As the economy reopens, competition will be fierce due to the global pandemic. Winners will understand their customers' demands, cooperate to find numerous answers, develop, iterate, and market new ideas. workers believe working from home and the office helps them be creative, solve problems, and establish relationships. 72% of corporate leaders plan to offer a hybrid model, and only 13% expect to reduce their real estate footprint in the next year, showing organisations will continue to use existing offices in a hybrid work future.
Hybrid will be difficult. Who works from home and how often is a complex topic that varies per company. Poor execution could undermine culture, collaboration, and creativity. Well-executed hybrid workplaces can bring people together and improve productivity.
Winners realise that human-centered workplaces and organisational resilience will help them go forward, learn, and remain competitive. Over 50% of Pakistan. organisations plan to explore new locations as part of their return to the office this year, such as turning a café into a high-energy social and collaborative space that supports new hybrid work patterns.
As architects and office-furniture designers for the world's leading companies, we offer four design ideas for hybrid strategies.
Digital and physical experience intertwine
As global team leaders, we know it's difficult to bridge the gap between in-person and remote participants. Hybrid work implies there will always be a remote worker, no matter how effectively teams organise their in-office days. Remote workers can become dissatisfied and disengaged if they can't contribute equally. This is especially true for creative and imaginative activity, such as brainstorming, which uses analogue whiteboards or other tangible objects.
Integrate physical environments with technology with equity, engagement, and convenience.
Many conference rooms include long tables with monitors at the end. Remote participants are shown in a grid of tiny boxes on the same screen as shared content.
Giving each participant a screen on a mobile cart can increase equity. Remote coworkers can join a breakout session or the table. Many software solutions can divide people and content on screens.
People must see each other and the content to be engaged. For digital-to-physical employee engagement, think lighting, camera, audio, and content. Angled or moveable tables, extra lighting, speakers, microphones, and markerboards and displays are some solutions.
More participants will connect to a conference on their own devices and the room's technologies, according to studies. Abundant power supply, whiteboards, and software solutions facilitate hybrid communication.
Open and Closed Spaces
Open plans need rethinking. Individual workstations have become more open and dense, while meetings are place in conference rooms. As workers return, these areas will change. Individual focus work will be done in pods or tiny enclaves. Meetings will be held in open settings with moveable borders.
Open collaborative spaces are more adaptable since they don't require fixed features, thus they can adapt to new work patterns. Innovation, problem-solving, and co-creation typically use agile methodologies, such as fast stand-up meetings with visible, persistent information in open spaces with adjustable furniture, easy-to-access electronics, and other design aspects.
Individual spaces will need more enclosure to provide the visual and aural seclusion home workers anticipate. Enclosures – screens, panels, pods — will help people focus and reduce distractions.
Become fluid
Business and change are accelerating while buildings are constructed for longevity. Pop-ups and coworking arrangements with shorter lease durations show slow-fast tensions. How much space do corporations with real estate need?
The hybrid future creates a flexible, fluid workplace. This boosts creativity and company culture and optimizes real estate. At Steelcase, we designed an open area that accommodates hybrid meetings in the morning, becomes a café at lunch, and holds a town hall in the afternoon and evening.
Balance Work Together
Many leaders have concluded that the office is a place for collaborative work because of the pandemic. Gensler's Research Institute showed full-time work-from-home employees' collaboration time dropped 37% during the pandemic. Two-thirds of CEOs want to increase in-person and hybrid collaborative spaces, according to Steelcase study.
Collaboration requires both group and solo work. Effective collaboration occurs when people work as a team and then separate to focus individually, process ideas, and complete tasks. Too much together time without adequate individual focus time can lead to groupthink, therefore it's crucial to balance "we" and "me" spaces when constructing workspaces.
Employees report higher productivity when they can work uninterrupted from home in the past year. We must provide private spaces in the office, and employees should be able to switch tasks without travelling across campus or using sophisticated technologies.
Comentários