Why return to the office at all?

With the easing of coronavirus restrictions on the horizon, planning has begun to enable staff to return to their workplace for at least some of the time.

Typically, the professional workplace is designed to provide us with opportunities to collaborate and engage with others face-to-face. These interactions are formal and informal in nature, with office design recognising the importance of the workplace as a location for serendipitous discussions and discoveries. We also know the workplace can contribute to providing us with a sense of belonging, and can help us to build and maintain a strong culture, and connections, amongst staff.

However, in our COVID-19 cognisant workplaces, many of these aspects will be challenged; no bumping into colleagues in the 'one-way-only' corridor, no perching on a chair next to a coworker and looking at their computer screen to work through a problem together, no more department-wide milestone celebrations in the breakout cafe. Gatherings in the workplace will be restricted and, in some cases, our attendance at a meeting will be limited to logging in from the computer at our desk.

We are aware of the aspects of our physical workplace that needs to change for our safety, namely; distancing, increased hygiene measures, a reduction in non-owned space, and less sharing and mobility. However with the collaborative, social and cultural aspects of office life impacted, and potentially neutralised in some cases due to social distancing, what can we reasonably expect from our workplaces? If working from home (WFH) is now accepted as necessity and people are more familiar with virtual collaborative tools, what is the purpose of coming into the office? The question must be asked, why return at all? And, what new role with the workplace play?

Will the key role of the workplace be to ensure that the desired culture isn't eroded? Will it be to foster a sense of belonging? In some organisations it might be to ensure that tacit knowledge is shared; that junior staff can overhear senior staff. Maybe it's also about checking in with staff face-to-face, to ensure that they are being supported on a personal and professional basis. There are a multitude of reasons that people will chose to come into the office, but arriving at work on Monday morning at 8.30am out of habit, will not be one of them.

We have, on the whole, been able to find ways to use virtual technology to connect with colleagues while WFH. We know it can be a suitable tool to discuss ideas, not so good to sing happy birthday in unison to a colleague. Despite limitations on the size of gatherings allowable in our workplace, perhaps it's still worth coming into the office to be able to read the body language of the smaller number of people we are communicating with face-to-face.

For those with busy home lives and caring responsibilities, or who live in a shared house, perhaps the workplace will become a place for individual / focussed work? For others, this situation is reversed; home is the location for concentrated work, and the office a space to connect with others.

Neither working remotely nor the allocation of space can be a reflection of hierarchy. If a junior staff member has slow WiFi and lives in a noisy share house they may need to come into the workplace to concentrate, and the 'corner office' should be theirs for the day. If a director has a home office, perhaps they should be allocated a position in the spacious open plan with no occupied desks around them, to enable other staff to have an unplanned face-to-face conversation with them from a safe distance. Now more than ever before, the allocation of space must be about what is best for the organisation and take into account an individuals unique circumstances.

We must also recognise that for some, home is not a refuge, and the safest place to work may in fact be the office. While for others with health concerns or a lower tolerance for risk, the only safe environment may be their home. Care must be taken to ensure that people who need to work in the office or the home full time are able to do so, and those needs will be based on productivity, workflow, and the protection and safety of staff. Human Resources, ICT and Real Estate have always been tied, the difference now is that every organisation recognises this and is living and breathing this reality.

Shake off the shackles of benchmarking other organisations use of space. This is the time to go back to first principles, and remove any assumptions about your workplace environment and the role it plays for your people and the organisation as a whole. Ask yourself, "what role will the office play"?

Julia Simmons has over 20 years of experience develop workplace strategies for organisations around the world.

contact julia.simmons@spacematters.com.au