Offices should be more than a base from which to fire off e-mails

COMMENT In recent years we have seen an overdue and much needed disruption to the office sector initiated, in the main by co-working providers, which rightly encouraged the approach of treating people who rented office space as a customer. This changed the mindset of people who design and develop office space, who had to up their game and come up with a new, customer-focused approach. The immediate issue we need to solve now is how offices can be used safely. The risks of coronavirus transmission can be mitigated by reconfiguration, monitoring through technology, and implementation of workplace use policies. But lockdown has highlighted that most office-based roles can be functionally performed remotely, facilitated by the adoption of user-friendly technology. Overnight, it has become acceptable – almost assumed – that an individual will be able to have control over their own working patterns, and it will no longer be an exception or perk to be able to work from home. If you don’t need an office to do your work, that brings me on to think, why does a company need an office at all? And, importantly, if there is an office then what will make us want to be there? Better than being at home? We’ve learned that established teams can be empowered to be successful and productive from home. But how will this work as you need to recruit new staff, nurture new teams or embark on a new project? Can you set up or effectively grow a business from home?  The physical workplace, along with the interaction and innovation it facilitates, can set and develop the culture, attitude, collaboration and aspirations in which staff need to succeed, and it is difficult to do that remotely. This suggests that the vast majority of companies will continue to have some sort of central office but the size, functionality and user groups of this space will need to be defined over time as we move out of the pandemic phase. The new challenge of designing places for people to work is that we need to offer employees something that exceeds their working from home experience. More than ever, our employees take on the role of the customer, and this is the push to permanently shift developers from being wholesalers to retailers of workspace. We also need to better understand and communicate the direct impact that the office can have on our customers’ mental and physical wellbeing in addition to their productivity. We need to help educate our employees of the benefits it provides at the corporate and individual level. The workspaces we create should enhance a person’s daily experience, not detract from it. The office should offer more than a base from which to fire off e-mails. It should result in a place dedicated to creating a healthy, sustainable environment for fostering a connected company culture, knowledge sharing, socialising – and helping drive a business forward together.  Learning from retail Let’s look to our neighbours in the retail sector and some of the best brands, which harnessed all channels from online shopping to in-store brand experience and browsing.  Will we see a shift to an omni-channel approach to our work? We could harness the benefits of remote working for our functional tasks and still appreciate the value of the workplace environment as the destination for immersing in our brand culture, social interactions and collaboration. Through this shift to a multi-faceted approach, we can cultivate a workplace where people can thrive – professionally and socially.  This approach is essential to be able to demonstrate to your customer why they need your office space and in order for the workplace to evolve into a space that can complement and benefit our working day. This is not a “nice to have” marketing exercise, but instead will help the office sector to evolve into a relevant product of the future – one that our employees will want to buy into. Steven Skinner is UK chief executive at HB Reavis