Workplace Services Lead East

WPP • Columbia, WA

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Workplace Services Lead serves as WPP’s senior Workplace Services representative for an assigned portfolio, with responsibility for stakeholder relationships, workplace outcomes, financial stewardship, and alignment with WPP and REWS standards. The role provides client-side operational governance, translating business priorities into workplace requirements and ensuring outsourced service providers meet WPP standards, financial objectives, and contractual commitments.

The portfolio may include campus and non-campus locations and requires an adaptive approach to oversight, governance, and stakeholder engagement as the REWS operating model evolves. This is a client-side leadership and governance role; day-to-day operations and the direction, supervision, and management of provider personnel remain the responsibility of the relevant service provider. The position is onsite/in office at a larger campus location in the assigned region.

The role partners with business leaders and internal teams to align workplace services, space, and employee experience with WPP strategy and global standards. It oversees space planning and portfolio optimization, supports budgets and forecasts, governs provider performance and contracts, monitors operational and resilience risks, and uses data and stakeholder feedback to identify improvements and inform decisions. The role also supports compliance with HSSE, business continuity, sustainability, and other WPP and REWS standards.

WPP describes its culture as inclusive, collaborative, open-minded, optimistic, creative, and committed to continuous learning. It offers the opportunity to work with passionate people on challenging projects at significant scale. The position is hybrid in WPP’s broader work approach, with teams in the office around four days a week; this role is identified as onsite/in office at a larger campus location.

Requirements

• 5–7+ years of experience in corporate workplace, corporate real estate, workplace experience, or outsourced-service governance, preferably within a complex global organization.
• Bachelor’s degree in Facilities Management, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience operating as an intelligent client within an outsourced facilities management environment and holding strategic service partners accountable for performance.
• Strong financial and commercial acumen, including budget development and forecasting and governance of service-provider relationships through budgets, contracts, SLAs/KPIs, and performance frameworks.
• Understanding of workplace management systems, reporting, and data analytics, with the ability to interpret outputs and use insights for decision-making, performance management, and provider governance.
• In-depth knowledge of HSSE regulations and best practices.
• Strong understanding of workplace strategy, space-planning principles, and portfolio optimization practices.
• Experience leading complex workplace, transformation, or change initiatives across multiple locations and stakeholder groups.
• Knowledge of sustainability principles and practices.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders, build trusted relationships, and drive alignment across a complex environment.
• Ability to build and maintain collaborative supplier relationships and understand contractual commitments, SLAs/KPIs, and commercial models.
• Ability to lead through influence, establish clear client expectations, and hold service-provider leadership accountable for agreed outcomes.
• Ability to leverage workplace data, reporting, and technology; apply critical thinking to evaluate performance and challenge provider outcomes.
• Strong collaboration, change-management, business-acumen, continuous-improvement, adaptability, and continuous-learning capabilities.

Nice To Haves

• Relevant professional certifications in workplace, facilities management, corporate real estate, or related disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary REWS relationship lead for assigned businesses and senior stakeholders, translating business priorities and employee needs into workplace requirements and outcomes.
• Ensure workplace services, space, and experience align with WPP strategy, utilization objectives, employee needs, and global standards.
• Oversee space planning activities and portfolio optimization initiatives.
• Work with Finance stakeholders to prepare annual budgets and quarterly forecasts; monitor variances and savings opportunities.
• Challenge service-provider proposals and ensure spending aligns with approved WPP priorities.
• Hold outsourced providers accountable for contractual commitments, SLAs/KPIs, financial targets, and service outcomes; challenge performance gaps and ensure corrective action by provider leadership.
• Ensure assigned properties comply with WPP and REWS risk, governance, and operational excellence standards.
• Lead identification, oversight, management, and escalation of material resilience and service risks and incidents, ensuring appropriate governance, incident management, and timely resolution.
• Ensure compliance with WPP and REWS HSSE policies, the Business Continuity certification process, and other operational standards, partnering with relevant functions and providers.
• Use provider reporting, workplace data, and stakeholder feedback to assess performance, identify continuous improvement opportunities, and inform WPP decision-making.
• Provide accurate data to the central REWS team as required.
• Lead WPP stakeholder engagement and business adoption associated with workplace change, partnering with service providers and REWS teams on implementation.
• Partner with Procurement on responsible and sustainable supplier governance and ensure changes or new contracts are routed through Procurement.
• Work with Global REWS CoE teams to implement global standards and initiatives.
• Collaborate with ET to support seamless workplace technology integration.
• Partner with HR to support employee well-being and engagement programs.
• Work with Security to support a safe and secure environment.
• Monitor performance against financial, service-provider, stakeholder-experience, portfolio-effectiveness, governance and risk, HSSE and business continuity, and sustainability targets.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits package; details are available through WPP’s benefits website.
• Opportunity to work with passionate, inspired people and contribute to projects at scale.
• Challenging and stimulating work with creative problem-solving opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior