Orangebox - Relationship Buildings

W H AT T I M E I S I T W I T H YO U ?

ZOOM MEETING IN 5 MINUTES

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L E T ’ S M E E T AT T H E O F F I C E O N T H U R S DAY

C A N I G E T YO U A C O F F E E ?

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S U R E TO M . . . S E E YO U L AT E R

HELLO TEAM!

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I ’ M W O R K I N G F RO M H O M E TO DAY

Relationship Buildings® is our guide to navigating, interpreting and re-imagining the changing landscape of the workplace.

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Covid19 has fractured how we work globally, at scale. And the combination of our new priorities, fresh insights and lessons learned over the past sixteen months are likely to result in the workplace changing more dramatically than it has ever done in our careers to date.

HELLO

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W E N E E D TO S TO P TA L K I N G ABOUT OFFICE BUILDINGS AND S TA RT T H I N K I N G A B O U T

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“ As more of our colleagues are able to work flexibly and remotely, we are becoming less reliant on office space. And also the type of office space we will need in the future is likely to change to reflect changing working styles. We will be working to understand what the future of work and the office looks like which will also help to inform our decision.

Antonio Horta-Osorio CEO Lloyds Banking Group (now CEO Credit Suisse)

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The consensus from our

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research suggests that the new hybrid for work will be more or less three days in the workplace and two days WFH or in new generation ‘third place’ shared spaces.

page 01

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has been researched and written by four members of the Orangebox Research and Insight team.

ISS UE 1

Gerard Taylor ISSUE 1

1 We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings ®

Nathan Hurley

0 IS S UE 5 07 What Relationship Buildings ® mean for the under-30s

2 Ten years collapsing to ten months

08 Why data-driven design is here to stay

3 Welcome to the hybrid workplace

09 The evolution of the sticky campus, and what we can learn from university spaces

ISSUE 2

4 Welcome to the hybrid home ISSUE 3

5 Why we’re beginning the biggest period of innovation in workplace thinking and design any of us will experience during our careers ISSUE 4

6 When will we make the same breakthroughs in how we relate to each other that we’ve made with technology?

Jim Taylour IS S UE 6

10 Healing Spaces where the office is no longer the health problem, but the wellness solution IS S UE 7

11 Home alone together: recognising new habits and habitats and the importance of getting it right

Luke Palmer Smartworking® is a trademarked name that neatly encapsulates the thinking behind the research, product narrative and developments driving Orangebox’s success for the best part of two decades. We have similarly protected Relationship Buildings ® as it succinctly describes what workplaces can become as we embrace the new potential of hybrid and WFH working in the wake of Covid19.

IS S UE 8

12 Relationship Buildings ® and the circular 12 economy: a shared responsibility

pages 02 – 03

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has been researched and written by four members of the Orangebox Research and Insight team.

ISS UE 1

Gerard Taylor ISSUE 1

1 We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings ®

Nathan Hurley

0 IS S UE 5 07 What Relationship Buildings ® mean for the under-30s

2 Ten years collapsing to ten months

08 Why data-driven design is here to stay

3 Welcome to the hybrid workplace

09 The evolution of the sticky campus, and what we can learn from university spaces

ISSUE 2

4 Welcome to the hybrid home ISSUE 3

5 Why we’re beginning the biggest period of innovation in workplace thinking and design any of us will experience during our careers ISSUE 4

6 When will we make the same breakthroughs in how we relate to each other that we’ve made with technology?

Jim Taylour IS S UE 6

10 Healing Spaces where the office is no longer the health problem, but the wellness solution IS S UE 7

11 Home alone together: recognising new habits and habitats and the importance of getting it right

Luke Palmer Smartworking® is a trademarked name that neatly encapsulates the thinking behind the research, product narrative and developments driving Orangebox’s success for the best part of two decades. We have similarly protected Relationship Buildings ® as it succinctly describes what workplaces can become as we embrace the new potential of hybrid and WFH working in the wake of Covid19.

