Navigating the new workspace post-covid

BEFORE Covid, the traditional work routine was to go to the office. During Covid, it was work-from-home. And now, since Covid, it is a mixture of both.

But new research reveals that many businesses do not know how to offer the best hybrid workspaces, or how to support their employees in the office.

In a recent report by JLL Global Benchmarking Services and JLL Global Research, titled Hybrid Work Decoded, 5 300 survey participants in 15 countries revealed some of the biggest challenges with hybrid workspaces.

While most employers are convinced that they must embrace hybrid work and provide flexibility, many are unsure about how to best to go about it.

The research revealed four things:

1. There is a richer purpose to the office of the future than the one we initially anticipated.

Besides supporting collaboration and socialisation, the office plays a key role in work-life separation and in establishing necessary healthy working routines.

Each place of work is appreciated for its distinct attributes:

The need for socialising and interactivity is the prime driver for returning to the office. Seventy-nine percent of workers consider the office as the best place to support downtime and interaction.

The office is valued for its ability to provide access to the right technologies.

Home working, on the other hand, scores highly on work-life balance, well-being and focused work. “However, there is nothing ‘black and white’ in employees’ preferences and behaviours,” the report says.

28% of employees feel they can better focus on a task in the office.

24% consider their well-being is best supported in the office.

35% also go to the office to more effectively establish a separation between their private and professional lives.

2. Employees struggle to compartmentalise their activities between the office and home.

Focused work remains the core of office workers’ reality, with 55% of working time during the week spent on it.

“But, quite strikingly, half this time is in the office, while the other half is at home, demonstrating the difficulty for office workers to rationalise their weekly schedule and dedicate their days in the office to collaboration and interaction.”

27% of working time is spent focusing on a task in the office and 24% is spent focusing on a task at home.

Virtual collaboration happens in both places in almost the same proportions.

10% of working time is spent in hybrid meetings in the office and 11% is spent in hybrid meetings in the office.

“This difficulty in rationalising working time to make the most of both home and office workplaces highlights a growing need for managerial support and piloting.

“Another layer of complexity in the new hybrid world is the increasing number of hybrid meetings. The ability to have an effective meeting that includes actual and virtual participants is one of the biggest challenges. The new nature of meetings means that smaller rooms are required in the office along with improved technological provision and experience.”

3. The post-pandemic office must

address the need for focused individual work.

“People spend 51% of their time on focused work in the office, with concentrated individual work mostly undertaken at workstations but also in informal open-work points. To make the journey to the office worthwhile, both collaborative and focused work needs to be facilitated.”

The report questions whether employees have become less resilient to noise. “There is now a stronger expectation from employees in terms of workplace acoustics and access to a range of workspace options that suit their individual needs… Acoustics is a growing issue: people complain about the lack of sound privacy and the difficulty to retreat to a quiet space during

their day. They also point to excessive internal noise levels.”

Open-plan and hot-desking arrangements require change management.

“They continue to raise questions about how they should be best used and how they might benefit from increased training, guidance and change management. “The needs for privacy, confidentiality and concentration remain pivotal to many types of job and should be addressed more carefully.”

The survey revealed that hot-desking acceptance is higher among hybrid workers:

4. Hybrid workers are not supported in their new work style.

Today’s new work style is an opportunity for the office to reinvent its promise in a context where many workers have returned to the offices where they worked before Covid.

Hybrid workers consistently rate their office experience at lower levels than the rest of the worker populationand yet they value their office.

“More than others, they struggle with gaining access to the spaces they need, and they find the office noisy and stressful. Nonetheless, the office remains a haven and a place for collaboration and socialisation.”

As a result, hybrid workers have high expectations of their employers. Despite enjoying huge flexibility, they have trouble in creating healthy routines and maintaining close relationships with their colleagues.

JLL says they require dedicated emotional support, a working environment adapted to their needs, and technology solutions that enable work in the office to be carried out under the best conditions. Hybrid workers are calling for a reinvented Human Experience on-site, supported by new spaces and technologies – most of which are insufficiently provided by employers. These include:

Outdoor, creative, co-working and learning spaces are the most impactful but poorly provided spaces.

Brainstorming and project management tools are also perceived as impactful but insufficiently provided.