How Sanofi Reimagined the Workplace Through Human Connection

"We decided not to fight against it," revealed Fernando Faria, Global Head of Workplace Transformation at Sanofi, describing the pharmaceutical giant's response to employees preferring to work from home. At WorkSpaces, Faria shared how this acceptance became the foundation of a workplace strategy focused on making offices more attractive rather than mandatory, with some surprisingly human-centric discoveries along the way.

When Digital Perfection Misses the Human Element

Sanofi's workplace transformation journey began in 2021 with an extensive listening tour to understand employee needs. The company developed a comprehensive strategy aiming to transform their offices into "a destination, not an obligation." But the path wasn't without missteps.

Faria shared a particularly enlightening failure that occurred when one of Sanofi's flagship U.S. locations went "fully digital" with food service. "We decided to take all the cashiers out," he explained. "Let's put an app. Everybody pre-orders food, grabs their food, and just goes."

The idea seemed perfectly aligned with current tech trends—until the complaints flooded in.

"We missed the human part," Faria admitted. "We understood afterwards that people like to talk to John because he knows what I like in my sandwich... and that interaction, we just took it away from everybody without even asking them."

The Unexpected Power of Friday Brunch

Food emerged as the hidden catalyst in Sanofi's return-to-office equation—a revelation that caught even the workplace team by surprise.

"After the first release of our workplace strategy, we didn't pay attention to food in the beginning," Faria said. "We understood that food can be one of the most important components to bring people back to the office—not because it's free food, but using food as a way to connect our employees."

This insight led to a pilot program in France: free brunch on Fridays—typically the emptiest day in the office. The result? Office utilization increased by 30%.

What's noteworthy is how employees use this time. "They're not going there for meetings and working like the traditional way," Faria explained. "They go on Friday to the office, might read some emails in the beginning, go to the nice restaurant, get their brunch with a lot of people. They get together, they laugh, they spend more than an hour and a half, two hours there. And then they go back, read a few more emails, and go home."

This behavior perfectly aligns with the company's actual goal: bringing people together for collaboration, culture-building, and connection—"not to be sitting in a phone booth by yourself eight hours a day."

Breaking Down Data Silos

With over 140 different locations globally, each with different landlords, building types, and systems, Sanofi faced a common enterprise challenge: fragmented data.

"If someone has a magical idea to make all the data connect very easily, tell me," Faria implored the audience. "We struggled for over two years."

Their approach to solving this challenge was strategically straightforward: partnering with global providers to standardize processes and ensuring they weren't "testing different things all the time in different locations." While not perfect—some data remains uncollected due to site-specific limitations—this standardization has enabled Sanofi to build comprehensive dashboards tracking everything from locker utilization to air quality.

The Democratizing Effect of Unassigned Seating

As someone who began his career as a receptionist watching executives who "never had time to talk to anyone," he's now creating the environment he wished he had experienced.

"We see high-level executives sitting next to an intern and talking to them during coffee or an informal lunch," he shared. "That's what I want for my kids and for all the kids."

This democratizing effect highlights an often-overlooked benefit of modern workplace design: its ability to break down hierarchical barriers that have traditionally limited opportunity and collaboration.

For workplace innovators, Sanofi's journey offers a powerful reminder that amid all the discussions of technology, sustainability, and space utilization, the most successful workplace transformations focus first on deeply human connections—even something as simple as a conversation with the person making your sandwich.