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We don’t always get to follow a real estate and operations professional on both the front, middle, and back of the most transformational period in “the future of work” history. But keeping tabs on Joey Martinez over the past six years includes his 2021 promotion to head of global administrative operations for Tanium, the full embrace of the hybrid work model, and the realization that working from home may not be the solution we all hoped for.
Martinez, like so many in his industry, was confronted with a fully remote work model after the COVID pandemic hit. The last time we spoke in 2021, he was still adjusting to serving the full employee experience from that vantage point as well as what it meant to serve an employee base that was virtually never coming into an office.
“So many of us in our industry went fully remote, and you remember all the headlines,” Martinez recalls. “We saw people moving out of California, fleeing the Bay Area, and our headquarters in Seattle experienced some of the same change. A lot of our employees saw the economic advantages of moving somewhere else.”
For a moment, that was the story and the future of work. But it’s never the whole story.
Martinez personally disliked working from home. He saw the benefits, but he also saw the drawbacks. While he celebrated teammates having more time to spend with their children and pets and less time stuck in commutes, he understood there was still a cost.
“The other side of this is I don’t know if people truly understand how much their world shrinks and how that winds up affecting work culture,” the executive explains. “I may only be spending those Zoom meetings with the same 10 people every week. I used to see around 200 people and find myself having random conversations that lead to bigger and more exciting things. I think about my three best friends that I met through work, the people who find their spouses at work, and I think people forget about that part of it.”
Martinez isn’t the gland-handing extrovert, and that’s what makes his perspective particularly interesting. He admittedly feels a bit drained after spending a day interacting in an office setting, but he believes it ultimately makes him better as a person and a professional.
The transition to a hybrid model has been yet another great shakeup that Martinez has taken incredibly seriously. He doesn’t want to feel as if he’s dragging people back to a setting where they don’t want to be, but he’s leading by example, and creating spaces that are welcoming to employees for however many days a week they may be showing up in person.
Tanium recently moved a vital engineering hub to Durham, North Carolina, a focal point of the celebrated Research Triangle of the Southeast. The new site is host to around 85 engineers who Martinez says have the most need for in-person collaboration.
“I think about my three best friends that I met through work, the people who find their spouses at work, and I think people forget about that part of it.”
Joey Martinez
“We really built the site for social interaction,” Martinez says. “It’s absolutely beautiful and overlooks the baseball stadium in Durham. We wanted to make it a place people want to come to, and I think we have.”
The site will help attract the high-demand talent emerging from all the nearby academic institutions and will encourage recruits to stay in the area.
Elsewhere across the nation are sites in Reston, Virginia; Bellevue, Washington; and Addison, Texas. James Quinly, senior project manager and team lead of Clune Construction, worked with Martinez’s team on the Virginia location and recalls the experience fondly.
“Clune Construction recently partnered with FORM Architects on a fast-paced project for Tanium and Joey Martinez in their Reston, Virginia, space. The Clune/FORM team was entrusted with completing the entire project, from design to construction close-out, within an expedited three-month period,” Quinly says. “Thanks to seamless teamwork and quick decision-making by Joey and Tanium, Clune Construction and FORM Architects successfully delivered the project on time and within budget.”
But it doesn’t end there. Tanium is a global business, and Martinez is helping enable the scaling of the company’s EMEA reach in Krakow, Poland. Tanium, like many organizations, have been looking globally that may be more affordable to build in but also have access to high-caliber talent.
“Especially on the engineering and technical side, we can gain advantages by considering a wider talent pool,” Martinez says. “We did an incredible amount of internal work to understand our needs, and Krakow is a great tech center of EMEA. I’ve been there myself, and it feels like it could be the Bay Area when it was just starting to heat up.”
Martinez foresees a move into a scalable office setting within the next 18 to 24 months. Like in Durham, Martinez believes Tanium can create a vital hub in Krakow to support customers all over the world. Projects are underway in Japan, Singapore, Australia, and elsewhere.
But these office hubs, builds, and redesigns still bring us back to the question: what is the future of work? Martinez asks this question every day as he constantly readapts to challenging circumstances. Barring another pandemic, the hybrid model seems to make most sense for those at Tanium.
“I get to be lucky enough to play a part in people’s daily work experience and culture,” Martinez says. “My passion is working to understand what makes a person’s life better at work. I’m doing my best to serve those people, and I think we’re doing some great things here.”
For over 30 years, Scott + Reid has positioned itself as a premier contractor in Texas and Oklahoma, specializing in high-profile corporate remodeling, transformative capital improvements, and low-rise new construction. Our commitment to excellence has established us as a top industry player, while our community-driven approach earns us praise as an exemplary employer. Leading the charge, we prioritize client needs, providing vigilant oversight and innovative problem-solving to ensure a positive construction experience and project success.
Clune Construction is a national, employee-owned general contractor, with more than 700 talented professionals located in seven offices across the US. It is Clune’s mission to provide exceptional construction services to our clients and business partners and deliver results which always exceed expectations.
