The Next Normal: Workspace 2020+
Somehow we are here, in the middle of 2020; 12 weeks into lockdown and six months into a world where COVID19 prevails with over 6 million global confirmed cases.
For most of us it has been enough to simply strive to get on with the workload in front of us whilst trying to manage (cope) with this new strange reality: of working while homeschooling; of managing the alienation that comes from not being in our studio, lack of face to face collaboration; sharing and testing of ideas; with not being in a room together with each other our clients and partners to support, motivate and inspire each other…in other words to manage without our culture. We have produced some fantastic work during this challenging time that we are all really proud of but it has been under a strange version of reality, without a moment to even process those circumstances, until now.
No one has the manual for this. It has been challenging in ways none of us could have prepared for and there is some way to go yet. While planning their return to the office one of our clients has unsurprisingly adjusted their strategy six times. Business leaders face the extraordinary challenge of working out ‘when’ alongside ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘to what’ whilst the mental and physical health of workers will (should) be front and centre in a way it probably never has been before. Our dear friend, the author, trainer & speaker Chris Barez-Brown wrote in a recent article;
“Everybody returning to work will have been deeply impacted and will need to be looked after in ways they were never looked after before. Your teams will need a chance to process together so they can reconnect with each other with a new awareness of who they are and what's important to them.”
For some it is already a case of ‘Back to Business as usual ” with some additional hygiene practices & social distancing (removing desks and other furniture and creating new signage) and of course new ‘no touch’ and automated solutions where budgets allow it. But for many, there is a greater need to really grab this unique opportunity and make improvements and changes for the long term, not just in reaction to this crisis. This is a unique moment in time where the ‘rules’ of work so embedded into our systems can truly be challenged and reimagined because we have already proven we CAN. If we can work from home with squabbling teenagers/terrible twos/bad habits of housemates/the loneliness of solitary lockdown then we sure as hell can work well at home when the virus is under control with schools and nurseries fully open and the wider world opening up again to release us from our ‘4 walls’.
With 44% of people feeling anxious about returning to the work in an office environment, organisations will need to ensure they have a strategy in place not just for the practicalities of spatial usage and ‘Work from home rotas’ but also a clear strategy for supporting employees physical and Mental health.
Workspace strategist Kursty Groves of Shape has been undertaking some brilliant work and analysis of all the guidelines in supporting the RTO (Return to office) for her clients. We are currently working on a project with Kursty so have had the opportunity to discuss what ‘Post-covid work life’ could mean and are aligned with her in recognising both the task at hand alongside the exciting opportunity for real change in the way we design workspaces.
You can read more about Shape’s guidance here:
We have so much to learn from this mass ‘social experiment’ & from the experience of working from home so intensively, the good and the bad. We are already beginning to understand what happens when there are barriers to cultural connection so its impact on our productivity will allow us to acknowledge and reconsider our needs as humans at work. This moment will enable us to reexamine what wasn’t really working before; What do we really need from our workspaces? What will the office of the ‘new/next normal’ look like; what will it mean to us; what about it will make us want to go there?
What is fascinating is that the conversations that have been historically tricky to have with some clients over the last 10 years are now central to decision making; well-being, health, hygiene, flexibility and agility are now key topics to discuss and solve for workspaces, businesses and humanity to thrive. Since the launch of Trifle* we have been ‘banging on’ about the implications of some of these common, yet unhealthy working practices that have become the norm in the last 20 years; eating at desks; not taking proper breaks; the lack of flexibility for workers which forces them onto tubes, trains and into offices AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME day after day; increased demands on space to ‘squeeze a few more in’, presenteeism (read trust) and the requirement to show up because it is ‘just a cold’. We need to find ways to facilitate improvements throughout organisations and workspaces, so that everyone has a better, healthier, working experience with increased opportunities to flourish and succeed.
We have started to look at how we can activate Shape’s phased guidance for our clients & so far we are discussing Projects to:
> Re-design 40% of a mid sized Central London workspace into a combination of collaborative and project spaces
> Turn 30% of a large office into a Co-working hub.
> Uplift the sense of community in their workplace so that when employees return in January it is to a much improved highly engaging office that they really want to spend time in that facilitates ‘connection’.
> How a new Co-work concept needs to respond to the new guidelines around social distancing and what else they need to now anticipate into the build of their South London coworkspace.
> For another Central London workspace we are looking specifically at what furniture items are going to be really useful and which will be redundant, for either the time being or forever; this project is leading us to look at what manufacturers are responding to this moment in time.
With so many diverse design challenges to solve we are feeling really motivated for what the future of workspace design holds; the prospect of a much improved (Trifle approved!) version of our working realities feels within reach in a way it hasn’t done before. We have always strived to find better ways to create human centric spaces and more (ie less bureaucratic) human centric processes to get them built. We will be channelling our newfound insight & learning with practical thinking over the coming weeks across our social channels as we move steadily back towards the office. We LOVE to talk about workspaces and we fully appreciate other views and insights so do connect with us here or via email to tell us your plans and thoughts.
Emma
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