A good proportion of workplace investment is driven by a relatively small number of events prompting change. That could be when a lease approaches expiry, a business relocates, an organisation outgrows its existing premises or a landlord identifies the need to reposition an asset. These milestones create opportunities to invest in new or refurbished office environments. But what happens in the years between these events?
For too long, workplace investment has been approached as a series of individual projects, with significant attention given to the design and delivery of an office, followed by a period in which relatively little changes until the next major intervention. What we need to remember is that businesses don’t operate in the same cycles as their buildings.
Organisational priorities, employee expectations, technology and working practices can all evolve considerably within the lifetime of a lease or refurbishment. This creates a growing challenge for investors, landlords and occupiers: how can we ensure the capital being invested in offices today continues to deliver value in five, ten or 15 years’ time?
Office design has matured hugely in recent years; there’s very rarely a poor office unless it’s an empty one! That’s driving some awareness of the constant need to evaluate space and at TSK I’m working with several businesses who pride themselves on having an ‘always on’ approach to workplace design to stay ahead of the curve and help achieve the changing objectives of their business. The next stage, for me, is now about getting a better and wider understanding of the benefits that a continual, strategic approach can bring so that lurching between projects becomes a rarity.
Designing beyond day one
The quality of office environments has improved significantly in recent years. Occupiers expect greater flexibility, stronger sustainability credentials, high-quality amenities and workplaces that support a broader range of activities.
These expectations have influenced both landlord refurbishment strategies and occupier fit-out decisions. However, the success of that investment is still frequently judged by the quality of the finished environment and I think this needs to be reframed.
A newly completed office might meet every requirement in the original brief, but those requirements are ultimately based on assumptions about how the organisation will operate in the future. Headcount may increase or decrease. Teams may be restructured. Technology can change the activities employees undertake, while new business priorities can create entirely different demands on the physical environment.
Businesses are making poor investment decisions. However, too much emphasis can be placed on creating the right workplace for today, without sufficient consideration of how it will need to evolve for tomorrow. Office design maturity needs to be thinking many years ahead, designed far beyond day one and what the business will look like, but also evaluating at better junctures to adapt to inevitable organisational changes.
Thinking about lasting value
For landlords and investors, capital expenditure decisions are fundamentally linked to the long-term performance and competitiveness of an asset. Investing in the quality of an office can help attract occupiers, support rental positioning and improve the building’s appeal in a competitive market.
But in an environment where occupier requirements are changing, the ability of a building to accommodate different businesses and working models is very important. An office designed around specific requirements may look impressive initially, but could require further significant investment when those requirements change.
That’s why adaptability at the outset can create opportunities to make changes without undertaking extensive refurbishment. This might involve flexible floorplates, services infrastructure that can accommodate different layouts, or spaces capable of supporting multiple functions over time.
For occupiers, the commercial considerations are slightly different, but the principle remains the same. Workplace investment needs to support the organisation’s immediate requirements while providing sufficient flexibility to respond to future change. The priority should be understanding which decisions will continue to create value and which could restrict future options.
From individual projects to an ongoing strategy
A more effective approach to workplace investment requires a shift in thinking. Rather than treating each relocation or refurbishment as a standalone project, businesses should consider their workplaces as part of a longer-term property and organisational strategy.
This begins with understanding not just how an organisation operates today, but how its requirements might change. What does the business expect its workforce to look like in five years? How might technology influence the activities carried out in the office? Could the space need to accommodate different teams, working patterns or business functions?
Of course, nobody can predict precisely how an organisation will evolve over the next decade. The aim isn’t to design for one fixed version of the future, but to avoid creating environments that are unnecessarily difficult or expensive to change. This also means workplace strategy shouldn’t disappear once a project is complete. Regularly reviewing how spaces are performing can help organisations identify changing requirements before they become significant problems.
Smaller, targeted interventions may allow businesses to respond to new demands without waiting for another major refurbishment. For landlords and asset managers, a similar approach can inform planned investment programmes, helping to prioritise improvements that protect the relevance and appeal of a building.
