Workplace Flexibility into the Future – a follow up to our recent white paper from the “Before Times”
Plenty has been written and speculated about the impacts of COVID19 on the office and we have all been inundated with theories about the future of the workplace, but one thing seems clear. It is possible, and acceptable, for a large proportion of our workforce to be successful, functional, and productive in places other than the traditional office setting. Probably not all the time, not every person, and not every job – but a lot more than most people had thought. However, planning is critical now so that the trust that has been built out of necessity during an emergency evolves into policy, good practice, and improved communication. One note – this is primarily relevant to knowledge work and not necessarily applicable to business needs such as laboratories, manufacturing, and other types of work that do require a physical presence.
As many have said, we are already in the middle of a massive pilot study and we need to take action from what we’ve learned so far. There have been numerous surveys during the past few months that have evaluated the work from home experience: two to highlight are the Leesman Home Working Experience (based on their Leesman Index) and the IFMA Workplace Evolutionaries survey. The Leesman Home Working Experience has over 50K responses to date (beginning of August), and shows that 80.9% of respondents feel that they can work productively at home. Digging into the data a little further, however, employees relate that 71.1% are able to maintain a healthy work-life balance, and 66.6% feel connected to their colleagues. Given the suddenness of the switch to WFH, the lack of evaluation and training, and the full-time nature of this change, these results are encouraging. However, it points us directly to some areas that need more attention; given the ongoing nature of the pandemic, it is time to look for these potential areas of difficulty and act before things become a problem. A thoughtful approach now will encourage companies to support flexibility in the future.
The amount of time spent in each location, whether the traditional office or elsewhere, is something to be determined by each organization, each employee, each personal situation, and by the work required. Most recent surveys validate what workplace strategists have recommended for years – two to three days per week in each location seems to be ideal for most people, and employees have indicated a strong desire to continue working from home part-time even after things “return to normal.” A recent survey on LinkedIn, for example, with over 200K participants indicated that only 5% of the respondents wanted to work in the office 5 days per week.
Resiliency in so many areas is now a key focus, and talent resiliency is at the top of the list. Figuring out the specifics to support our employees will take new systems and processes, close coordination with business leadership, Employee Experience, Real Estate, HR, IT, Risk, and other key business areas. It will be a loss to our future flexibility if organizations fail to take charge of these conversations now and make the necessary adjustments to their policies and procedures to strengthen the positive elements and address any deficiencies that have become clear during the past months. Companies that already had workplace flexibility policies in place should also take a hard look at how more support and training can be provided and consider what changes might be helpful to strengthen their programs. Taking action now is especially critical since some companies have indicated that most employees will continue to work from home full-time for many more months. The following areas highlight some of the Mistakes to Avoid from the Era of the Mobile Workforce: 8 Mistakes for FMs to Avoide when Launching Workplace Mobility Programs guide that we must address.
Training
Typical workplace flexibility programs take a few months to develop, coordinating policies and procedures with multiple groups within an organization, often starting with a pilot study to work out the kinks. A key factor in the success of these programs is training for the employees, the managers, and the co-workers so that everyone learns how to work in the new model of distributed teams. One of the most important elements is to fully switch to measuring employees by results rather than by “presence.” Although most managers have now successfully experienced working remotely, the ongoing full-time nature of working this way means that time should be taken now to become explicit in our expectations and the new norms of working. In some ways, we’ve had a crash course in this, but there are specific skills and tips and tricks that everyone can use. Like any other skill set, continuous learning is necessary and helpful for everyone.
Culture, Communication, and Community
The surveys also indicate that managers and senior leaders need to specifically address organizational culture and community building – at both the team and the entity level. Until the pandemic, many had been less involved with this, assuming that employees will just “understand” how we do things here, counting on a kind of osmosis. It’s fairly obvious that isn’t a good practice at any time, and the drawbacks are only highlighted when people aren’t together every day (and yes, this wasn’t working well in the office even in “the before times”). What are your social norms? Are they working? What’s our unspoken culture? Does it need to be adjusted? Facing this will force some conversations about what the culture should be/become, and most think a deliberate discussion is a good thing. At the least, specific actions should be taken to help bind the employees to the company, to their pride in working for the organization, and to encourage them to identify positively with its mission and goals.
Employees have responsibility here as well – to ask for help, to offer constructive suggestions, and to participate openly. It is true that some ideas will not work well, and nothing will work for everyone, but constant cynical behavior doesn’t lead to positive results. Explaining the challenge and asking for their participation in the effort is a good first step in change management.
Obviously, onboarding needs special care and attention. Much can be learned from companies that are entirely virtual as their corporate structure. They have developed specific practices and policies for a multitude of situations and have deep experience to share.
Mental and Physical Health:
The forced work from home on a large scale has made all of us more real about our whole selves and our personal lives as they’ve clearly blended during our Zoom, WebEx, or Teams calls, but we need to address that many struggle with the separation between personal and professional lives. In particular, parents with children at home are constantly pulled in multiple directions, others are alone and lonely, and all of us are facing worry and stress about our jobs, our families and friends, about getting sick or creating exposure in someone else. Worldwide, at a basic level, there are issues with space in the home, with bandwidth, and with culture.
Even on video it is easy to miss body language when you are not in the same place – explicit check-ins and honesty about frustrations and disappointments should already have become part of your new work habits. Each team must learn how to support each other actively, deliberately encouraging and rewarding empathic behaviors. Managers should figure out the frequency of personal interactions that works well for your group, and revisit that schedule regularly. Many teams have experimented with group activities that bring people together and help them develop closer relationships.
The studies also indicate that a dedicated room or space is a key indicator for the strength of satisfaction/productivity in the home environment (Leesman Reports: 79.8 with dedicated room and 75.8 with dedicated space versus 68.1 whose workspace moves around or is not separated). Not surprisingly, these studies show that those struggling to separate work and personal life are the ones most anxious to be back in the office. Special attention should be paid to support employees facing this situation.
Multiple studies and years of experience have confirmed that those who create structure in their schedule are apt to be more productive and less stressed. Each employee should be encouraged to figure out a way to regularly get up and move around, and determine a standard start and end point to their working days.
Those responsible for workplace strategy and HR policies must work closely together with business leaders to address all of these issues that involve ergonomics, well-being, mental health, culture, business requirements, personal needs, etc.
Moving into the Future
As we move forward and slowly begin to open offices to a select percentage of people, it’s clear that the long-term desire of employees is to work from home at least part-time. All these changes will have a long-term impact on the workplace itself as we evaluate the evolving functions that the “office” will need to support moving forward. Many future-thinking exercises over the past few months have indicated that the space in the office may need to adjust to provide many more collaborative spaces and include more amenities. Our employees can do much of their heads down work at home, but they do want to be together in person, at least some of the time. This may have a portolio impact on the total amount of space needed, but we should first focus on the necessary shifts to improve and increase functional and support spaces for teaming, working together, and learning in a safe environment.
Scenario planning should begin now to create options, possible solutions, and process steps, including consideration of policy implications. CRE must take a leadership role to collaborate with many parts of the organization as we work together to support our employees, the work that they do, and begin to determine what the workplace, in all its facets and forms, will look like in the future.
Melodee Wagen, MCR, is the owner of Workspace Strategies, Inc. providing workplace strategy and master planning, occupancy evaluation and analysis, workforce flexibility/mobility planning, and change management. Her clients include corporations, non-profit organizations, and government and educational institutions.
