The need for flexible workspaces

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What's on our mind this week

I was called last week by a journalist about my perspective on the 'death of the office'. At the time, I was in a hotel in Wales about to deliver a virtual Squiggly Career session for a client. The wifi was dicey and I'd had to pair my laptop to the hotspot on my phone, with my fingers crossed that everything worked ok. I'll be honest, a quiet office with reliable wifi felt quite appealing.

Afterwards, I reflected on the headlines I was seeing and the risk of a divided workforce and increasingly divisive narrative about flexible working.

Personally, I love being in an office. I just don't want to be there all the time. I also love working from home, but I don't want to be there all the time either. What I really want is flexible working in flexible workspaces. I want to be in an office for connection and creativity (as good as virtual tools like Mural and Miro are, innovation feels easier when teams are together). As a small business owner, I want flexible workspace contracts without punitive clauses when my circumstances change (thankfully Adapt has been a great find for our business ... and a safe working environment of course!).

I want to be able to have informal discussions over coffee and build the 'loose ties' that are so important to our careers and fuel for innovation. In this World Economic Forum article, Carlo Ratti, a director at MIT, talks about the negative implications they are seeing on interactions and ideas as a result of working remotely for an extended period of time.

In an attempt to build a bridge to a 'new normal', I've heard of some companies introducing a 2:2:1 rule. 2 days in the office, 2 days at home and 1 day where the location is your choice. I understand the need to create certainty for people, but any attempt to 'fix' flexibility seems incongruous to me.

It's not easy and flex is certainly in flux, but I think before organisations bring back people to offices, they need to really think about why the work that happens there is better and how to design the workspaces so it enables the best bits of coming physically together to happen. Deloitte put it well in their recent report "Reimagining the office and work life after COVID-19" which is well worth a read if you're interested in this area.

Our weekly recommendations to 'read, watch, listen'

Hope this has been a useful read. The aim is to post every Friday. Feedback always welcomed in comments or DM'd.

Helen