The World's Smartest Building and Post-Pandemic Facility Leadership - Brian Norris, Honeywell

The World’s Smartest Building and Post-Pandemic Facility Leadership

Brian Norris, Honeywell

What exactly does “smart building” mean and entail? Brian Norris, the Americas IFM Director over at Honeywell, talks to us today about how facility leadership will be instrumental in the post-pandemic workspace, along with how to utilize technology to make working more efficient.

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Featured Guest

Brian Norris

Americas IFM Director

Brian Norris is the Director of Facilities for North and South America for Honeywell. Brian has worked with and for Honeywell since 2016 when he joined the company as a facilities manager. Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, Brian servers has the Honeywell global HQ Site Leader, and sits as Chair of the Honeywell Veterans Network Carolinas Chapter. As a Marine Corps Veteran, Brian has strived to hold close Marine Corps values and implement them into his day to day management as he navigates Corporate America.

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Podcast Host

George Lucas Pfeiffer

CMO & Podcast Host

From work culture to collaboration, technology to marketing, George Lucas Pfeiffer has areas of expertise in both physical and digital. George creates media content to share his experiences and promote conversations related to the future of work!

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Show Notes

Honeywell is a Software Industrial Fortune 100 Company with a tenured history. The company has 110,000 employees across 80 countries. 30 million square feet ( 392 properties) in North and South America and 50 million square feet globally (750 properties).

During the pandemic Honeywell modernized their workplace with an emphasis on more collaborative space to support a future of hybrid working. They are keeping their plans fluid but are currently using a 3-2 policy (3 days in the office and 2 days remote).

“I firmly believe in order to manage a facility effectively you need to be inside of it”

Honeywell is redesigning their office space to have the same power and data specs as their collaboration and huddle rooms. This allows them to quickly change their workplace once they have identified utilization and data trends via data.

Pre-covid drivers to get people to the office were amenities (food, coffee, fitness centers, etc). COVID changed these drivers to things like safety, air quality and frictionless access. Now the plan is to offer both for post-pandemic working. A recent Honeywell survey showed that 91% of employees said most important thing was not just clean air, but knowing how the clean air was made.

Reduction of space may happen in post-pandemic world… but will more likely be an optimization of square footage (use space smarter).

One of the best ways to navigate industry change is peer-to-peer sharing. Know what others are doing and learn from them.

“We think that bringing people back into the workplace is incredibly important… for our company and for our community”

The role of the facility leader has changed significantly since the pandemic. The FM of today is much higher-end, user-touch, user-experience – and this can be attributed to better building technology. Today is less about wrench-turning and thermostat-adjusting and more about uncovering ways for improving work and creating spaces people love coming to.

Facility leadership is working with Human Resources every single day to maximize the investment in people and place. This relationship is closer today than ever before.

The tagline for the new Honeywell HQ in Charlette is ‘the smartest building in the world’ with over 20 technologies and more than 50,000 data points. Building technology allows them to collect a lot of data and they are learning to better work with HR, IT and numerous other teams in the building to leverage

Honeywell has tried to future-proofed their building for 5-7 years. They use their HQ as a sandbox for future Honeywell technology. “There is no better voice in the world for Honeywell technology than our own team members.”

Top emerging technology will be occupancy apps and more integrated, personalized user controls.

Honeywell welcomes visitors to their HQ to experience a modern building.

Next step for Honeywell is bringing CBRE in to create a world-class facilities program.

Brian recommends is ACP – American Corporate Partners. It’s a program that provides mentorship for veterans who have recently left the military and are entering corporate life.

Brian’s advice for career development would be to bet on yourself and take risks. “The opportunity to recreate the playbook is as good as ever. Go out and bet on yourself… you will probably surprise yourself! “