What is a hybrid office?
The common questions that have been posed over the last several months are “Should our team really go entirely remote?” or “When will we return to normal?” At Link2Lift, we believe the new workplace norm will be a hybrid of remote and in-person work. Reimagining this new work environment affects three major areas; people, workplace, and workflow.
This fall, offices are opening up as workers are craving human interaction beyond the pixelated smiles and headset hellos. The working-from-home experiment showed high productivity at the beginning of the pandemic, but workers longed for a defined work day and work space. A new workplace that combines face-to-face interaction with the distributed office has emerged. Office workers are returning to an era of toggling between home and office work and doing their best to stay in flow between the two places.
Link2Lift has developed a framework for studying the best practices for organizations to develop their own hybrid office scenario.
People
Employee wellbeing is a cornerstone of doing business. With most of 2020 spent working from home, employees are weary and anxious. The pandemic hasn’t disappeared, but organizations are choosing to balance the risk of being in the office with the reward of increasing collaboration and creativity. To mitigate the negative effects of this upheaval, wise organizations will invest in leadership. It will be money well spent to train managers to enhance their coaching skills and even assign a leadership role for remote personnel.
It is imperative for organizations to help employees manage their reentry anxiety. Nearly half of employees are concerned that their employers will bring them back to work before it’s safe, according to a national survey by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research.
Harvard Business Review offers five indicators that can serve both as a framework to help employers build their reentry plans and as measures by which to assess progress.
- Make employees’ wellbeing your top priority.
- Share accurate, timely, and transparent information; A consistent cadence of communications from your CEO or other trusted leaders is key to managing employee anxiety.
- Take swift action to implement recommended public health measures.
- Train leaders, managers, and colleagues on how to support employees; Leaders and managers will shoulder much of the responsibility for ensuring a smooth return to the workplace. Some are considering holding virtual “reentry boot camps”, focused on topics such as dealing with ambiguity, building personal resilience, developing emotional intelligence, and leading hybrid teams. Managers can model needed behaviors and share them with their teams to support new ways of working.
- Offer flexibility; for some industries, it is possible to get work done remotely and also while accommodating peoples’ preferred working hours/schedules.
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Place
The physical space you left in March should be adapted to give each worker more space and minimize the surfaces that need to be touched. Remote work remains the least expensive scenario for companies to implement, but a hybrid office environment delivers the best combination of productivity and creativity.
Offering the team flexibility to work from home in addition to a safe and spacious office environment will increase company loyalty and employee retention.
Permanent scars will be made in the office even after the pandemic is gone. Expect fewer desks, with empty space in between them, high plexiglass walls; hand sanitizer will always be in sight. Door handles will be obsolete. The building will know where you are and open doors and call elevators as you approach. Many of these changes may take time, except in lucrative industries; like security measures.
How Architects are Approaching Design Solutions
“We have to make everybody that uses those spaces feel like we’ve done our job to make them safe,” says Andrew Bennett, a design principal at the BOKA Powell architecture firm in Dallas, who has been working on office renovation strategies with the American Institute of Architects. The AIA has released guidelines for re-opening that enforce everything from social distancing to changes in airflow within buildings.
Architects are rethinking where to place restrooms, possibly eliminating facilities that accommodate multiple people. There’s interest in having more numerous, but smaller restrooms that keep people from gathering close to each other and can also be cleaned more quickly.
And one of the biggest improvements may be among the cheapest: remote work. Smith, with Bozzuto (real estate company), says letting workers spend some workdays out of the office has advantages for both the workers and the company. “This is a real opportunity for employers to really think about providing that flexibility as a benefit,” she says. “What you get in return is tremendous amounts of loyalty, more retention.”
Sun-filled, open-air workspaces not only help control the spread of germs, they’re pleasant to be in. It’s a direction designers were already moving in. In addition to the LEED standard for environmentally efficient buildings, architects also look toward livability standards, such as the Living Building Challenge and WELL, which take worker health into consideration.
Process
The hybrid office can sound like a dream come true, but the process of making it work requires clear guidelines and good technology. Watch for new and improved collaboration tools as innovators create solutions that make toggling from home and office more seamless.
Here are a few ideas to help you equip your workplace for remote and hybrid employees.
For the Remote Worker:
- Create Spaces for 1:1 Conversations (phone booths, small conference rooms, etc.)
- Invest in video conferencing tools.
- Utilize room booking systems.
For the Hybrid Worker:
- Use ‘Flex-Desking’ which allows hybrid workers to book desks when they need them.
- Incorporate ‘Wayfinding’ into your office to help workers find their way around the office (create an interactive map that labels rooms, desks, technology, etc.) Link2Lift can help with this!
How to Reimagine Your Processes
Reimagining and reconstructing processes and practices will serve as a foundation of an improved operating model that leverages the best of both in-person and remote work.
Reconstruct how work is done. Organizations should identify the most important processes for each major business, geography, and function, and re-envision them completely, often with involvement by employees. Leaders and team members should also spend time reflecting on the values and culture of the organization and the interactions, practices, and rituals that promote that culture.
Decide ‘people to work’ or ‘work to people’. As organizations reconstruct how they work and identify what can be done remotely, they can make decisions about which roles must be carried out in person, and to what degree. Roles can be reclassified into employee segments by considering the value that remote working could deliver.
Redesign the workplace to support organizational priorities. Organizations should reimagine their workspace design so that it supports the kinds of interactions that cannot happen remotely. If the primary purpose of an organization’s space is to accommodate specific moments of collaboration rather than individual work, for example, should 80 percent of the office be devoted to collaboration rooms?
Resize the footprint creatively. Take a transformational rather than incremental approach to reinventing the office footprint. Look at how much and where space is required and how it fosters desired outcomes for collaboration, productivity, culture, and the work experience.
This bold approach will also involve questioning where offices should be located. It is not our view that sacrificing physical office space altogether is worthwhile for an entirely remote team, because organizational culture and creativity is at stake. However, there are interesting approaches that may be worth exploring to reduce real estate costs. Many companies will continue to lease or own space in big cities, which many regard as essential to attract young talent and create a sense of connection and energy. Others may abandon big-city headquarters for suburban campuses. Some could also increase their organizational resilience and reduce their level of risk by having employees work in many different locations.
Work with Link2Lift to Make a Reentry Plan
We work with our clients to reimagine space and create a return to work plan that we call Navigating Flexible Space. This process involves workshops to explore how your people, place and processes can be adapted for this new hybrid workplace. We will co-create a final plan and map of your space that fits your organization’s unique culture and workflow, and communicates the new way to work to your entire team. Get in touch with us at hello@link2lift.com if you would like to explore the possibility of creating a plan for your organization as you reenter the workplace!
