Opportunities Abound for Workplace StrategyOpportunities Abound for Workplace Strategy

The Chinese general Sun Tzu is credited with the pithy insight, "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity." There's no denying the workplace experience of the last few years has been chaotic. It's also given rise to some extraordinary opportunities to rethink how we work—and to rethink jobs around the very nature of the workplace.

One job opportunity that's emerged from the recent chaos is that of the workplace strategist. Professionals with this title and job description draw from experience and expertise in facilities, design, real estate, HR and IT; their mission is to optimize a workplace's people, places, and processes so everything and everyone is working as well as possible.

We've touched on aspects of workplace strategy before: we interviewed workplace strategy consultant Melissa Marsh about what to expect from the workplace environments of the future, and writer Ryan Daily has talked to workplace strategists about adjusting workplace strategy to meet collaboration needs and how robust employee experience is part of a strong workplace strategy.

It is apparent that the definition of "normal" in the workplace now encompasses multiple ways of working, from continuously on-site to hybrid to remote. The new "normal" also includes new considerations for how physical spaces must work, and that impacts everything from furniture requirements to HR considerations to real estate footprint. And then there's the way people work, from how they communicate to how they keep their work secure.

It can feel chaotic trying to figure out how to run a business with all these new considerations. That's where the workplace strategists come in—from the chaos, they can help companies perceive new opportunities for boosting employee experience and employee outcome. 2023 is going to be a year to pay attention to workplace strategy and the workplace strategists. To close with another Sun Tzu quote: "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

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