The office must now sing for its supper: making the workplace about the individual, not the collective
One striking feature of the pandemic has been the volume of ink spilled debating the future of the office. The huge and rapid shift to working from home for large sectors of the economy made not only individual employees but companies as well look around themselves and say, “This seems to work: should we have been doing this all along?”
Almost every conceivable opinion has been offered on how we will earn our living in “the new normal”, a phrase to which many are now rightly allergic.
Some employers sought the advantage of the early adopter: Twitter announced last May that its workforce would be allowed to stay at home for good if they wished, eyeing reports of higher productivity (and, perhaps, the opportunity to reduce its physical footprint).
Others, like Barclays, have stressed the importance of physical contact, and its CEO, Jes Staley, said last summer that “We want our people back together, to make sure we ensure the evolution of our culture and our controls, and I think that will happen over time”.
But there is a particular concern in Canada that having large numbers of staff working from home has a frightening knock-on effect for company culture as well as the economic ecosystems in which offices operate. Canary Wharf was virtually deserted for the bulk of last year, a hard summer for retailers and hospitality, and the Square Mile itself felt like a ghost town. The coffee shops, pubs and restaurants depend on people returning to the office.
That there will be negative consequences if people stay home, will not in itself coax back reluctant employees. So the office must now earn its keep. In an age where options are everything, the office must make staff swipe right, to borrow an apt phrase.
It is now obvious, and widely accepted, that at least the short- to medium-term future will be a kind of hybrid working in which employees come in to the office at times, but probably don’t spend a five-day working week there.
How, then, do we make the office both attractive and efficient? If we look at it as an expensive overhead—in some cases very expensive—how do we reimagine it as a productive part of a company’s expenditure? Space10, the Copenhagen-based research and design lab funded by Ikea to “create a better every day life”, recently published a piece on the restructuring of their office environment. It contains some interesting pointers which employers might think about as they begin to unlock.
As a founding principle, the “office 2.0” must be designed around the needs and the preferences of its inhabitants, rather than the other way round. What WFH has underlined is that, both physically and mentally, people work in a variety of ways. Some like the old-fashioned formality and structure of sitting at a desk of their own with a computer screen in front of them. Others prefer to move around and seek variety, so office 2.0 must accommodate both of those, with individual desks and more freeform communal work stations.
Posture is another issue. While ergonomics haunts offices like a minatory spectre, workers expect a better fit. Inflatable balls, standing desks and even kneeling chairs have all had their time in the sun. But there needs to be a broader look forward at the type of workers jumping back on their morning commute.
Some, particularly younger employees, may prefer an armchair and a laptop on their knees, recreating the informality to which they’ve grown accustomed over lockdown. There is no reason why office 2.0 should not accommodate that too. Perhaps, offices’ internal coffee shops should be regeared to fit a generation of workers who want to be able to work in an atmosphere that is less formal and more spontaneous.
Employers should also be flexible and responsive in terms of the general atmosphere of the office. WeWork was famously innovative in this regard, operating so-called Labs where start-ups could co-locate and share ideas, and playing heavily on the leisure facilities and free drinks available in its co-working spaces.
Although the company’s downfall may have tarnished its legacy, it pioneered valuable ideas, and if office 2.0 can recreate the best of a WeWork atmosphere, it will have achieved something significant.
The office cake can be sliced many ways: flexible dividers to afford privacy when required; break-out rooms for a change of scenery to stimulate people’s creativity; even the provision of spaces where people can nap if that suits their working rhythm.
The fundamental point is this: if office 2.0 is somewhere employees visit only occasionally—say, two days a week—it needs to be attractive, welcoming and conducive to high-quality work.
Real estate is expensive, and now more than ever each line on a balance sheet should be scrutinised very carefully. For the office to justify its place, it has to be not just an overhead, but a physical and mental asset.