Associate Director, Workplace Strategy

MSD INTERNATIONAL GMBH (Singapore Branch); Singapore; On-site; SGD 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A global healthcare leader in Singapore is seeking a Workplace Strategist. The ideal candidate will have a background in architectural or interior design and significant experience in workplace strategy. Responsibilities include developing innovative workspace solutions, analyzing data on workplace trends, and collaborating across teams to optimize workplace design. Excellent communication and data presentation skills are essential for this role.

Qualifications

• Experience in workplace strategy and design.
• Ability to communicate design opportunities to non-technical stakeholders.
• Skills in data presentation and storytelling.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver workplace innovation projects.
• Monitor space and occupancy trends.
• Collaborate with HR and IT on workplace strategies.

Skills

Communication skills

Data analysis

Stakeholder engagement

Workspace design

Project management

Education

Bachelor's or master’s degree in architectural or interior design

Tools

PowerPoint

Excel

In-Design

Photoshop

Job description

Our company is a global healthcare leader with a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines and animal health products. The difference between potential and achievement lies in the spark that fuels innovation; this is the space where our company has codified its 130-year legacy. Our success is backed by ethical integrity, forward momentum, and mission to achieve new milestones in global healthcare.

As we emerge from the post-COVID era, we have continued redefining our workplaces and recognizing the opportunity to develop a workplace strategy to transform where and how we work.

Global Real Estate Strategy (GRES) is a strategic corporate function that serves Our Company’s global business units, including Manufacturing, Commercial, Technical Operations, Research and Development, and Corporate Units, by identifying and executing creative and innovative real estate and workplace solutions aligned with corporate strategy.

Role Description

Do you have experience in workplace strategy, workspace design and occupancy planning? Are you a strategic thinker with a significant understanding of the workplace market, including current and future design trends?

Our Global Real Estate (GRES) Workplace Strategy team in JCAP is looking for a dedicated and motivated Workplace strategist with a strong design background to join and contribute to our mission of fostering a data-led culture.

Joining the Workplace Strategy team means playing a pivotal role in shaping our global vision for the future of workspaces and collaboration. Your contribution is essential in guiding our organization toward innovative and supportive ways of working. Your role is crucial in defining the future of our work environment and fostering connectivity among our teams.

This role will be based at our Singapore office.

Core Responsibilities

• Be a subject matter expert for our Workplace Strategy team, combining headcount forecast data, design trends, space planning, and occupancy planning to support the organization's workplace strategy. Deliver workplace innovation projects, organize resources, meet with client leadership and other client representatives, conduct interviews, run workshops, conduct and analyze surveys, and gather, analyze, and summarize data in easy-to-understand presentations.
• Understand spatial advantages and constraints of a floor plan to oversee test fits for functional and inspiring workspaces that support diverse workstyles.
• Track trends in workplace furniture, finishes and technology.
• Think strategically and creatively, articulate challenges, and demonstrate how the workplace and portfolio strategy can address them.
• Monitor and track space and occupancy trends based on local headcount forecasting, business org changes and space requirements.
• Summarize data and create presentations for visible projects for a broad range audience (senior leadership – local teams)
• Liaise and build relationships with local/regional site business leads to ensure that business allocation, adjacency, and workplace plans meet our headcount forecasting and understand how our colleagues' work and space are used.
• Closely partner with colleagues from Facilities, HR, AV and IT to develop workplace strategy recommendations, workspace plans, and pilots specific to a region to support new ways of working.
• Keep current with emerging trends and insights about workplace strategy, design, and standard processes.

Required Skills and Experience

• Bachelor's or master’s degree in architectural or interior design with work experience in workplace strategy
• Solutions-focused experience of proactively influencing and engaging stakeholders, along with the ability to clearly communicate and explain design and space opportunities to non-technical individuals. A background in making and rationalizing workspace design and allocation decisions, moves with recognition of risks and opportunities of decisions, and a track record of recognizing risks.
• Excellent understanding of current best practices and trends in the workplace and strategic design consultancy.
• Experience in test fit planning, space management, including forecasting and planning future demand.
• Experience in reading spatial constraints and opportunities in floor plans for optimized workspace design.
• Good storytelling and graphic presentation skills (In-Design, PowerPoint, Photoshop, etc.)
• Excellent skills in interpreting and presenting data in PowerPoint, excel, word and social media.
• Excellent verbal and visual communication, presentation and writing skills.
• Strong data analytical skills and the ability to distinguish emerging themes from data and research material to present them innovatively, visually, and concisely.
• Excellent research, data analysis and report-writing capabilities.
• Proficient in Excel and working with numerical data.
• Ability to be effective while working independently and within a team environment.

You will report directly to the Workplace Strategy Global Lead and join a highly dynamic, growing global team that delivers high-quality workplaces. In this role, you will lead projects in the JCAP regions and have the opportunity to contribute to projects on a global scale.

The ideal candidate should have a relevant educational background in Architectural or Interior Design, or similar fields. Additionally, they should have substantial work experience in Workplace Strategy and Design, collaborating across functions, working with businesses to provide data-based solutions, user research, occupancy planning and strategy, and space programming.

As a person, you can build internal networks and work cross-functionally and in a fast-paced, team-based, deadline-driven, and collaborative environment. You show a high degree of flexibility and thrive in problem-solving and multitasking. Finally, you bring excellent interpersonal and communication skills, which are used to produce high-quality reports/documents in PowerPoint.