Back To A New Office Life – Why This Is So Important

Coping with all the current bad news and day to day challenges on your own is impossible. Everyone needs their families, friends, and - I guess - colleagues to get yourself through your days.

Over the past months, I have been thinking a lot about how ‘returning’ to the office should work like. According to this interesting article , the key ‘New Work’ expectation from an employee towards an employer is a positive culture. To make the office an attractive place, you need to prepare for effective and inclusive meeting formats, to create an environment to trigger discussions and brainstorms in a casual environment, and many other things.

Since the first lockdown in March 2020, over 100 new employees have started at DCS. Most of them with an international background. And naturally, they are especially eager to connect, to meet the teams, to learn and to be creative together, sharing ideas, having fun.

I’m happy to say that this week marks the first stage of our ‘Back To Life at DCS Offices’ journey. Not because it’s the ‘office’ – it’s because it is ‘social’. After many months of isolation, one might not be feeling it – yet after a first kick-start we will value the real-life social interaction. Because it is natural. All conferencing systems in the world are not able to mirror that. We celebrated this on Monday with pizza and beer with everyone present. We are working towards a balanced mix between days in the office and at home. While people can make their own choices, I believe that meeting your colleagues in the office has benefits for everyone.

And the ‘office’ can be revolutionized in many areas as well. We are starting with creating clearly defined quiet and communication zones in each of our Berlin and Munich offices. This will allow to be focused in quiet zones when needed – but also mingle with and talk to your colleagues in comms zones. On top of that we created phone booths. And we offer cool noise-cancelling headphones to all our staff.

In June, we are planning to move into our new Berlin office. I’m already excited about a new inspiring, creative and collaborative environment that should drive innovation at DCS further.

The new reality is something we all need to create together – and we should learn from each other. Please feel free to share your thoughts and what your company is doing.