The importance of thinking beyond the next lease event
There is a tendency to organise investment around clearly defined milestones, and for good reason. Lease events and refurbishment programmes create natural opportunities to review requirements and commit capital. But the pace of change within businesses means these milestones cannot be the only points at which workplace performance is considered.
The strongest workplace strategies should connect immediate design decisions with longer-term business and property objectives. This requires greater collaboration between workplace strategists, designers, occupiers, landlords and asset managers, particularly at the earliest stages of investment planning. Understanding how an office might need to evolve should influence decisions about layout, infrastructure, specification and the allocation of capital from the outset. It also means recognising that maintaining a successful workplace may require ongoing investment, rather than concentrating the majority of expenditure at the beginning of an occupation.
This doesn’t mean spending more for the sake of it. In fact, a more considered approach could help reduce unnecessary expenditure by ensuring that the right elements are designed for longevity and others can be adapted more easily. And beyond this, sustainability can then play a good part in the process, upcycling and re-using elements of designs throughout.
Getting more from the excellent workplaces we already know how to create
The workplace design industry should be proud of the progress it has made. The standard of office design has improved enormously and there is no reason why that progress shouldn’t continue. But we need to be careful not to confuse the quality of a workplace with its effectiveness.
An office can look exceptional and still fail to support the people using it. Equally, a relatively simple environment can perform extremely well when it is closely aligned with the needs of a business. The next competitive advantage is therefore about understanding how the physical workplace, people, technology and organisational culture work together.
For workplace designers and strategists, that means engaging with the wider business challenges clients are facing. For occupiers, it means being clear about what they want their workplace to achieve and remaining committed to that vision long after the initial project has been delivered. For me, the question is no longer whether we can design better offices. It’s whether we can help businesses get more from the excellent workplaces we already know how to create.
Craig Murray, Workplace Strategy Director at TSK. Craig is enthusiastic about the power of place and how its impact can drive a team’s potential and organisational success. Having been immersed in workplace strategy, design, and client account management for the last 34 years, Craig has become an expert in providing organisations with innovative workplace design thinking, generative organisational strategy, client outcomes and employee experience.
October 28, 2026
Workplace investment needs to move beyond the refurbishment cycle
by Craig Murray • Comment, Workplace design
For too long, workplace investment has been approached as a series of individual projects, with significant attention given to the design and delivery of an office, followed by a period in which relatively little changes until the next major intervention. What we need to remember is that businesses don’t operate in the same cycles as their buildings.
Organisational priorities, employee expectations, technology and working practices can all evolve considerably within the lifetime of a lease or refurbishment. This creates a growing challenge for investors, landlords and occupiers: how can we ensure the capital being invested in offices today continues to deliver value in five, ten or 15 years’ time?
Office design has matured hugely in recent years; there’s very rarely a poor office unless it’s an empty one! That’s driving some awareness of the constant need to evaluate space and at TSK I’m working with several businesses who pride themselves on having an ‘always on’ approach to workplace design to stay ahead of the curve and help achieve the changing objectives of their business. The next stage, for me, is now about getting a better and wider understanding of the benefits that a continual, strategic approach can bring so that lurching between projects becomes a rarity.
Designing beyond day one
The quality of office environments has improved significantly in recent years. Occupiers expect greater flexibility, stronger sustainability credentials, high-quality amenities and workplaces that support a broader range of activities.
These expectations have influenced both landlord refurbishment strategies and occupier fit-out decisions. However, the success of that investment is still frequently judged by the quality of the finished environment and I think this needs to be reframed.
A newly completed office might meet every requirement in the original brief, but those requirements are ultimately based on assumptions about how the organisation will operate in the future. Headcount may increase or decrease. Teams may be restructured. Technology can change the activities employees undertake, while new business priorities can create entirely different demands on the physical environment.
Businesses are making poor investment decisions. However, too much emphasis can be placed on creating the right workplace for today, without sufficient consideration of how it will need to evolve for tomorrow. Office design maturity needs to be thinking many years ahead, designed far beyond day one and what the business will look like, but also evaluating at better junctures to adapt to inevitable organisational changes.
