141: 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 ex