Photo courtesy of JLL
Zoe Benson
Senior vice president, workplace planning and strategy, JLL
Age: 35
Industry experience: 13 years
Workplace environments can make or break a leasing decision. Commercial brokerages enlist specialists to act as a go-between with tenants to determine how a makeover or a move to another property can make office space fit their employees’ preferences and company-wide goals. Zoe Benson joined JLL in 2022 to help its clients understand their options, and was promoted this month to senior vice president of workplace planning and strategy. Based in JLL’s Boston office and part of a 20-person national team at JLL, Benson’s territory stretches from New York to New England.
Q: Why are brokerages making workplace strategists a priority?
A: It does seem like most commercial brokerages have workplace strategy teams. Even within JLL, there’s multiple teams and types of workplace strategy within, and our team is embedded within brokerage. We’re really meant to complement the brokers’ work and help clients feel confident in the decisions they’re making at the front end of the process, versus being brought in later. It’s a more integrated part of the process, and not just a nice-to-have, but something that clients really expect.
Q; How does a typical assignment work for your team?
A: My background is in architecture and interior design, so I have that as my base, and I also spent time at a furniture dealer doing workplace strategy, and that was really when the pandemic started. And I was partnering with architects and clients to figure out: “What are we doing here? How are we going to come back to the office? What is that going to look like?” And then specifying all the furniture that went along with that. I have tangible design experience prior to JLL, and now this role allows me to take all of that knowledge and then layer in the real estate side of things, so I’m helping clients think full picture upfront, so that they can really plan for flexibility.
It could be a relocation. It could be a renewal. It could be that they’ve been in their space for a year, and they’re actually not utilizing it the way that they thought, and they need to figure out some ways to reconfigure areas and pivot so that the space can evolve and better support that the way that their people are coming into the office. And also the landlord side, if we have an agency assignment we can bring in this perspective of, “Here’s what tenants want. Here’s what is most magnetic for them.” No engagement is the same.
Q: How do companies gauge their own employees’ preferences?
A: Some really want to have everyone’s voice involved in the process, so they’ll do an employee survey really to understand what they’re missing in their current space. What do we feel like we’re missing culturally? There are also companies that prefer to have the department leads involved. And then there are also companies that prefer to have it be leadership-driven. In other cases, a company has a committee that represents a diverse set of employees that is going to speak for the rest of the group. In that case, we might do a visioning session to get those perspectives.
Q: Now that the office amenities era is over a decade old, what are the takeaways on what gets traction and what doesn’t?
A: There’s really three types of amenities we focus on. There’s location-spaced, asset specific and operational. Are you located in the city? Is there an ecosystem you can tap into? Local restaurants, those types of conveniences, and then asset-specific, so things like fitness centers, lobbies, meeting spaces, tenant lounges. Class A buildings only continue to add to what they’re offering, which has been really interesting to see. Coming out of the pandemic has really given us a place of reassessing what was important and needed. There was a point where we were blending home and work, and I think it’s important to have a distinction between personal life and work life. But there are certain aspects of what’s offered in the building that are really important and attract tenants.
Our JLL team did a survey of class A buildings across the country, trying to understand their offerings: what was used most, and number one was food-based amenities. Second was meeting spaces. Third was fitness. Then tenant lounge and outdoor spaces. It’s not just food, but actual food halls are attracting more tenants and getting a more positive reaction. So, we have some updated research that’s coming out to dig a little deeper. Where we’re situated in One Post Office Square, we have a full fitness center, on-site manicure rooms, massage rooms. Another great example of a class A building is 245 Franklin, and they just added an amenities floor that offers multifunction meeting spaces, a tenant event lounge and outdoor terrace. A lot of clients want that high-quality meeting space that’s easy to connect to, where they can have everyone come together, and that they don’t have to have that larger footprint within their own office suite.
Q: Within tenant’s own spaces, how generous are landlords with tenant allowances to upgrade amenities?
A: That continues to evolve. In the last few years, there were a lot of shorter-term leases, a lot of subleases, a lot of testing and learning with hybrid policies. Now that we’re out of that phase, companies are really willing to invest more in their spaces. They want the space to reflect their company culture. It continues to evolve, but it does seem like tenants are wanting to do more custom buildout versus just taking on existing space.
Q: What does research indicate about how design can influence employees’ moods?
A: Having access to natural light just helps with energy levels and engagement throughout the day. Having the ability to control lighting is really important, but for the specific colors that is beyond my current expertise. In the future, more integration of AI could create more immersive spaces. We did a workshop thinking about what the future could be and one of the ideas that came out of that was a wellness room, like an immersive AI experience. It doesn’t have to be this dark room where you go to decompress, but maybe you need to feel energized, and you can play music and have more colorful lights that are projecting and take you to a different place. We’re going to see AI transform the way we have been thinking about spaces to make them more customizable and immersive and fun in different ways.
Benson’s Five Favorite Reads:
- “The Women” by Kristen Hannah
- “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- “Malibu Rising” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- “Educated” by Tata Westover
- “Group” by Christie Tate
