Stephanie Peters, Walgreens Workplace Whiz Kid

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There was a good reason Stephanie Peters got a call from Walgreens in 2018. In her previous role, Peters ran space implementation projects in Chicagoland, Thousand Oaks, California, Toronto, Boston, and the Empire State Building in New York City. What started as an office admin position ended with Peters becoming a bona fide workplace strategy master.

When the workplace strategy master hands over an office, she makes sure she’s checked off every “little thing” on her list. They’re the details that people notice immediately.

“The weekend before a handoff, I’m labeling file cabinets and drawers and making sure there are magnets on the refrigerator and paper towels [on the counters],” Peters explains. Those small touches “influence how someone experiences a space for the first time,” she says. “I don’t want to just hand over a building. I want to hand over an experience.”

That’s why Walgreens called her when it created a team to centralize operations like reception services, administrative services, facilities, and cafeteria supplies under one banner. Peters ultimately led the team of twenty as director of workplace solutions. Together, they make the Walgreens campus hum like a hive of busy, happy bees.

A Pivot and A New Furniture Era

Peters says her organization is entering slightly more “normal” times than the “return to office” push of the last few years. But that return has included some serious pivot points. Last summer, leadership decided to sell five of its nine buildings in Deerfield, Illinois. Peters and her team developed a plan to close the building to prepare for eventual sale and figure out how best to distribute employees across the consolidated footprint.

Then October came, and some big changes with it.

“We had a change in leadership, and as our interim CEO was getting ready to start, there was the recognition that things had changed,” Peters explains. “We needed to develop a cohesive strategy to get more people back in the office.”

To deliver on the new strategy, the team needed to reactivate additional square footage within the office. They rose to the occasion and had most of the space up and running in three months.

“We needed to develop a cohesive strategy to get more people back in the office.”

Stephanie Peters

The team’s speedy execution was impressive, but the real accomplishment was the lasting change Peters spurred in the process. Peters got a budget that accounted for brand-new furniture. She countered that her team could come in faster and under budget by using refurbished, reused, and refinished furniture.

“That had never been done here,” Peters explains. Fortunately, leadership trusted Peters and gave her the go-ahead, leading to $2.6 million savings in furniture costs alone. Not to mention the environmental benefits.

“Sustainability is a big deal to me,” Peters says. “The bulk of office furniture ends up in a landfill. It’s a gross and very public reality. I’m so proud of the change we’ve been able to embrace and be part of.”

The Employee Experience

Although Peters and her team seek out more opportunities to save the organization money, they don’t do it at the expense of a gratifying employee experience. Many times, it comes back to those little things that slowly add up over time. The team knows these amenities might seem like low-hanging fruit, but they impact employees’ lives every single day.

For example, Peters and her team went to bat to make sure employees had dual monitors at every workstation along with docking stations for computers. Neither Peters nor her people want employees to worry about lugging “wall-part” power supplies to and from home.

Peters jokes that employee excitement about the workstations overshadowed another new development: Walgreens secured more employee parking close to the office so employees wouldn’t have to take shuttles anymore.

Peters and her team collaborated with many people to bring the campus back to life. They worked with partners across the organization—including in finance and IT—and found quality secondhand and new office furniture from vendors such as OFR, Steelcase, and Rightsize. These vendors “moved mountains to get us all the furniture in time to make our openings,” Peters says.

These are among the dozens of small wins Peters has made happen for Walgreens employees. With food service recently added to her purview, Peters says she’s more determined than ever to continue delivering the best for all those under the red and white banner.

“The bulk of office furniture ends up in a landfill. It’s a gross and very public reality. I’m so proud of the change we’ve been able to embrace and be part of.”

Stephanie Peters

Looking ahead to the next 12–24 months, Peters says she’s also focusing on creating more space for in-person interactions. “I’m looking forward to creating those collaboration spaces, where people from different departments are whiteboarding and working together,” the director says.

Peters says she’d much rather bring attention to her team than herself, but there are a few details about this workplace whiz kid you need to know. She’s a proud mom and stepmom, a comedy and live music fanatic, a “millennial stereotype true crime junkie,” and a secret NASCAR buff. Not so secret is her drive to create memorable experiences for her Walgreens community.

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