Why should we pay attention to the often-subtle workplace strategies of multinational corporations?

Because more and more Fortune and Global 1000 companies are using their workplace practices to attract and retain a highly-demanded resource: talent.

But workplace is becoming more than a weapon in the "War for Talent." It's also a well-established sustainable practice, and it ties directly back to the talent issue.

"Ongoing changes in the global business environment continue to reshape the corporate real estate industry", observes Linda DeMars of CoreNet Global. The 7,000-member organization is the world's leading professional association for corporate real estate (CRE) and workplace professionals. Members manage more than $1.2-trillion in real estate and workplace assets worldwide.

DeMars, Vice President of Program Development at CoreNet Global, points to four major trends influencing how companies operate and the resulting changing nature of work.

- An urgency of competition for talent
- The increasing importance of sustainability
- A radically changing skill set needed to be effective
- The supply of future talent is much lower than the ever-rising demand for it.

As part of this mix, major employers are not only addressing the need to find and keep younger workers, they are creating more open, flexible and ultimately healthy workplaces.

So-called "Alternative Workplace Practices" (AWS) like telecommuting and remote work were first defined by CoreNet Global starting in 1992, when only a handful of pioneering companies - mostly in technology and telecom - became the early adopters of different work environments and styles.

Nearly 15 years later, the concept of creating a more flexible workplace is now a mainstream practice. Recent CoreNet Global research shows a dramatic increase in the number of companies that allow or encourage employees to work from home or other places outside of the office. There's also a substantial increase in the number of companies that are reconfiguring their office and other space to create more inviting and productive work environments.

The shift fortunately plays to generational change in the office, and - of course - beyond it. Technology's more rapid advance in recent years is a key. Tools like the Internet, laptops, Blackberries, Instant Messaging, texting, blogging, RSS, RF and wireless connectivity - many of which are being embedded in the next generation of "intelligent buildings" - have earned proven acceptability among workers regardless of age.

But it's the younger worker's inherent proclivity for the new "social media" like IM, blogging, texting and RSS that will leverage the so-called "Millenials" (born post-1978) and "Gen-Y" age groups of young workers' impact on business in the future. As Boomers and even Gen-Xer's hand off or mentor their work over to them, it's putting a new spin on the concept of "My Generation."

Tomorrow's more progressive work models will substitute for the age envy burnished so cleverly in the old rock anthem by The Who.

In talking about the next generation, we're seeing a steep demand for more and better talent in corporate real estate departments, and throughout the company enterprise.

But evidence suggests that CRE's are uncertain about having effective planning and forecasting to address the growing supply and demand gap.

One key validation: The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that between 2002 and 2012 the number of US workers 55 and older will grow by 50%, well ahead of the Millenial demographic curve.

In this competition-charged setting, one of the drivers for getting and keeping that new talent is how office space is set up, the same study results show.

Here's one way it's playing out. If the corner office is the top perk for the wave of soon-to-retire Boomers, then collaborative workspace is how companies will attract Gen Y employees in the future. That tack, used recently by online travel company Orbitz, takes center stage at the CoreNet Global Summit in Atlanta. The October 28 - 31 Global Summit is themed, "Finding, Getting, Keeping Talent: Defining the Future Face of Real Estate."

Here's another way: How an organization transfers knowledge from one generation to the next has huge implications for its future.

In Atlanta, CoreNet Global will also look at a case involving Price Waterhouse Coopers' Dublin office, where 62% of its workers are under age 40.

PWC has implemented several new workplace design options, including "mentor pods" which are spaces specifically created for senior people to coach younger employees. The firm is currently gathering quantitative metrics, and qualitative data has indicated some key learnings. For example, Millenials actually value the wisdom of older workers, and especially the Traditionalist generation (referred to as "Ancients" in Europe) born before 1946. These generations collaborate particularly well because they pose no threat to one another. "Older generations have nothing left to prove and younger workers have nothing to lose," according to the company.

Price Waterhouse also indicates that employee satisfaction has increased and younger workers report feeling better supported and equipped to do their jobs more effectively.

There's one clear implication surrounding this dialogue: Millenial and Gen-Y people prepared to work in connected and collaborative ways will be in the driver's seat because of their inherent acceptance of the new tools for getting things done.

When combined with different workplace applications, the result of introducing more flexible ways of working is often higher productivity and profit for the company, and higher satisfaction and health for the employee.

In fact, more companies are tying new workplace practices directly to healthier lifestyles and habits for their employees to address, in part, the competition for recruiting and retaining talent.

Take the Hearst Corporation as an example. The privately-held media conglomerate recently completed New York City's first Gold LEED(tm)-certified high-rise office structure.

Hearst took an integrated approach. An employee health education and wellness program was an important component of the overall transformation to a more open and flexible work environment that came with the new building, which is giving the $5-billion company the opportunity to provide a showcase office environment for its youth-laden editorial, design and business staffs.

The new building represents a consolidation of 2,000 Hearst employees from 12 metro New York locations. "It made sense to spend money on our own space," explains Hearst Vice President of Corporate Real Estate, Brian Schwagerl, instead of renewing multiple leases.

"Bringing everyone under one roof" where real estate could create new space standards, offer integrated shared support services, generate cost savings plus introduce a fitness center, a café with health-oriented menus and other amenities made for "good retention and attraction" of employees, Schwagerl adds.

