In this webinar, our Co-Founder & CEO, Dan Bladen, is joined by Shaun Ritchie (Co-Founder of Teem and Former Chief Workplace Experience Officer of WeWork) and Neal Piliavin (Former Director of Collaboration at HubSpot) to discuss the findings from our return-to-work research study, as well as the critical success factors to be addressed for a happy hybrid work model.
The way we work has changed forever, and the office needs to change too. It’s now a place for collaboration, team-building, spending time together, and experiencing company culture. People will no longer sit behind a desk 9-5, and will increasingly become more intentional about when and where they choose to work.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the discussion (Start watching at 15:35):
- Social interactions with colleagues were the top reason for people to return to the workplace. Many also anticipate easier collaboration, quicker decisions, and better productivity once they are back.
- Employee well-being: The Metaphysical energy that surrounds us. Being around people lifts our energy, and conversation is the medium, such as sharing ideas. Isolation is one of the worst forms of imprisonment, as human beings, we need to be around others to maintain our mental wellbeing.
- The workplace/office manager’s role has changed and one of the main challenges is creating a balance of synchronous and asynchronous work – making sure coming to the office is a real occasion with tons of value and minimal friction.
- The new role of the workplace manager is to organize coincidences: The community and serendipity element in the office has been difficult to replicate over the last year with remote working. For businesses looking to transition to hybrid working, it is important to use technology to orchestrate these interactions.
- Successful organizations will have to rethink their workplace as a strategy (WaaS) with the right metrics and tools to maintain their competitive advantage.
- Technology will be key to facilitating new ways of working: from provisioning the right equipment to WFH or organizing logistics for a more dispersed workforce to optimizing workspaces. Over one-third expect to be able to book desks in the office post-Covid.
Given how drastically the pandemic has changed the way we work, it is promising to see businesses rethinking their strategy and actively shifting to a hybrid working model – but it is also key to implement it in the right way. Hybrid working is more than just a mix of office locations, it is a new way to work and collaborate.