Workplace Design Change in Action
LinkedIn: Change Driven by Analytics Analytics can shift workplace change from reactive to predictive. Following COVID and evolving hybrid expectations, LinkedIn sought to understand not just attendance, but how work was happening—where collaboration forms, what influences presence and how space supports relationships, including at its global headquarters. To do this, LinkedIn built an internal workplace analytics capability that moved from basic measurement to predictive decision-making, integrating attendance data, behavioral insights, spatial utilization and collaboration indicators.
Patterns quickly emerged. Attendance varied by team proximity and leadership presence, commute friction influenced participation, and market-specific conditions—even environmental factors like dew point—shifted behavior. These insights allowed LinkedIn to move beyond assumptions about how work should happen and instead design environments that respond to how it truly does.
"Data directly informed talent location planning, workplace design priorities, service-level forecasting and operational efficiencies—including avoiding hundreds of millions in unnecessary real estate acquisition and operating costs."
-Courtney Skyrme, LinkedIn Senior Director of Workplace Data and Analytics
BlackRock: Change Powered by Speed
When infrastructure is designed to flex, organizations can reconfigure at the pace of business. BlackRock required a workplace that could respond to organizational change without downtime, major capital reinvestment, or operational disruption.
By incorporating flexible infrastructure such as raised floors, underfloor air and power, wireless lighting and demountable partitions, BlackRock’s workplace supports rapid re-stacking and team reconfiguration. In practice, this enables large portions of the workforce to be reorganized—in some cases, over a single weekend—at a fraction of the cost typically associated with traditional renovation or relocation.
This capability allows BlackRock to respond to real-time business needs rather than forecast years ahead, aligning space more closely with demand while preserving long-term real estate value.
Fixed Lighting and Sprinklers
Brooks Running: Change Enabled by Infrastructure Intentionally placed systems allow the workplace to evolve without rebuilding. As Brooks Running nearly doubled in size while working across disparate buildings, the company needed a workplace that could grow and reorganize without costly or disruptive interventions.
NBBJ and Brooks implemented infrastructure walls—fixed zones that consolidate power, data and mechanical systems—creating a stable backbone around which surrounding spaces could evolve. Paired with Day-1 and Day-2 planning and differentiated programs across buildings, this approach allowed Brooks to test and refine workplace strategies over time—using operational feedback and performance data to guide future adjustments rather than relying solely on upfront projections.
With core systems locked in place, adjacent spaces can shift quickly to support workstation growth, collaboration zones, research functions and large gatherings without demolition or rewiring. Today, Brooks’ workplace flexes by roughly 50% capacity with minimal disruption, allowing the organization to align space changes to actual demand rather than projected need.
Power, data, and mechanical systems are housed within fixed infrastructure walls, rather than in sequence between rooms
Remote Pico Light Controls
Underfloor Power and Air (Fixed Swirls)
Demountable Partitions