With all the talk about return to the office, my pressing question is- are you making your office a place worth coming back to? Hot take – people do not want to come back to an office only to spend all day on Zoom calls, deal with office drama, or be shut up in a cubical all day.
But they don’t really care about ping pong tables or nap pods either.
The conversations happening around when and how we work are all valid. And I see very few roles that will be full time virtual, forever. What I see instead is a radical reinvention of what we call work, with virtual work supplemented by regularly planned in person gatherings (which can happen on a variety of frequencies).
What do people need? In person interaction for some conversations and team building. For companies adopting a hybrid model, many are missing the mark. Teams commute in to sit in insolation and schedules may not line up.
Workplace design should be intentional and consider the unique needs of both the role and employee. This takes work and policies that provide both clarity (what’s expected) and flexibility (what’s possible). For too long, we’ve underutilized the power of human-centered design in the workplace because its time consuming and can be messy.
In the current world, that’s what candidates are demanding. And the businesses that step up to the challenge are going to win in the long run.
We recently facilitated a conversation with a local business, re-structuring how their team approached business. In the span of a few hours, key stakeholders came around the table to talk about the concerns, but also dream about how their team could lean into the future of workplace design.
What was the result? A clear picture of how their team does business and shared expectations around behaviors going forward. Targeted check ins on when and how they will re-evaluate what is and is not working.
Do you need a partner to design a workplace culture that WORKS for both your business and team? Schedule a free discovery call to learn how we partner with businesses just like yours to design the workplace of the future.
