The future of office work

For the past 3 months I have been back in the office most days. For some this will be unthinkable and for others it will be quite unremarkable. After an 18-month experiment living as a digital nomad of sorts, I have been paying close attention to the conversation about the return to work.?I have concluded that we have got ourselves into something of a pickle and the future of work is still to be built.

The thing I hear people and companies talking about most is where they will work and specifically the number of days they will work in their primary office. Whilst this is an output of a conversation about workplace flexibility this is a very narrow discussion about a deeply complex and important conversation. Indeed there are three schools of thought:

The #digitalnomad evangelists

Laptops on beaches make for great posts and I must say I love the idea, but how many people can work this way and for how long? Many will be screaming at me LOTS and FOREVER and whilst I hope this will provide incredible experiences, working this way has limitations which must be considered.

?The #returntowork club

I recently listened to a self-made uber-successful entrepreneur who was mandating to his team that they must be back in the office 5 days a week. He was completely rigid in his view and was willing to lose/not hire people who did not see the world the same way as him. Then there was Jacob Rhys-Mogg who with his passive-aggressive desk-drop that gave the world a lesson on management…. from 1975. Senior leaders and business owners have every right to choose how their employees work… but at what cost?

The #hybrid workers

We all do a bit of hybrid, right? Talk to your employees, agree a mix of 2/3/4 days in the office and voila, everyone is happy? Whilst it is fashionable to say so, how do you ensure you don’t end up with the worst of worlds?

Rather than counting the days we need to have a conversation about the problems and opportunities we have as individuals, teams, business and human beings. So how do we take the conversation beyond a quota of days in the office and a stand off between employees and management? It's all about solving real-life problems:

The individual

• Demographics - How will you appeal to younger employees who tend to value flexibility. How will you appeal to young families who have different needs? What are the needs of people who live on their own and see work as a release? How will you manage as employees move through life stages?
• Well-being - How will you look out for vulnerable employees, spot signs of stress, burnout?

?The team/business

• Team building - How and when will you connect to build a strong team with a shared set of values?
• Relationships - What kind of a relationship do you want with your colleagues? How will you build that??
• Culture - How will you create and maintain a strong culture and identity?

?Employee experience

• Compensation - Flexibility is widely considered a benefit. If you don’t offer this, what else are you willing to give?
• On boarding - How will you get your new starter up to speed? Of course it can be done remotely but a new process should be considered
• Career development - How will you and your work be seen by important people in the business? How will you build your reputation? (Sorry to burst your bubble but quietly doing good work is not enough)

?Doing the work

• Innovation and creativity - What is the best environment for your company/team/you to ideate? How will you make this happen?
• Efficiency and productivity - How will your teams work so they don’t spend time and money to come to the office only to sit on video calls all day. How will your teams work so that a 30 second face-to-face conversation is not 5 emails/slack messages?

My view is that in the future companies will form different workstyles varying between remote working, office working, the metaverse and any hybrid combination of the three. Employees will seek out companies who share their vision of work. The dust has not settled and this will continue to evolve over the years driven by business results, employee needs and technological advances.

?The huge challenge is that 2.5 years ago most of us were not working from home and today we wake up to find we work in a completely different way (or not). Companies have not had the chance to develop ways of working and many employees have not been able to align their needs with their company. So what can we do about it?

Have a conversation as a company and as a team within that company. What are your needs as individuals and what are your needs as a collective?

Commit as a team. Individuals have different needs. The best teams flex to meet the needs of individuals but focus on the sum or the parts. This involves give/take and compromise.

Orchestrate it. In the end, many will end up with a hybrid model. But this needs conscious planning to ensure there are moments for connection, meetings and flexibility.

Review. It won’t be static. Businesses need change, individuals needs change. Check in as a team to see how you are going.

?The future is uncertain but the direction of travel is clear. In a time poor world flexibility is something of great value. Invest the time to get the most of out of it for everyone.