Workplace Research Manager

About Real Estate and Workplace Services

The Real Estate and Workplace Services (REWS) organization designs, operates, and evolves the environments and experiences that enable Salesforce employees and customers to do their best work. Spanning more than 30 countries, our Agentic Campus reflects our values and culture – bringing together humans, agents, and robots to create inclusive, purpose-driven spaces where people feel a true sense of belonging.

As customer zero of Salesforce’s own technology, REWS is leading the way, creating innovative and dynamic spaces that provide seamless and inspiring workplace experiences.

The Experience

The REWS Workplace Innovation team is seeking a Workplace Research Manager to generate insights that enable REWS to continuously evolve and enhance employee and customer experiences across our offices.

In this individual contributor role, you will be responsible for designing and executing end-to-end mixed-methods research, translating qualitative and quantitative data into actionable insights that inform decisions across our global portfolio.

• Reporting to the Senior Manager, Workplace Research, you will serve as a dedicated research partner and consultant across Workplace Innovation teams (Pilots, Space Insights) and other REWS stakeholders.
• In this role, you will partner with the Pilots and Space Insights teams to evaluate workplace pilots—delivering the employee research workstream—while conducting collaborative exploratory research to inform emerging innovation initiatives.
• You will leverage a versatile toolkit of qualitative and quantitative research skills while adopting AI tools and automated workflows to accelerate synthesis and deliver timely, high-impact insights.
• This role is based in San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, or Atlanta, GA, and is eligible for an Office Flexible (3 days/week) work arrangement, with periodic domestic or international travel for on-site discovery activities or pilot fieldwork.

What You’ll Actually Be Doing

• Collaborate with the Pilots and Space Insights teams across the pilot project lifecycle, from initial discovery and defining success metrics through to final readouts and recommendations. Within this collaborative structure, own the mixed-methods employee research workstream to design, field, and deliver baseline, in-flight, and post-pilot insights to evaluate new physical layouts, furniture concepts, workplace programs and technology.
• Collaborate on exploratory discovery initiatives and conduct on-site qualitative fieldwork—such as in-depth interviews, discovery workshops, intercept interviews, guided walk-and-talks, and ethnographic research—to uncover unmet employee needs and understand the ‘why’ behind employee behaviors, adoption, or friction.
• Partner closely with the Space Insights team to integrate multi-source evaluation data—layering objective spatial telemetry (such as occupancy patterns and room utilization metrics) with employee research findings and survey sentiment to co-develop clear, comprehensive recommendations for stakeholders.
• Proactively identify and integrate AI tools and automated workflows across the research lifecycle to accelerate qualitative synthesis and reporting, staying current with industry workplace trends to inform research roadmaps.

You’re Our Person If…

• 4+ years of applied research experience focusing on human-environment interactions, workplace strategy, environmental psychology, physical workplace experience, applied behavioral science, corporate real estate, or a related field with a strong mixed-methods research foundation.
• Demonstrated experience designing and conducting mixed-methods studies to evaluate physical spaces, furniture, and workplace layouts, with a proven ability to assess the impact of workplace changes on employee sentiment and behavior across pre- and post-occupancy phases.
• Hands-on experience conducting qualitative fieldwork using varied research methods to deeply understand employee needs, paired with strong quantitative data literacy to interpret and contextualize spatial metrics and numerical data alongside employee sentiment and qualitative feedback.
• Proven ability to translate ambiguous business or workplace challenges into focused, agile research plans, manage multiple concurrent project timelines with flexibility, and synthesize disparate inputs into clear presentations for multidisciplinary partners.

Even Better If…

• Knowledge of questionnaire design best practices and hands-on experience designing and fielding employee feedback and pilot evaluation surveys.
• Experience using inferential statistics (such as significance testing, correlation, or regression) to analyze employee sentiment and survey datasets.
• Deep understanding of corporate real estate fundamentals.
• Experience working within the technology sector or a similarly fast-paced, matrixed enterprise environment.