Rapid 7, United States

Boston | United States | October 2019 | Lmi 84.0

Aviation Blvd | El Segundo | United States | March 2019 | Lmi 81.5

While many of the 2019 workplaces adopted flexible workplace strategies, some organisations bucked this increasingly popular trend: Rapid7 have chosen a 100% designated solution for both the Boston and LA offices. We asked them why.

Andrea Diieso, Senior Workplace Experience Manager at Rapid7 said: “Through our work with Leesman and the insights that have been shared, we knew that one size does not fit all when it comes to desk assignment.” A key benefit of going fully designated is that “it is a solution that is familiar to most employees, and there is little downside for employee experience with this tried and tested approach. We want to ensure that we start with a frictionless solution, and then use the data gained from Leesman surveys and workplace utilisation sensors to continue to find the best solutions for overall employee experience.”

Indeed, both workplaces have generally obtained above average approval ratings on numerous aspects. Between the two of them, the Rapid7 offices achieved 14 of the highest scores this year, including the ‘Ability to personalise my workstation’ (82.9%, Boston office) and ‘Accessibility of colleagues’ (97.4%, LA office).

Encouragingly, for Rapid7, being completely designated hasn’t led to them compromising on variety. The Boston office boasts a cafe, a number quiet/focus areas, and open collaboration areas, while scoring a 92.5% satisfaction with ‘Variety of different types of workspace’, which happens to be the 4th highest this year.

Yet satisfaction with variety – although still high, at 76.2% – lags behind in the LA office. While both buildings are based on the same design principles, the difference may come down to scale: spread over less than 2,000 square meters, the LA office is whole seven times smaller than the Boston office.

Is a fully designated workplace the obstacle-free path to great employee experience, then? Far from it. As an expanding tech business, Rapid7 are constantly challenged with accommodating new employees. Increasing desk capacity would seem a logical solution in most cases however Rapid7 have learned that their employees actually spend a lot of time away from their desks.

In the Boston office, an unusually small proportion of the employees (17%) belong to the internal mobility profile 1 (‘I perform most / all of my activities at a single work setting and rarely use other locations within the office’) and in LA the proportion is 33%. The real challenge therefore is to “understand where they are spending their time and the activities they are performing so that we can continue to adapt our workplace design. We want to ensure that we are continually learning from our employees and making the space productive for their needs.”