Which workplace design decision most changed how your people work, any results you didn't expect?

Recently spent 6+ months working on the fitout design for a new metro workplace.

Brief was explicit from the start. Our people told us in workshops, in surveys, in the focus groups we ran across every business unit that they wanted more collaboration space, more informal touchdown areas and a workplace that felt less like endless rows of desks and more like a place to attract talent and draw employees back with great choice of workplace settings.

We listened. We reduced individual workstations by 30 percent. We introduced generous collaborative zones on every floor, writable walls, flexible furniture, the full palette of contemporary workplace design thinking and we also invested significantly in the social and communal areas.

Our post-occupancy data was positive, however it did highlighted a few issues with noise levels remained high despite months of considered design and it also showed a disconnect between size of collaboration spaces and collaborative behaviour.

Three q questions I would genuinely value peer perspectives on -

How do you manage the acoustic brief, including through value engineering ?

Has anyone successfully designed for spontaneous interaction, and if so, what decision made the biggest difference? Every case study I have read usually features a great staircase or an amazing coffee break out zone. Interested to learn about other intentionally or accidentally discovered design ideas.

And finally the question in the forum heading, which single design decision most changed how your people actually work?