Ep 02: Cadi Withers of Colgate-Palmolive

In this episode

• Why workplace perks aren’t enough to get people back to the office
• The difference between uniformity and universality in workplace design, and why it matters
• How private spaces at work support women at the office
• Why future-proofing your workplace starts with technology and cross-functional collaboration

Meet Cadi:

Cadi Withers is the Senior Manager of Facilities Management at Colgate-Palmolive, where she oversees facilities for the company’s headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City.

Before she ran the workplace, she was running the stage. Withers is formally trained in theatrical stage production and made the move from Louisiana to New York to be in the “mecca of American theater.” Those stage production skills lent themselves to managing offices. She took a part-time job as a receptionist at an ad tech startup, which was later acquired by AT&T, and quickly rose through the ranks to office manager, then facilities manager, and eventually held global facilities roles at Microsoft and now Colgate-Palmolive.

Withers shares her philosophy on work-life balance, why perks aren’t enough, the need for private space in a workplace, and why she brings HR leaders into conversations about office design.

Mandates vs. amenities: The reality of attracting and retaining employees 

Post-COVID, when there was a push to return to the workplace, Withers quickly observed that facilities managers were asking the wrong question. Instead of, “How do we get people back,” it became, “How can we support people once they are back?”

“There was a lot of conversation among facilities professionals, my peers, after COVID, about how we get people back to the office. People in my role were really energized by that question, and everyone seemed to have the best answer.

“And then, it didn’t move the needle. The reality is, the thing that gets people back to the office is a leadership mandate. That’s it. You cannot compete with the privacy that someone has at home, or the convenience it brings to their life.”

Life still happens at work

Withers underscores the importance of privacy in the workplace, especially in our ever-connected world where life and work constantly overlap.

“There are more women in the workforce now than there are men. The mental load of everything they’re doing to balance their house and their family hasn’t reduced. You should have spaces where people can take a private call from a school counselor or the PTA, the pediatrician, your GP… It’s not the ’50s where everything at home is managed in the home. It’s now managed from both places. We need to support that in the physical world, in the office.”

Face-to-face is the richest form of communication

Withers spoke about creating space for interaction, which can provide real value for employees coming into the office.

“The value of having a physical workspace is that you are creating spaces and opportunities for people to be together. The richest method of communication is face-to-face communication. You don’t just offer a desk, a cubicle, a private office to someone. You have to have a place for spontaneous interactions, too. If you’re bringing everybody to the office and they’re siloed and not interacting, you’re losing out on a lot of opportunity for growth and leadership identification.”

Designing for universality vs. uniformity

Private spaces should not be relegated only to senior leaders. As Withers framed it, “Are we delivering privacy by salary grade?” But the answer is more complicated than giving everyone access to the same types of space.

“A mistake we make in workplace design is focusing on uniformity versus universality. Uniformity would be everybody getting the same desk because they’re the same salary grade. But the reality is, people work and thrive and are productive in different ways, depending on their personalities, their brain, if they’re introverted… If you have a rainbow of options, people will find what works best for them, and they’ll be relieved to not have to fit themselves into a mold.”

The future of design at Colgate-Palmolive

Colgate’s current Park Avenue setup reflects a more traditional era: assigned seating by salary grade, fully opaque private offices with no natural light, and palatial cubicles that keep people siloed. “It’s like a casino,” Withers shared. “It would never get designed today.”

Withers is candid about the limitations. On days when attendance reports show 500 people in the office, she says she might have seen ten, with everyone tucked into their own zone.

A new workspace policy is in development, designed to roll out alongside future renovations. The vision is more modern and more focused on how people actually work rather than what they’ve always had.

Tech as the future-proofing tool

Withers sees technology as a key lever in adapting their workplace for the future.

“You have to have space planning software where you can easily change the function of a space just by how you’ve programmed it. It’s a lot harder to build or break down a physical wall. It’s so much easier to go into a piece of software and say, ‘this used to be a conference room and now it’s a private office.’ That’s how you future-proof.”

Bringing every voice to the design conversation

Withers is an advocate for bringing all stakeholders into the room when making workplace design decisions. This helps the team identify risks and avoid costly last-minute changes.

“If you and your designer have selected a white laminate conference room table, you might realize too late that the reflection bouncing off the camera interferes with the remote viewer’s experience. Maybe you could have identified that problem if you had IT and AV in the room when designing that space. It’s much easier to select the right finish before purchasing than having to pay for a brand new table.”

Advice to new facilities managers

Asked what she’d tell someone just entering the world of workplace management, Withers shared a Grace Hopper quote that has stayed with her:

“The most dangerous phrase in the language is, ‘We’ve always done it this way.'”

“Stay open-minded, stay curious, don’t assume that you know it all. Assume that tomorrow is going to be different than yesterday. You really have to evolve and keep evolving.”