Hearst Director of Operations, Lou Nowikas, sees a huge improvement in employee satisfaction and performance, starting with the artful, 46-story building's "connection to the outside environment" due to ultra-clean air and plentiful natural light within the tower. These were all done along with healthier food choices, wellness programs and change management to help older and younger employees alike to transition into the open work environment.

"We wondered: are they going to be happy? They're thrilled," reports Nowikas.

In similar fashion, the mail and document management giant Pitney Bowes recently renovated its Stamford CT headquarters stressing change management, access to outside views by all employees, substantially more daylight and much higher levels of indoor air quality.

"Light has very important impact on mood and energy," Maureen Fahey, Pitney Bowe's Vice President of Corporate Real Estate emphasized in a recent CoreNet Global Discovery Forum. Belying the I.M. Pei-born design of the place, the old spaces were "like being in a cave" due to the effects of closed-in perimeter offices and concentrations of high-walled cubicle rows.

"Productivity and satisfaction increases are linked to sun light," Fahey expounds, echoing the sentiments of leading workplace experts like Dr. Vivian Loftness of Carnegie Mellon Institute, for whom the elements of light, air and openness are endemic to effective workplace design.

By using VOC-free paint, there was a distinct improvement in air quality, prompting one Pitney Bowes employee to say how he hardly had to use his inhaler following the renovation.

"Wow, you actually listened," is what one asthmatic employee said after the real estate and design team gathered input from headquarters staff and then completed the renovation's first phase.

It's another good case to illustrate the importance of changing the work environment to also address generational issues, because Pitney Bowes is keeping more of its younger talent since the headquarters redesign began in November, 2006.

It's also an acknowledgement of the importance of communicating changes proactively with stakeholders that today go beyond shareholders. Employees, customers, suppliers, surrounding communities - all of them and more represent a tipping point for companies today. This sort of new world order is dictating that employers take a "reputation-based" approach to their business models in an increasingly "cause-based" global society and economy, or risk losing sales or even talent.

"Smart companies are investing in understanding this new environment and how to manage within it," advises Dr. Noreena Hertz, a global political economist who sees multinational companies as having more impact on world issues than elected governments.

New workplace practices are in fact part of this concept known as socially responsible globalization, also known by a term identified by CoreNet Global as "Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR.

CSR is also tied directly to sustainability or "green" issues, and workplace practice is one of them. They can define and drive cultural change in these and many other ways:

- Seamless integration of different cultures, age groups and other demographics influencing workplace and company operations
- More collaborative and team space work in the office
- Tying the branding of new office environments to community reinvestment
- Office or workspace assigned by demand, function and use - not entitlement
- Emphasis on sun light, fresh air and access to outside views
- More opportunities to work out of the office from home, airports, hotels, client locations and other places - with obvious environmental and health benefits associated

There's a myriad of case examples beyond Hearst and Pitney Bowes. In Silicon Valley, employees at Cisco Systems and Adobe Systems are driving many of the companies' conservation and community-based initiatives in "bottom up" fashion. This type of leverage shows recognition of letting workers have more direct say in how their employers are approaching sustainability in order to win their longer-term loyalty.

Gaining that loyalty also means giving today's workers more freedom to choose when and where they work. Flexibility for workers has become one of the top incentives for attracting and retaining employees.

"They tend to work longer and harder to offset the perception of being out of the office working," confides one senior real estate executive for a major financial services company. "Giving unlimited sick days has proven fewer are actually taken, so the same idea applies to being allowed to work from home or somewhere else."

Other recent case studies that prove the point include Boeing, Capital One, Motorola and Hewlett Packard.

So the workplace focus and other less obvious forms of sustainability are having a resounding impact on why people choose to work for companies today with a key tenet in mind: the broader that focus, the better.

As the Hearst case implies, sustainable practices are not limited to environmental, energy conservation or green buildings, either. In their most optimal form, sustainable practices extend across the supply chain of a given company so that employees want to work for an enterprise that is reducing its carbon footprint, or reinvesting in the local community where it's based, or making socially beneficial procurement, location or even disposition decisions.

Wal-Mart provides one of the higher-profile examples of a company "greening" its supply chain but there are other corporations taking the concept further into the ways that directly improve the employee experience, and thus their ability to attract talent.

One creative way of doing this is through responsible reuse of older or abandoned properties. Urban Outfitters recently proved the point by relocating its Philadelphia headquarters to the former Navy Yard. The move to the waterfront was completed a year ago after a comprehensive communications and change management program was done.

Urban Outfitters' relocation decision sparked a major redevelopment effort. Today, the Navy Yard has over four million square feet of leased office space and 6,000 employees. "The Navy Yard has emerged as Philadelphia's new frontier and is the cool work center for creative talent. With millions of abandoned warehouses across the U.S., this inspiring project is an excellent example of commercial real estate leadership and innovation," as the company's Atlanta case study relates.

For Dr. Linda Lees, Principal of Creative Cities, old or run-down places can offer a competitive advantage. It's found in a sort of edginess that - once redefined and renewed - becomes an attractive asset, creating what she calls a "good messiness" or healthy friction.

At the recent London Global Summit, Lees outlined a range of "cultural criteria" that form the basis of her non-profit community redevelopment "Vitality" index, including:

- Sense of place
- Aspirations of the local people
- Cultural history of the community

It equates to change management, building consensus and engaging stakeholders - all hallmarks of sustainability in a community reinvestment sense and each a now-proven way to win the loyalty of people and one battle in the War for Talent.

As Lees summarizes: "Popularity of place plus profit is the equation for success."