From Doom & Gloom To Alive & Thrive - The future of work after Covid-19.

The future of work in a vaccinated world is approaching fast, as we know some organisations are re-opening their offices, whilst others have announced their plans to implement a hybrid work model as the UK start to relax the restrictions.

Some have really enjoyed working from home and settled into a new routine; however, others have struggled with working from home for many reasons. The work and home life are massively blurred, and some have struggled to identify when to stop working, how to set personal boundaries or simply have found it hard to work in their home environment due to lack of space. Not to mention that we had been under intensive restrictions – not being able to see our family & friends.

I do admit that I’m one of the employees that have settled into the remote working role very well, I have enjoyed it thoroughly and I believe that my productivity has improved. However, on the flip side, I'm also very keen to get back to the office, take the lessons that I have learnt over the last 14 months and be around my colleagues once again.

Here at IAC, we have been back to the office since the start of June and if I’m being honest – I have enjoyed it so much. I genuinely look forward to the days that I’m travelling to the office; something about being in the city and being with my colleagues makes me feel energetic and ready for my day! The environment is vibrant, the office has a buzz to it and the conversations are quick-witted. This is something that I can't get through another video call if I was to work from home 24/7.

The Best Practice Institute (BPI) has completed a study and have found that over 83% of CEO’s were wanting their employees back in the office in 2021, whilst only 10% of employees were wishing to be back in the office full time.

Over the last few weeks, it has made me question whether we have multiple groups of people with very different visions about the future of work. On that basis, I thought it would be useful to gather some information for you.

On the 8th of June, I asked my LinkedIn network to consider three questions before selecting the group they want to be in.

Questions that everyone was asked to think about before selecting the group they fall into were:

Q: Are you putting yourself first?

Q: Are you being strategic about your setup?

Q: How often do you declutter your workspace?

Group A: Work from home 100% of the time.

Group B: Work from the office 100% of the time.

Group C: Hybrid’s – those who like a mixture of both working from home & the office.  

From the research that I conducted; the results are as follows:

·       Group A – 21% of people wanted to work from home 100% of the time.

·       Group B – only 4% of people wanted to work from the office 100% of the time.

·       Croup C – 75% of people wanted a mixture of both environments.

In conclusion, it is clear to see from the results that the majority of people would like to opt-in for more of a hybrid work model. Personally, I do agree with the result too, we are able to maintain the work-life balance and have an office setting to see the team and interact with different people a few times a week.

Inevitably, the way we move forward will never make every single person happy but here are my personal thoughts for each one of the questions that I asked you all to think about, in the hope that this will be something you keep in mind as we move forward in the post-pandemic world.

Are you putting yourself first?

Do you feel that your week at work felt intensive? The boundary between work and home life is blurred and as a result, this contributes to employees burning out quicker.  Working from home for most of us means that we are sat at our desk for a large part of our time, those lunch breaks are shorter and fitting those steps in is a bigger challenge!

Tip: take regular breaks every 2 hours and time out space in your diary each day even for 20-30 minutes to do something non-work related and get some fresh air!

Are you being strategic about your set-up?

Do you get tired easily during the day when working from home? Your work environment at home has an impact on productivity levels and general happiness. People often forget how much some background noise can contribute to our environment in a positive way.

Tip: Set your workstation up in a bright and light space, natural daylight is so beneficial to us! Sometimes for background noise, I have Kisstory or BBC 1Xtra on the radio! (Although I must publicly declare that me singing along to a bit of Arianna Grande won’t get me on X-Factor with Simon Cowell anytime soon!).

How often do you declutter your workspace?

Having a clear work and neat workspace is essential, have you sometimes just left your laptop, notepad, and everything that you used all over the desk and went back to it the next morning? Keeping your desk neat and tidy provides a clear mind each morning. Treat your home space, like you would a public office by clearing away each day.

Whilst it is important to keep your desk neat physically it is also important to think about this from a digital perspective, we spend so much time on our laptops each day, have you organised your folders? Have you got rid of documents you haven’t used in the last 2 years?

Tip: Decluttering both physically and digitally is looking after your well-being during work!