple institutions the sensitivity around such projects.

What we provide

• Whole of campus staff experience evaluations, gathering staff feedback to workplace, teaching space, research facilities, social and eating amenity, belonging, wayfinding and arrival exeperience
• Customised workplace surveys for your professional and academic staff

How we approach this

• After an initial consultation on what you are trying to achieve, we will design an evaluation
• Depending on the scope of this project, this typically involves surveys, site visits, interviews and other journey mapping tools

What we deliver

• A report with detailed recommendations on physical changes as well as strategic considerations
• The findings can be used to support projects and business cases

To really understand the experience people have on a day to day basis it is so useful to see a campus through the eyes of the user. These small projects often accompany our Campus Experience Index, but are also used as standalone projects. 

How we approach this

• We work with you to recruit a small group of staff or students for the project (we provide all the briefing material and privacy agreements)
• The user-engagement is usually a period of 1 -2 weeks
• We engage and talk with the users using a technique known as ‘photo-voice’ to get a view of their general campus use, or feedback on specific issues (such as arrival to campus, use of gym and fitness facilities, use and selection of informal study space, wayfinding and social activities) 

What we deliver

We code and theme all of the submissions and present a visual report that summarises the experience of users so you can identify quick and easy wins to improve experience 
 

We provide consulting and research across various issues for universities, some of these include: 

• Design, development and deployment of a portfolio student accommodation rating tool for an institution Inclusive toilet strategy research and design
• Future workplace trends for higher education
• Workplace space policy review (global) 
• Research on the design and deficiencies in PhD workspace (commissioned by AUDE) 
• Various post-occupancy evaluations of higher education buildings
• Case study and benchmarking best practice for specific projects