Office for a "work from" culture

Leeson Medhurst, Head of Strategy - Peldon Rose

Creating an office to support a "work from" culture 

There is little doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has completely transformed the way we work. Across the world, businesses had to implement rapid changes to long established ways of working and enable mass remote working, in order to meet new restrictions and protect their teams. 

Last year, office fit out and design specialists, Peldon Rose commissioned a report into the Office of the Future in order to understand the long-lasting consequences of the colossal changes to working practices. 500 respondents shared insight into the impact of Covid-19 on business productivity, culture, staff wellbeing and development — and made their predictions on the workplace of tomorrow.   

Leeson Medhurst, Head of Strategy, Peldon Rose, explains how the office will need to adapt to create a ‘work from’ culture as the world returns to normality:

The pandemic forced a swift shift to remote working for the vast majority of people, something which few businesses had embraced fully before the spring of 2020. 

As people have adapted to working from home on a regular basis, many have embraced the various benefits that a flexible working arrangement can bring to their life. When we started analysing responses for our research into the future of the office, we quickly recognised that few employees would willingly give up this new way of life, which has brought a happier and healthier work-life balance to many. 

In fact, 88 per cent of the people we spoke to told us they wanted more versatility in their working environment, and 89 per cent wanted a more flexible approach to working in order to guarantee they had more time for their personal lives. 

In the face of such overwhelming support for flexible working, business owners will need to carefully consider how they manage a return to office-based working. 

Why return to the office at all?

While maintaining a remote operation may seem like the obvious answer given employees’ enthusiasm for it, business leaders need to balance a number of factors including employee satisfaction, wellbeing, productivity and performance. Almost half (48 per cent) of business leaders we spoke to told us that keeping employees motivated was their biggest challenge during lockdown, while 65 per cent said productivity between April-June 2020 was lower or the same when compared to the same period in the previous year. 

It’s also important to remember that we don’t yet know what the long-term mental health implications of lockdown will be. And, of course, not every employee will prefer the home-based working pattern. In fact, a quarter of respondents felt that their wellbeing had actually been impacted negatively by home working. 

How the office environment can be the answer

Blended working is likely to become the norm for most, with workers embracing the commute and the separation between work and life that it allows some days, while choosing slippers and a shorter commute to the kettle/fridge on others. In fact, over half of respondents (51 per cent) said they would like a mixture of home and office working in the future.  

When workers return to the office en masse once more, employers will need to take a flexible approach to work, both in response to changing restrictions and to cater for employees’ preferences. By implementing a more agile approach, employers can make sure that their teams benefit from the practical and social elements of office working, while also supporting a healthier work-life balance.

The office itself will need to change to accommodate new ways of working. Social distancing may remain in force, in some form, in the coming months, resulting in the need for physical changes to most office layouts.

What’s most likely is the linking of tasks to locations. So, if you’re spending a day tackling admin or solo work, you might choose to stay at home. You don’t need a team around you to complete these tasks, so there’s no loss of productivity. However, if you want to collaborate and bounce ideas off someone then the office will be the go-to destination. The same goes for meetings and events. 

Why we need the office

The office is about much more than just a physical place to do work. It’s a destination, a place where minds meet to tackle problems and enable growth, a place where working relationships blossom. 

More than four in five (84 per cent) of business leaders told us that a physical workplace contributes to instilling vision and purpose to employees. And 69 per cent believed that a positive and shared vision, purpose and culture is important when deciding to work for or continuing to work for a company. 

Workforces will return to the office, of that we are sure. What’s important now is how managers tackle blended working in a way that makes best use of their office space. 

Ends

Learn more about Peldon Rose here: https://www.peldonrose.com/