Invest in employee happiness, not desks and office supplies
In our founder’s article, we outlined Oasis and its brand proposition. In a second article, we dived deeper into the importance of introducing freedom and flexibility into the workplace as part of a new ecology of work. In this article, we’ll be highlighting how, for the employer, encouraging this environment is best practice in order to future-proof your company and your workforce — whether full time, part time, or freelance.
Too much time has been spent deliberating over how and what offices of the future should look like. Does an open plan design provide more spontaneous interaction between co-workers, and therefore stimulate new ideas? Will a generous refreshments bar help keep staff sustained enough to fulfill their best work? Can we hire a well-known architect or interior designer to bring a certain level of creative kudos in order to attract a particular type of candidate? Or even build yoga studios, in Twitter’s case. What has rarely been deliberated, however, is the concept of eradicating the office space as we know it altogether. That’s what we at Oasis are here to help with.
It’s something that was recently enforced as a requisite of preventative Covid-19 health practices, but it would be shortsighted to only see it as a temporary solution. Little has changed to the blueprint of office spaces and how they operate over the last 60 years or so, but have they been making employees happy? Office drudgery has become something of cultural folklore, satirised in film and television. It’s constricting and mundane. And what’s potentially even worse is when companies attempt to provide in-office perks which is akin to adult daycare: where companies rent an office, design various function rooms, fill them with people and expect them to be there every day 9–5 in the hope they’ll fulfill their jobs.
The outdated nature of work spaces and practices in modern day offices have not considered or consulted the employees’ happiness first and foremost. Instead, they’ve seen them as a commodity; a workhorse whose productivity is to be optimised. There’s a relatively simple formula to follow when it comes to achieving employee engagement, and it is as follows: flexibility ==> efficiency ==> quality of life ==> happiness. This ensures the focus is the output, not time spent between office walls. For too long offices have served as a central location for people to work together in. But measuring people by their time spent there is the worst KPI a company can have, it can’t be directly linked to personal output nor company profitability. And if companies want to survive in today’s competitive market they must shift their approach to a performance-point of view.
What offices have thus far failed to adapt to is the increasing knowledge sector; white collar workers whose main capital is knowledge and rarely need to be tied to one location or office to successfully complete their workload. For all working in this sector, the freedom to be able to work from anywhere is something that should be encouraged, not dismissed or considered a last resort option reserved strictly for global pandemics. And the financial benefits are huge: one study showed that if a company allowed an employee to work from home just half of the time, it would save on average €9,750 |($11,000 USD) per year for each employee working remotely, according to research-based consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics. Using some of this money to instead invest in remote office setups will show employees what and who is valued, in turn, building employee loyalty and most importantly, happiness.
It’s about increasing employee productivity and flexibility while looking at the bigger picture: the work load itself, while at the same time shrewdly decreasing phenomenal office costs: ground rent, energy bills, office supplies. Imagine: no more loud, distracting open plan offices, no more paralysing meeting culture when it can be avoided. Instead the opportunity to pick and choose the work environment suitable for the person and the project. Focus on employee engagement and see a shift to an output-driven way of working where the result is more important than the time spent between office walls. Facilitate environments that help employees value their newfound quality of life, instead of losing time to physically and emotionally draining commutes — which in turn is reflected in output, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Flexible working hours have been introduced by some companies as an employee perk and it’s certainly a step in the right direction, but why stop there? Why not flexible work locations, flexible work environments? Expecting everyone to be the same place every day to achieve productivity is an overhang from the first industrial revolution, and we are way past that. The office-as-a-service is passé; the new world is productivity-as-a-service. A world where the output is key and everyone is free to choose where to do it. That’s what Oasis is here to provide. Consider: a hybrid package of solutions that allow your people to pick the best place or environment to perform a specific task in the most productive and efficient manner. In the short term, it’s about offering a safe way to put your people back to work and reconnect your teams. Beyond that, it’s an entirely new way of working. A way that enables workers to have the power to choose and be in control of their desired activity and therefore output. There are two key work-related needs that form the basis of this: reconnect and refocus. Establishing a flexible work situation that allows for both to thrive when needed is the future of work.
There is no greater empowerment than the feeling of autonomy, nobody likes to be mithered or micro-managed. The key to having high performing and productive people is to build an environment and support system that does exactly that. Make them feel like the valued part of the company they are; give them ownership; give them flexibility; give them freedom. Tell them what to deliver, not how to deliver it.
Oasis provides you with the framework to save an enormous amount of money in commercial real estate and office design, and shift that investment to where it should be: with your people.
We supply your workers with the flexibility to check-in to the right spaces that fulfill their individual criterias for work. Nobody can anticipate what environment is best suited for individuals’ work needs. The only person capable of that is the person in question: so why not give that ability over to them. Allow them the freedom to choose where’s best for them to perform the specific task at hand. The company reward? Higher productivity and happier people.
