Per Feldthaus, Global Head of Workplace Management and Design at Signal Architects, joins Ian for the third and final part of the Workplace Matters Danish workplace mini-feature. Signal is a practice whose interest isn’t in buildings per se, and whose business model is not built upon delivering new space… necessarily.

With core competencies of strategic thinking, design, and change management, Signal’s interest is in design thinking - as a full process of discovery, design and delivery - and Per explains Signal’s ‘mental rebuilding’ concept, their trademarked approach that drives their in some ways counter-intuitive business model.

Just over a year ago Signal was acquired by Facilities Services giant ISS as part of their own workplace strategy. Per explains how design thinking can unlock workplace value chain opportunities that stretch far beyond FM in its current form. There's loads in this conversation - enjoy!

Some links to take you deeper:

• Signal Architects website
• Eat Sleep Work Repeat podcast interview with Bjarke Ingels

• This episode of Workplace Matters is sponsored by the Workplace Leadership Programme, our partnership initiative with the British Institute of Facilities Management. It’s time to unlock your workplace advantage.

  The first course in the programme, Essentials of Workplace Leadership, is now taking bookings for this July and November. We can also tailor the course for in-house delivery, focussing on your own business needs. Click here for more info, or contact us directly

Jeff Saunders, Director at the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, joins Ian for part 2 of the Workplace Matters Danish workplace mini-feature. CIFS, who have been around since the 60s, recently completed a seven-year six book collaboration with facilities services giant ISS with the publication of their ‘Future of Work, Workforce and Workplace’ capstone white book. Enjoy!

They discuss a particular future scenarios matrix which is developed in the first book, and then revisited in the sixth capstone book. It shows four possible futures, considering primarily the extent of automation versus the prioritisation of sustainability, which are called ‘fragmented world’, ‘capitalism reinvented’, ‘sustainable business’ and ‘the great transformation’.

As Jeff explains, these are possible scenarios which were created at the beginning of the collaboration to engage with future issues. They’re revisited in the most recent capstone book to reflect longitudinally about changes and timescales. Well worth a look...

Some links to take you deeper:

• Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies website
• ISS 2020 vision white book series plus lots of other content from servicefutures.com
• ISS business forum video (with Peter, Ian and Jeff all speaking, with others) here
• BIFM manifesto for change information

Peter Ankerstjerne, former long-standing Chief Marketing Officer of global facility services provider ISS, joins Ian for part 1 of our Workplace Matters Danish workplace mini-feature. The discussion goes under the bonnet of the global facility services megacorp that employs almost 500,000 people worldwide to explore ideas about workplace, FM, innovation strategies, digital technology, and - yes, they go there - the future of work. Enjoy!

This episode was recorded at the ISS global headquarters. It’s more than a shop front and a HQ: it’s a living lab for their own ideas about future workplace, which - in a tech-enabled art of the possible way - they bring to life fantastically in a video called 'how Internet of Things technology brings the workplace into the future'. Well worth a watch...

Topics discussed include:

• The relationship between facilities services and facility management
• How to drive better value out of FM outsourcing through partnership approaches
• The value of The Stoddart Review in helping to shift the conversation from managing facilities towards workplace benefits
• The value of creating workplace experiences, including behavioural nudges
• ISS's innovation approach using agile development methodologies to fastrack ideas, and growing their digital competence to enable this to happen
• The IT enabled future of workplace and FM, and ISS's digital technologies strategy, including their partnership with IBM
• ISS's digitally enabled focus on IWMS, workforce integration and optimisation, IoT sensor technology, AI, and big-data analytics insights
• The need for more R+D investment in the industry, plus more demanding and daring customers, to create drive for new developments

• Some links to take you deeper:

• ISS 2020 vision white book series plus lots of other content from servicefutures.com
• ISS business forum video (with Peter, Ian and Jeff all speaking, with others) here
• The Stoddart Review
• Harvard Business Review article 'The New Corporate Garage'
• Peter's LinkedIn page (@P_Ankerstjerne on Twitter)