Office Space
How do we reimagine our office space to accommodate the flexibility needed for our future workforce?
As we wrapped up 2020, we shared a survey with our Future of (how we) Work Task Force members to learn about their plans for 2021. When asked about what they believe their future will be, more than three-quarters of respondents indicated they anticipated having a flexible operating model with large portions of their workforce working remotely at least some of the time. This creates a new set of challenges around how we utilize our office space to reinforce culture and meet our shifting needs. KSA invited three thought leaders to share their approach to tackling these challenges: Nancy Siefert, VP and Global Director of Interiors & Insights at Jacobs, Jovana Abu-Ali Design Lead for Global Interiors at Jacobs, and Mark Moreau General Manager of CIC Massachusetts.
Met on January 19, 2021
Planning
With access to vaccines becoming increasingly realistic, how can we plan for a post-pandemic future?
As all of us work to put 2020 in our rearview, we are starting to think big about the lessons that this year has taught us and imagine what our offices and labs will look like in a post vaccine reality. To help us level set and prepare for this conversation we partnered with Amgen to craft a 10-question survey asking you about your current work from home policies, and what you thought your operating model might be in the future.
Met on December 8, 2020
Workplace Culture
While we continue to work remotely, how do we maintain our workplace cultures? At this Future of (How We) Work Task Force meeting, we heard from three speakers about how to enhance workplace culture while some employees return to the office and others work remotely. Workplace culture is a big part of what draws, retains, and inspires talent. While every company’s culture is unique, we have all experienced challenges related to workplace culture in the transition from on-site to remote work. Some companies are finding ways to maintain the culture they had cultivated pre-COVID, while others are reimagining their culture altogether.
Met on November 10, 2020
Innovation and Collaboration
When it comes to business development and networking in the age of COVID-19, no one knows where to start. In October’s Future of (how we) Work Task Force, we asked ourselves, how do we recreate the power of Kendall Square’s connections, collaborations, and contacts? Michal Preminger, Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, East North America led the discussion with speakers from MassVentures, MacDouglas Advisors, and LabCentral.
Met on October 13, 2020
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In September, our Future of (how we) Work Task Force explored how companies are augmenting or pivoting their DEI programs to meet the needs of their employees given two realities: 1) the pandemic and 2) the increasing urgency to dismantle racist systems. We had speakers from Conscious Customers, Jacobs, Jobcase, MITIMCo, Sage Therapeutics, Takeda, and Pfizer share their best practices and opportunities for improvement.
Met on September 15, 2020
Childcare
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic employers and their people scrambled as we all adjusted to working from home. Now that we are nearly five months into this crisis and an end doesn’t appear to be near we are transitioning from scrambling to planning, and one of our biggest challenges is how to support caregivers and create a culture that normalizes the need to take care of our families. At our fifth Future of (How We) Work Task Force meeting, we heard from leaders at four organizations about how they are approaching this challenge and spent time in small groups brainstorming ideas and solutions.
This issue disproportionately impacts women and addressing these challenges is critical to making sure that we don’t backslide against the progress we have made. While no one has all the answers on how to solve this problem right now, the goal of our meeting was to create dialogue, and exchange and spark new ideas so that we can all take steps in the right direction.
Met on August 11, 2020.
Kendall’s Collaborations During COVID-19
This meeting focused on the outcomes from the first three Future of (how we) Work meetings. We were able to review the MassINC Transportation survey results, the CIC shared their CIC Health Assurance Testing and are looking for collaborators, and lastly, we were able to introduce our new pilot Toast Drop. Toast Drop allows employers to provide their staff with the food they love and flexibility they desire, help keep the risk of contamination under control with aggregated deliveries, and support the struggling local restaurants in your community.
Met on July 15, 2020.
Open Spaces / Small Businesses
This meeting highlighted the need for clear, accessible information on open space and small businesses. KSA has created a Small Business page on our website to keep you updated on what is open in Kendall. Don’t forget to visit our COVID-19 Updates page as well. We have partnered with the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority to develop a map of Kendall’s open spaces to be launched on our new website at the end of June.
Met on June 4, 2020.
Workplace Safety
We learned in this meeting that the cost of purchasing COVID-19 testing supplies is cost-prohibitive. To ameliorate this issue, KSA has been assisting an initiative led by CIC called the Cambridge Testing Consortium. Companies can purchase supplies together in bulk to keep down costs. CIC is also setting the standard with its Workplace Safety Plan and Self Check App.
Met on May 27, 2020.
Transportation
After this meeting, the consensus was that we needed to learn more about how employees were feeling about their commuting options and working from home. KSA, in partnership with MassInc and with support from the Barr Foundation, launched a community-wide survey. There have been more than 1,000 responses to this survey and MassINC is working on a final report that will be available in July.
Met on May 19, 2020.