Erik Lucken is a Strategy Leader with the global design firm, Gensler. For the last two decades, he has extensively studied the intersection of business performance and the workplace environment, focused on the design imperative to support both how and why people work today.
Working with some of the world’s most successful organizations, his focus is applied research, leveraging strategy as the key conduit to translate research insights into actionable workplace solutions. Lucken is a frequent speaker and writer on critical workplace drivers such as mobility, wellbeing, and workforce demographics.
Why did you choose to sign up for this program, and how was your experience?
While I try to make learning a routine part of every day, I’ve found it invaluable to periodically step back into the classroom and engage in structured learning…it uses different muscles.
“When I saw the title of this GSD class—which is essentially my job description—I knew it was one I wanted to take.”
I’m so glad I did. It was great to explore the challenges and potential solutions for the post-pandemic workplace with the instructors and my fellow students, and to have the space to think big about the future of workplace design outside of my project work.
You had noted in your post-program evaluation that “The opportunity to learn from diverse perspectives was invaluable”. Hearing from a range of voices on a topic is a key part of our programs – do you feel this is especially important for workplace-related programs?
The diversity of perspectives brought by my fellow classmates was incredible. They were corporate end-users, academic end-users, and medical end-users, service providers from the real estate industry, furniture vendors, and representatives of the government sector, all connected by a vested interest in the workplace environment.
It was so illuminating to hear about their unique challenges, but also that there were a few, almost universal challenges, faced by all. There was so much valuable insight I gained to help me understand and assist my own clients.
You are cited in Gensler’s Workplace Surveys several times — and I believe you were the lead on the report at least one year early in your career. Could you reflect on how the Survey has shifted over the years — and how that shift has been reflected in the changes in workplaces?
Gensler has been conducting research into the workplace for almost twenty years. With the Workplace Survey in particular, it’s been fascinating to see how work patterns have changed over time.
“While individual focus work remains a large percentage of the average knowledge worker’s day, it’s gotten smaller, offset by significant increases in time spent learning and socializing.”
Those shifts have strong implications for design of the workplace. The surveys don’t replace the research we do directly with clients, but the insights the survey provides do give us a running head start in delivering high-performance solutions.
