Is the Office Still Alive?

Yes, it absolutely is!

While there are many lines of thought and ideas (including this article) surrounding what the return to office looks like for many of us, what stands out is: what is an office without its people.

I have had the privilege of attending many webinars and co-hosting several and the overwhelming theme is our people. How does the return to the office look for them? How do we look after their safety and wellbeing? How do we support them remotely? Above all, how do we keep our company's culture and organization intact so the employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of where they are working.

Return to The Office

The term "return to work" is often used however, we have all been working remotely so it is a return to a destination rather than the activity. What will that destination feel like? What is the new normal?

I was recently involved in a CoreNet Hackathon on Workplace Wellbeing and we started by creating a storyline of a day in the life of an employee in the post-COVID world. What was an eye-opener was the return to the office starts the moment I walk out the front door. What is my commute like? While my employer may have a great protocol plan for the workplace how do I stay protected in my commute? I doubt anyone commuting into NYC like myself wants to sit in an additional 45 minutes of traffic through the Lincoln Tunnel every day because more folks turn to driving in.

There is a lot of chatter about how will physical distancing work, how do you get x number of employees in an elevator or into the workspace. Do you need "sneeze guards" or wayfinding reminders? While each of these may be necessary for the short term, I think we need to mindful that many city/state regulations are requiring a phased return to the office. So on day one do you see 100% of your staff coming back or is it more like 25%? It then becomes a question for the workplace or facilities team to ask how much do you invest in items that will be disposed of later? Do you want your workplace to feel like a healthcare center or the destination that it was designed to be?

Having gone to our local Home Depot & Wegmans recently, I did not enjoy the experience. The pressure of everyone racing to get in and out, isles turned into one-way streets and minimum human interaction made the entire journey stressful. Will employees want to work from the office if we are all sitting 6' apart, our usual amenities taped off, and mask over our face?

So how do we make the office a second safe haven?

As one of our webinar panelists put it "we have to look at the now/the next/the new". I would add this also needs to be looked at through the lens of pre-vaccine & post-vaccine. The now is almost past. We have just completed the greatest work from home experiment and it worked. The next is the challenge that many CEO's / Facilities Teams are trying to plan. How do we get our team physically back in the office? As noted there will be short term protection devices, phased working, 4 day work weeks etc. But how do we create human interaction? Chance water cooler meetings when they are taped up?

As Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor and author said, “in the future, physical meetings will be sacred”. He said this a few years ago now but a spookily accurate statement in the face of the current climate. 

It will take a deliberate and concentrated effort to make sure that whatever the next step for your company is that it involves the human connection. Many of the projects we worked on were design specifically with this in mind and I don't see that given up easily. With reduced staff in the workplace, it will provide the opportunity to experiment with designs and office layouts that previously would have been a disruption. Take the next 12 to 24 months to create your experimental workplace and that will become the new!

As this new takes hold I think we will see a greater need for more open collaborative spaces that an employee can drop into when not working from home. Areas that are not just defined by activity but also the user's preference. I may not feel comfortable working at bench desking so I tend to use more of a private setting. Or perhaps I would rather be surrounded by my colleagues every day. This is what makes up the human connections in our workplace.

While change has been forced on many of us, let's take this opportunity at hand to make a change for good so that as this period of our lives dims with time, positive change lives on!

Read some great insight from Spacestor on returning to the workplace: https://spacestor.com/talent/whitepaper-envisioning-the-workplace-return/

Make sure you register to join our next webinar: https://spacestor.com/insights/insights-live-from-spacestor/