Thinking about lasting value
For landlords and investors, capital expenditure decisions are fundamentally linked to the long-term performance and competitiveness of an asset. Investing in the quality of an office can help attract occupiers, support rental positioning and improve the building’s appeal in a competitive market.
But in an environment where occupier requirements are changing, the ability of a building to accommodate different businesses and working models is very important. An office designed around specific requirements may look impressive initially, but could require further significant investment when those requirements change.
That’s why adaptability at the outset can create opportunities to make changes without undertaking extensive refurbishment. This might involve flexible floorplates, services infrastructure that can accommodate different layouts, or spaces capable of supporting multiple functions over time.
For occupiers, the commercial considerations are slightly different, but the principle remains the same. Workplace investment needs to support the organisation’s immediate requirements while providing sufficient flexibility to respond to future change. The priority should be understanding which decisions will continue to create value and which could restrict future options.
From individual projects to an ongoing strategy
A more effective approach to workplace investment requires a shift in thinking. Rather than treating each relocation or refurbishment as a standalone project, businesses should consider their workplaces as part of a longer-term property and organisational strategy.
This begins with understanding not just how an organisation operates today, but how its requirements might change. What does the business expect its workforce to look like in five years? How might technology influence the activities carried out in the office? Could the space need to accommodate different teams, working patterns or business functions?
Of course, nobody can predict precisely how an organisation will evolve over the next decade. The aim isn’t to design for one fixed version of the future, but to avoid creating environments that are unnecessarily difficult or expensive to change. This also means workplace strategy shouldn’t disappear once a project is complete. Regularly reviewing how spaces are performing can help organisations identify changing requirements before they become significant problems.
Smaller, targeted interventions may allow businesses to respond to new demands without waiting for another major refurbishment. For landlords and asset managers, a similar approach can inform planned investment programmes, helping to prioritise improvements that protect the relevance and appeal of a building.
The importance of thinking beyond the next lease event
There is a tendency to organise investment around clearly defined milestones, and for good reason. Lease events and refurbishment programmes create natural opportunities to review requirements and commit capital. But the pace of change within businesses means these milestones cannot be the only points at which workplace performance is considered.
The strongest workplace strategies should connect immediate design decisions with longer-term business and property objectives. This requires greater collaboration between workplace strategists, designers, occupiers, landlords and asset managers, particularly at the earliest stages of investment planning. Understanding how an office might need to evolve should influence decisions about layout, infrastructure, specification and the allocation of capital from the outset. It also means recognising that maintaining a successful workplace may require ongoing investment, rather than concentrating the majority of expenditure at the beginning of an occupation.
This doesn’t mean spending more for the sake of it. In fact, a more considered approach could help reduce unnecessary expenditure by ensuring that the right elements are designed for longevity and others can be adapted more easily. And beyond this, sustainability can then play a good part in the process, upcycling and re-using elements of designs throughout.
Getting more from the excellent workplaces we already know how to create
The workplace design industry should be proud of the progress it has made. The standard of office design has improved enormously and there is no reason why that progress shouldn’t continue. But we need to be careful not to confuse the quality of a workplace with its effectiveness.
An office can look exceptional and still fail to support the people using it. Equally, a relatively simple environment can perform extremely well when it is closely aligned with the needs of a business. The next competitive advantage is therefore about understanding how the physical workplace, people, technology and organisational culture work together.
For workplace designers and strategists, that means engaging with the wider business challenges clients are facing. For occupiers, it means being clear about what they want their workplace to achieve and remaining committed to that vision long after the initial project has been delivered. For me, the question is no longer whether we can design better offices. It’s whether we can help businesses get more from the excellent workplaces we already know how to create.
Craig Murray, Workplace Strategy Director at TSK. Craig is enthusiastic about the power of place and how its impact can drive a team’s potential and organisational success. Having been immersed in workplace strategy, design, and client account management for the last 34 years, Craig has become an expert in providing organisations with innovative workplace design thinking, generative organisational strategy, client outcomes and employee experience.