THE CHALLENGE

We partnered with a state government agency responsible for managing, operating, and promoting community infrastructure assets.

At a time of significant growth, the organisation’s corporate office was already reaching capacity, with further expansion expected as it prepared for future major projects and events. But the challenge was not simply a lack of space.

While the office was physically constrained, it was also underutilised. Many desks sat empty each day as staff moved between sites, met with clients, or worked from home. At the same time, the layout of the space created separation between teams, limiting opportunities for connection and reinforcing siloed ways of working.

Staff feedback highlighted a clear need for better cross-functional collaboration and a more connected business. The organisation saw an opportunity to use the accommodation challenge as a catalyst for something broader: rethinking how the workplace could better support its people, its work, and its future responsibilities.

The challenge was to redesign both the physical space and the ways of working around it, so the organisation could accommodate growth, support different types of work, and create better conditions for connection and collaboration.

THE SOLUTION

We designed and facilitated a human-centred change process that brought together strategic alignment, practical planning, and staff engagement.

We supported the organisation to:

• Build the case for change by working with the Executive Leadership Team to clarify why change was needed and what the future workplace needed to enable.
• Reimagine new ways of working by exploring decisions about workspaces, behaviours, team connection, flexibility, and technology.
• Develop a Change Roadmap with clear horizons for implementation, including immediate changes to space use and longer-term accommodation planning.
• Establish workplace guidelines to support desk sharing, team neighbourhoods, day-to-day operations, and flexible work practices.
• Create a Working Group strategy to provide a two-way engagement channel between staff, leaders, and the project team.
• Facilitate staff engagement through Working Group-led activities that captured what staff wanted to keep, remove, and introduce in the future workplace.
• Develop a Design Brief that synthesised leadership input, Working Group insights, and staff feedback into clear requirements for the corporate office redevelopment. The Design Brief was handed over to the Architectural team to progress concept and detailed design.

This approach helped shape the future workplace around both organisational priorities and the practical needs of the people who would use it.

THE RESULTS

The project gave the organisation a clear and practical foundation for workplace transformation.

Through the case for change and Change Roadmap, leaders had a shared view of why the shift was needed, what the future workplace needed to enable, and how the change could be approached over time.

The Working Group also created a structured way for staff to contribute to the process. Across the engagement activities, more than 580 comments were collected, generating 728 raw ideas and 277 unique themes. These insights helped ensure the Design Brief was grounded in the needs and experiences of the people who would use the space.

The final Design Brief brought together organisational growth requirements and staff preferences, including the need to maintain team proximity, improve collaboration spaces, reduce office divisions, create more meeting rooms, and improve amenities.

Just as importantly, the process helped build momentum for the change. Staff had meaningful opportunities to contribute, and the organisation established a network of representatives who could continue supporting communication, engagement, and implementation.