Hybrid working may be here to stay, but the office remains mission critical

Last week’s national day of reflection not only marked the anniversary of the UK’s first nationwide lockdown, but also presented a moment for all of us to pause and acknowledge how our everyday lives have been fundamentally transformed as result of COVID-19. 

Reflecting on the past 12 months and the moment when the doors closed on our offices across the UK and Ireland, it was unimaginable that, whilst our field engineers and applications staff helped keep the NHS running, the kitchen table would become the primary place of work for the rest of our employees. The ingenuity, resilience and tenacity shown by our team during this time has been truly astonishing – particularly when you add in other factors ranging from home schooling to flat-sharing to isolation of being on one’s own.  

Squint, and you can see the prospect of office life flickering on the horizon. In the wake of last year, there has been a great deal of public debate about the future role of the office. Some say there is no need to step foot into a shared building again. Others insist there should be no permanency of working from home.

However this year of separation has highlighted to me how much I can’t wait to see the faces of my colleagues and to be able to safely unite everyone together again. And I’m not alone in this thinking.

Close conversations with colleagues in the UK and Ireland have shown that, when it is safe to do so, there is a strong desire to return to an office. We all fundamentally want a communal base that enables us to come together, to collaborate, to problem solve and to innovate. But it is also true that the role of the office needs to change. There is an acceptance that not everyone wants to or needs to come into the office for every meeting. 

Going forward we will cater for a mix of those who wish to work from the office five days of the working week, and others who prefer to spend some of the week working from home. Although we anticipate a shift in working patterns, not much will fundamentally change with our overall approach. The flexible and agile working policies we have long championed will continue to serve us well.

Opening the doors of our new home 

In preparation for this day, we have been working diligently amongst the COVID-19 restrictions to ready our new UK offices in Farnborough.  

Today, we officially open the doors to our new home, albeit in a limited and COVID-19 safe way, for those who have a strong business or personal need to be on site. Over time, restrictions will ease and this new space will unify our UK employees across the south east together in a new purpose-built facility, a dynamic space within Ascent 1, part of the Farnborough Aerospace Centre.    

We carefully chose this site to facilitate our future growth and enable a collaborative working environment for all our teams. It was also essential for our new office to reflect our commitment to sustainability and align with our globally binding ESG targets, particularly those focused on energy sources powering our new headquarters.

The office’s sustainability credentials include fitted solar panels to offset energy usage, electric vehicle charging points and natural habitats that are protected and encouraged, both around the office and in shared outside spaces.

Reimagine the workplace

Over the past year, it has become increasingly clear that the office is an integral part of our company’s culture. Its purpose may continue to evolve and as it does, we will continue to review and adapt how we engage with it to best suit employee needs.

The opening of our new headquarters gives us the opportunity to reimagine what our office means to us. Today, we will use it as a space to reunite our office-based colleagues in one location that drives innovation and fosters collaboration, whilst also reinforcing the agile working model we’ve long championed.

This is an exciting new chapter for Philips UKI and we are proud of the energetic and modern workplace we have created in Farnborough.  This next step enables to grow as a leading health technology company, dedicated to supporting the NHS and the health of the nation.