The office talk: Covid changes in the office | 2 |
The coronavirus changed the world of work - maybe forever. We don't know when, or if, our societies might return to normal, and what kind of scars the pandemic will leave.
For employees, the shift was massive and very consequential. Millions of people have lived through lockdowns and made the abrupt shift to working from home, they created new expectations about flexibility, working conditions, and work-life balance.
We've tried to adapt to Covid-19, but what about the long term? Is work-from-home overhyped or here to stay? Will we go to the office again – and, if so, how often? What impact will a ‘hybrid’ office have on colleagues? And what will work mean in virtual?offices without day-to-day social interactions?
Flexible working hours?
Working 9-to-5, what a way to make a living, right? Well, not for everybody. The traditional pattern of working, introduced along with the conveyor belt in the 1900s, is starting to show cracks.
In Ford’s days, the maximum output was the key to success; today, though, we know that people aren’t like machines. Not everybody’s rhythms and skills mesh with a 9 to 5 schedule. Many companies are already experimenting with flexible working hours when employees can choose when to start and finish work to improve their work-life balance.
This flexibility has enhanced over recent years and is not limited to the office alone.
The idea that employees are like machines - if they put eight hours in you’ll get x dollars out - is absurd.
Work from home
Thanks to technology and with increasing commuting times, some employees started to take work out of the office and into their homes. Although practiced almost exclusively by upper management, or occasionally put to the test, many office workers, who were yet to discover working from home, suddenly were thrown into the ‘home office’.
With the sudden widespread of the Covid-19 virus, many offices were closed and entered a virtual world to limit the number of hospitalizations and deaths. For some, the new office offered advantages, like Skyping the boss in a pair of boxers. Others had to endure disadvantages like interrupting children, pets, or roommates, the allure of a midday nap on the couch, or lacking a quality desk and promoting the kitchen table and its dishes to personal office.
While nobody asked for this sudden change, many found the home office to be surprisingly useful. No more facing traffic jams, setting your own working hours, finding a better focus for cognitive tasks, dreadful meetings that turned into e-mails, and of course not worrying about the correct outfit. For many, it sounds like the dream: exchanging the suit and desk for pajamas and the couch.
So what happens when working from home is no longer obligatory? Will everybody simply return to the office, or is the home office here to stay? Now that working from home has been put to the test on a large scale, it’s time to evaluate it.
To work from home or not to work from home??
Let's take a deep dive into all aspects of the home office. What are the pros and cons?
Advantages of working from home
Disadvantages of working from home
We can conclude that home offices offer benefits, but can hardly be right for everybody. Seeing colleagues, holding some watercooler talk, or sharing the same lunchroom fosters friendships with colleagues that facilitate maintaining a good work-life balance. Slacking, Zoom meetings or Teams discussions just aren’t the same.
Many interactions can be transferred online, but not all. After the pandemic, people will choose to work from home more than they did before, but most employees want to return to the office. Some people will go to the office daily, others might pop in a few times a week, while another group might never make use of it anymore. Not allowing employees to work from home will no longer be acceptable for companies competing in the war for talent, and the physical workspace will become a conscious choice. Employers will have to adapt to this new change and allow people to work wherever and whenever they see fit - even if it’s just to stay in pajamas all day.
Most of us can cook a decent meal, but we still like to go out to a restaurant.
The best of both worlds: a hybrid reality
With employees being offered the possibility of working in the office or from home on any given day, the office will become a hybrid reality with both remote and in-office workers. Employees can opt to carry out focused work at home while supporting a healthy work-life balance, and also meet face-to-face, collaborate, mentor, and feel connected in the office.
Though the office won’t be replaced entirely by working from home, it will have to adapt to this new reality with some spatial changes that embrace and reflect remote benefits such as privacy, flexibility, and autonomy to offer the best of both worlds.
Post-pandemic, people are looking forward to returning to the office and want to spend the majority of the week there too. The office will become a place where like-minded people get together, sharing ideas and energy for the larger goal. A place where you experience belonging to the company, bring together clients and staff and feel the social and collaborative aspect of your job.
However, the office will have to prove to be worthy, it will have to meet the expectations built up during the extended period of working from home. Employees will question what the office has to offer them compared to their home situations. If conditions at home are poor for work, returning to the office becomes more attractive, and vice versa. The office of the future will compete with the quality of the home.
If we don’t give them a reason to commute in, they’ll go back home to do the work.?
Spatial changes
With employees only coming to the office a handful of days a week, an opportunity arises to rethink the spatial organization of the workplace. Instead of filling up opened spaces with private offices for upper management and rows of open desks for other employees, spaces could fulfill new functions for employees who can choose their ideal work setting for the day to suit what they have to do.
At home, employees can self-manage their breaks and move from the desk to the kitchen table, the couch, and even the backyard or the park. Offering similar levels of choice and flexibility in the office, with a range of workplaces and the ability to choose when to use them, is a token of trust that employees will value greatly.
You can’t create a perfect work spot for all people at all times, but you can provide the best environment for each task. By offering creative spaces, silent rooms for focused work, social hotspots to restore the weakened connection between colleagues, a lounge that resembles a living room with writable surfaces for brainstorming, and outdoor spaces that offer fresh air, employees can adapt their work station according to the nature of the task they are completing.
Instead of being pinned down on a chair for 8 hours straight, employees can self-manage their desired workplace based on noise levels, posture, distance, temperature, and personal feeling. The idea behind this ‘activity-based working’ is that employees will be more productive when they have the right space for the task they want to accomplish. To step into the future of work, workspaces should be treated as living, breathing organisms that adapt to employees’ needs, putting them at the center.
Nobody is coming back to the office just for a desk. It has to be an exciting place to connect with the company spirit, to get inspired, and to get work done.?
We still have a lot more to talk about! So, what will we cover in the following weeks?
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