How GSA's Workplace
Technology Enables Choice
"The focus of 1800 F and the focus of GSA's workplace technology is choice," said
Hardy, addressing the flexibility and variety of work styles now available to GSA
employees. "If you provide the appropriate level of choice, that's going to get an
employee, one, engaged, and two, the most productive."
For example, pre-renovation, 1800 F Street was chock-full of big conference
rooms, but there were not many one- or two-person meeting spaces, which they
discovered were the size of most meetings at GSA. Now, in addition to a variety
of workstations in the new, open spaces, the availability of meeting rooms of
various sizes has also made a big difference, and AgilQuest's software has helped
to make the choices as accessible as possible for employees.
"When people are asked what they value most in their workplace, it always comes
back to choice," said Torrance Houlihan, the AgilQuest VP who oversaw the
integration of the technology that has enabled the building. "There is a lot of
underlying technology," he added. "But it wasn't implemented for technology's
sake. It was implemented to let people choose how and when they're going to
interact with the building, and then to give them feedback from the building
when they do that."
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