Return to work: driven by need, or driven by wellbeing?
From July 19th, employers were able to start planning for staff who had been working from home to return to work. Social distancing in the workplace was no longer compulsory and the government mandate to work from home where possible was lifted. Instead, new workplace guidance was issued, including the need for decent ventilation, increased frequency of cleaning, and workplace check-ins. There are all sorts of reasons why returning to the office is attractive to some companies, while perhaps being less so to some employees who have been enjoying the freedom working from home can provide.
Principally, many organisations are sitting on large amounts of valuable city centre real estate that has mostly remained unused for 18 months now. By definition, these businesses want to see their buildings being used, though what they will be used for – and the size of the push to get people back in them – varies across sectors. For example, tech companies are leaning towards continuing to work from home and using physical spaces as hubs – the idea being that the office space can best be optimised by using it for particular types of meetings and events that aren’t quite the same when done online. There could be spaces where teams collaborate, and where there are opportunities to break up the working day, with fitness and break-out spaces. This will be true for some companies from other sectors, too.
To turn to professional and financial services companies, which make up a fair amount of urban real estate, there is some evidence of burnout since the pandemic. What also comes across strongly is the desire for flexibility: workers have enjoyed the freedoms of working from home and want to have control over the hybrid working environment: perhaps one week doing one day in the office; another week, two, and so on. Many workers have become more resilient and empathic, too, and have felt more appreciated by their employers. But will this last into 2022, as more people go back to the office?
Some companies are thinking about 50% capacity returns, whereas some clearly cannot wait to get people back into the workplace. For context, it’s important to remember that even in the first, most stringent lockdown, a large percentage of the workforce continued to go in to work: obviously key workers in the NHS, but also bus, train and tube drivers, manufacturing workers, and so on.
New Century House, Manchester. Photo: Picasa on Flickr/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
The debates are being covered by the big consultancies, too: Forrester is focussing on the importance of an ‘anywhere-work strategy’ as a key method in optimising employee engagement. It understands that people will have different preferences post-pandemic and suggests that businesses make the most of the hybrid working model that we’ve become accustomed to since the pandemic hit to respond to that and drive the business forward. Meanwhile, McKinsey’s The Future of Work report states that “20 to 25 percent of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week.” This figure will be significantly larger in certain industries, so much of the last 18 months will be here to stay.
However, while running business remotely has been a success for many organisations, solving hard problems can be tougher: there will probably remain a need for face-to face. Without the relationships that can be built physically, certain types of transactions cannot be done as well.
From our point of view, the focus has to be on wellbeing. At the most basic level, obviously, workspaces need to be Covid-safe, but beyond that, a healthier workplace needs to be top of companies’ priority lists. This is one of the reasons why organisations are thinking about the redesign and new use of space discussed above. Moreover, people will have all sorts of different responses to what will this autumn will be yet another New Normal: If we don’t recognise that we’re about to go through another big change, and just assume that everything’s going to go back to how it was in 2019, not wrap support around people, not recognise the change, and don’t focus on the best elements of the last year and of the world before, then people will struggle. They’ll feel all sorts of emotions: if it doesn’t feel quite right, then stress will develop.
In this context, buildings designed for wellbeing are only going to increase in importance. Fitwel assessments (facility innovations toward wellness environment leadership) will play a big part in getting this right. From the Mainer website:
“Fitwel is the premier certification system for optimising buildings to improve health and productivity outcomes through targeted improvements to design and operational strategies. It is organised around specific, incremental changes that will foster a healthier workplace, regardless of size, construction year, or location, in so doing promoting thinking about what role buildings can play in encouraging healthy behaviour, and consequently healthy lifestyles.”
Indeed, Fitwel has responded to the crisis by releasing a Viral Response Module, which identifies strategies to meet the needs of the real estate community. It is designed to be the global standard in the field.
It is much too early to tell if the return to work is being undertaken hastily: we don’t know what is going to happen with Covid case as schools reopen and there are debates over vaccine efficacy in the medium term. There are bound to be some companies who are getting people back in solely because they need to see a return on very expensive city centre real estate. Others will be comfortable carrying on as they have been for the last 18 months. Most will probably create a hybrid working model. Whichever, it is going to continue to be a challenging time for indoor workspaces, and the businesses invested in them.