Episode 39 | Special Guest Episode: Criona Turley of Capella

In this week's special episode, Niamh is joined by Crina Turley of Capella to discuss what makes a better workday, and how Capella uses property technology to create better workdays in the hybrid workplace.

Oh, oh ohohohohohoho, ohohohohohohohohoh. Hello, hello, and welcome back to The Better Workday Podcast. This week, I am delighted to have my very first special guest,

Crina Turley from Capella. Crina, welcome, welcome to the podcast. Thanks a million for having me, Niamh. I am so delighted you said yes to this, because Capella and yourself have been on my mind to come on this podcast. And when you agreed to be my first special guest, I knew our stars were aligned.

So, let's begin by maybe you telling me and my listeners a little bit about Capella and what your role is there, just in case they don't know.

Yeah, so at Capella, we fall into what is called prop tech, so, um, technology around property, specifically around workspaces. And we're there to help, uh, real estate, um, managers and facilities manager- managers understand how the workspace is being used, um, and how they can use it better, how they can plan for the future of work to give the employees a really, really good, um, experience in the office. Okay, great. You know, I... First of all, I never even heard the phrase property tech, so already I'm learning something new.

And tell me, does this help avoid the kind of empty office situation where you'd have one person at one end of the office, another person at the other end, and then there's a fire drill and no one knows where it's to go, you know, and what to do next? Does, does your stuff help with that, Crina? Yeah, absolutely. So, what it does is it allows employees at- at- at a very practical level to book desks, meeting rooms, car parking, anything like that.

But then it kind of layers on the interesting stuff. So, you as an employee will see a 3D map of your actual office, and you'll see where people are sitting. So now you can decide, do you want to sit beside a particular person? You can book into your own neighborhood so you're in- sitting in the right area, you're not just wandering around looking for a desk.

And there's lots of kind of collaborative pieces in the software that helps employees get a really good, um, experience while they're in the office, whether it's sitting in your own department, or whether it's, uh, a kind of collateral learning where you want to actually sit in a different department and- and hear some of the stuff that's going on, uh, in other departments to help with your learning. It's a- it's a great piece of software. I think that last point is probably the one I find most helpful with software like yours, because we have found that since people started working more remotely and hybrid, the amount of in-team communication has remained pretty much the same, right? Or it's- it's increased really for a lot of people, but intrateam conversations, you know, the information you get from eavesdropping and learning by osmosis, that has really suffered, and that makes it harder then for identifying opportunities to collaborate and to come up with new ideas. So or use of there but being able to sit next to other people, not just your team, is- is really, really clever. And what- what do you do, Crina, in the organization? I assume you're not the one building and selling and doing all the support and everything all by yourself? Hopefully not. Um, it is a little bit of that. Uh,

I'm- I'm a co-founder in the business, so myself and my co-founder, Victoria Yanacos, started the business four years ago. Um, and I'm the CEO, and then she's the COO. So she's the procedural operational person, and- and I'm the chitty-chatty person. Fabulous. Well, that's why you're here. Chitty-chatting to me.

So now it's time for us to start my better workday questions, and I was saying to you before we started recording, Crina, I ask everybody these questions.

They're universal in helping us understand what it takes to create a better workday. And the first one is, what does a better workday mean to you?

So to me, a better workday is that I've moved forward in the day. It doesn't mean that I worked a certain amount of hours. It doesn't mean that I worked in a particular location. And now as we're doing more and more work, um, both in Ireland and the US, you know, I can be traveling, and- and that moves me forward to- to a goal in the workday. But for me, it- it- it's achieving something and attaining balance as well. Yeah, and I think it's the balance while making progress is always a difficult thing.

And what do you see then as the barriers or the challenges in creating a better workday like that in today's workplace? So I would see the status quo as a real barrier and a real challenge, uh, for- for leadership teams. I- I think time has run out on, um, not making decisions about what the future of work is going to be for your organization.

And there's a lot of kind of vague threats of policies hanging in the air where they're not enforced, and some people think they're enforced, and they're coming in, and other people aren't coming in. And that just creates kind of silent resentment. And- and I think the real challenge is clear communications about what the future of work is going to be for your organization, making sure that it- it fits your culture, and then just moving on with it, because time has run out to do nothing. I think you're absolutely right, because the future's already arrived, and people are going to continue working with or without clear direction. So, you know, perfection and progress are not best friends when it comes to this stuff. You just have to get it out and maybe be open to iteration, perhaps making a mistake and improving as you go along rather than holding back.

I really like that. And in just kind of tying back then to what you do, how does Capella then help people to create a better workday? So for employees, we give all the practical tools you need, um, e- for a hybrid working scenario, um, from creating a- a kind of a- a peripheral connection while you're sitting at home and you can see who's in the office, and so you're not in this kind of echo chamber of your kitchen thinking everyone else is in the kitchen......

and helping you plan for the days that you are going to go into the office, or, or stay at Right down to the health and safety involved in that. Making sure that your, uh, ergonomic assessment has been carried home. out and you're well set up at home.

When you're in the office, making sure that, that our system knows you're in the office, so if we need to evacuate, eh, that we know that you are one of the 30% of people in the office, eh, today.

