Perth startup Rate My Space has launched their site with a pilot in Curtin University to discover and document building issues. Founder Sam Hall told us more…
Thousands and thousands of issues are lodged annually with facilities managers on university campuses, from small changes (like a light bulb out) to larger issues (like an air-conditioner reaching end of life). The role of a properties and facilities management team is to resolve these issues, plan improvement opportunities and focus on new buildings, and that is no easy job.
We want to make their job easier. The first step is understanding comfort and satisfaction in various buildings to make more informed, evidence-based decisions. When buildings are designed, delivered and then occupied, there is no systematic way of checking back in with occupants (staff) to see how they like the building. What works? What doesn’t? What should we repeat?
Occupants in buildings can be the ‘eyes on the ground’ and give this valuable feedback. This information can be used when planning retrofit activities or new buildings, or just as a check-in with staff. In fact, when staff feel engaged they show higher satisfaction levels. At Rate My Space, we are the active listeners, the building whisperers, translating that feedback for the decision makers.
We are learning more and more about how the physical environment impacts health, and how spaces we spend our days in can actually make us thrive. The Rate My Space tool considers the body of evidence on a number of design elements which can support better wellbeing for occupants, such as views of nature and sufficient daylight.
We have developed a customised campus evaluation for Curtin University’s office spaces to collect this feedback. This is world’s biggest building wellness evaluation we’ve seen – over 100 buildings and around 3000 office-based staff. Every staff member using an office area will have access to the Rate My Space tool starting this week. They will be able to rate their space across a number of health, comfort and wellbeing criteria. At the end, raters receive a personalised report based on their responses to help create a healthier work environment.
We will aggregate those results for the properties team, along with other datasets, so they have a more succinct understanding of the human experience in different buildings.
HBF, BUPA and Curtin Stadium have come on board with some fantastic prizes staff can go into the draw for, including free gym passes.
Congrats to Curtin for their vision and drive in creating a healthy, happy campus!