And that's very important, because there's all sort- sorts of considerations around health and safety as well when you're in a hybrid, eh, circumstance. leadership, eh, we give them a really good insight on what's going on in their workspace. We give them a

For baseline of occupancy, utilization. We let them carry out scenario modeling, so what would it be like if we shut down the fourth floor on a Thursday? And you can do that all through the system without moving one desk and chair. So, it's, it's, it's really intelligent data and insights around how you're using your space. And, Jane, back to your point around the challenges, if we can do that scenario planning quite quickly, that allows all the decisions to be made and people to move forward as opposed to spending weeks saying, "What if, maybe..." and relying on what they feel or what they think rather than what's actually happening in their organization. So it's so clever. Yeah. 100%. And I mean, if you have desks that are at

60% occupancy and all your meeting rooms are full all the time, people are coming in to meet. Yeah. They're coming in to collaborate, so let's make a breakout space, and, and, and pack away some of those desks, you know? Um, that's what your employees want, that's what your colleagues want, and, and our system will tell you all of that. And just on a side note, you know I visit quite a lot of different organizations through my work, and you can tell the ones that are having these conversations because the increase in those flexible breakout spaces has been massive. And every one I walk through, they're being used, you know? And they're being used by pockets of people having conversation, and they're absolutely fantastic, if that's what the company needs. Exactly, yeah. Now tell me, as a team in Compellent, so don't mind about everyone else now and helping all the other organizations, right? For yourselves, how do you help each other internally to have a better work day? Well, obviously, um, we're very flexible as an organization. We're, we're a hybrid working team. Um, and we're a very young organization in terms of the age of the company. Not so much in terms of, eh, our own ages. There's a ... better met.

Um, with lots of different challenges around raising families, caring for the next, the generation above us and below us, and, and, and pets and all of that. So what we do is we, we have a policy of, um, making work, um, work for our, for our colleagues.

And you know, uh, it's not about, again, the amount of hours. It's not about where you're working. It's about the output. Down to e- even the fact that we take interns, um, and we have a policy of bringing women back into the workplace after a long gap. Maybe, uh, a career break or if they were caring for kids.

And we'll bring them back in and we'll have a bit of patience around training them, and what we get back is just unbelievable. So policies like that really help the culture of the business. Isn't it funny how simple principles like patience and having grace for others can just bring massive rewards? Just taking the time to pause and think about what might be happening in other people's lives. You know, it's, it's simple, but it's what matters. It comes back in spades. It really does.

And we're nearly here. We're nearly through my list, my list of questions. My next one for you, I want Yeah. Yeah. you to put on your, um, your fortune telling hat. I want you to get out your, your crystal globe, or maybe in your sa- your case, your database.

Your data models. And tell me, how do you see the workplace evolving in the next 12 to 24 months? So maybe take a look at mid-2026. Where do you think things are gonna be?

Yeah. I think the drama is gonna be out of, um, hybrid working and what it means for the organization. And I think, you know, the demands to have people coming back in and, you know, the, uh, dramatic announcements that we're no longer, um, coming into the office at all. I think they'll all be washed through the system.

I think that there will be very clear policies in place because as I said, time has just run out, um, on that. And, and leases are coming due as well, so people are making decisions about what kind of space they want, um, for their teams.

So I would say 2026, a lot more kind of certainty, uh, around what organizations expect from their, from their employees. And for employees to have uncertainty, uh, sorry, certainty around, um, what that means for them and in their life. Um, so I, I think yeah, the, the drama will have, have washed through the system. Oh, that'll be lovely. No more drama in terms of hybrid working. Yeah. That'll be, that'll be nice. That'll be nice. And I think I was talking to somebody about that the other day. Uh,

I feel there'll be a little bit of talent movement as companies finally own their model of working, whether that's hybrid, remote, or in person, and actually allow people then to make a decision if they want to stay in that company or move. So we might see a little bit of, of movement there. But that's not a bad thing. That's everyone is used to settling down, knowing what they're doing, and then- Yeah. ... being able to kind of move forward with their careers, which will be great.

My last question for you, Criona, what one piece of advice would you give to my listeners and an individual who wants to create a better work day? So I would say that the best way to create a better work day is to put some planning and thought into it. So our whole system is built around the idea that, you know, you can see who's gonna be in the office this week. You can see who's gonna be in the office next week. And it's not about waking up on a wet Tuesday morning, eh, or a wet Wednesday morning and, uh, and deciding you're not gonna go in at the last minute.

It's to treat hybrid working as professionally as you treated life before hybrid working. Mm-hmm. And plan.

And if you say you're gonna go in, go in, because colleagues might come in to, to meet with you. And it's amazing what can come out of those collaborative moments. I think you've hit on something there, that deciding in advance, not only for yourself but in consideration of our colleagues, is, is so important.

I want to say thank you. Thank you for being my very first special guest. I knew you were the right person to have in and to get us started on these special guest episodes.

Um, until next time, Criona, stay well and have a better work day. Thanks, a brilliant interview. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode.

The Better Work Day Podcast is about helping you have a better work day, so we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions. You can find our social media details as well as any references from this episode in the show notes.