IS S UE 8

12 Relationship Buildings ® and the circular 12 economy: a shared responsibility

pages 02 – 03

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Introduction

“ Office, sweet office. Now, instead of you always going to the office, the office can come to you. All you need is a phone socket, a desk that overlooks the garden and the right equipment.”

Introduction “ Something like Covid-19 was on everyone’s agenda, the problem is we somehow have the attention span of a gnat.”

So read an early 1990s newspaper ad for British Telecom, illustrated by a photograph of a delightful stone-built detached country house, complete with creepers round the porch and a rose bush in the garden, and featured in the introduction of Andrew Bibby’s 1995 report titled Teleworking: 13 Journeys to the Future of Work.

Twenty-five years on, the future suggested in Bibby’s report for the Calouste Gulbenkin Foundation is finally coming to pass, and I shall be quoting from it at length in this introduction.

Professor Kate Jones Chair Ecology & BioDiversity UCL

“Pre-January 2020, we commuted en masse into large offices where pretty much everyone important to the development and prosperity of the organisation congregated together. In retrospect, this seems to be a wantonly risky manoeuvre.”

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

64% of managers believe that office workers are higher performers than remote workers, and in turn are likely to give in-office workers a higher raise According to a recent Gartner survey,

than those who work from home. However, data that we have collected from both 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (during the pandemic) shows the opposite: Full-time remote workers are 5% more likely to be high performers than those who work full-time from the office.

HBR

pages 04 – 05

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Introduction

I have read extensive contemporary surveys, reports, journalism and books while preparing this Relationship Buildings® report, and much of the research and much of the thinking chimes with the ideas expressed within 13 Journeys. (The technologies and terms taking us into the brave new future haven’t aged equally well though: you probably know what ICT, OCR, ISDN and BPO stand for, but what about EVH? It’s Electronic Village Hall…)

In fact, if I’d simply swapped Bibby’s buzz phrase teleworking with WFH – our new cool buzz phrase – you might not have noticed much difference! (The big change between ‘teleworking’ and WFH is, of course, the speed, scale and range of the digital tools now on tap to each and every one of us, which allows us to achieve an effectiveness that would not have been imaginable 25 years ago.)

In the introduction to 13 Journeys, Bibby explains that his report aims to, ‘Explore the ways in which the experience of work may change in the future, and indeed has already begun to change. It considers the new working practices, which are being made possible by information and telecommunications technologies as they increasingly coalesce. In particular, it is about the phenomenon which has become known as “teleworking”.’

He expands, ‘we are moving into the information age.

Industrial mechanisation required large numbers of people to work and live closely together. Office workers, too, were tied to the place where the paperwork they needed for their work was processed and stored. But information held on a computer database, by contrast, can be accessed from anywhere. Using computer power and communications links we can work from wherever we choose – we can telework.

The idea of the teleworker harnessing the power of a worldwide network of information has already been a popular subject for the media. It has become linked particularly to the idea of making the home once again the workplace. The 1991 Census reported that 1.2 million people could be defined as working mainly at home, or living at their place of work within the UK: about five per cent of the working population.

Bibby expressed a note of caution: ‘whilst home-based telework is certainly happening, it is overshadowed in terms of overall economic importance by the rapid growth in the number of community-based telecentres and telecottages,’ (I think these migrated into business parks and call centres). But he concludes his report optimistically, saying that, ‘More flexibility at work is a valuable gain for individuals as well as companies. In addition to benefits for companies and individuals, there are advantages claimed for society as a whole from teleworking. These can potentially include a reduction in urban traffic congestion, energy conservation and air quality improvement.’

Having quoted Bibby extensively, the moral of the story is clear: beware of projections offering certainties of (and timelines for) a brave new future! Despite this, in this report we will suggest a flexible approach to the workplace that we believe will help businesses prosper in a post Covid19 world, by making the workplace viable and vibrant, flexible and rewarding.

The great business challenge of our time is how we adopt and adapt to the dramatically different new ways of working that are being forced upon us in the wake of Covid19, and beyond. Business leaders are united in a belief that, ‘the volatility of the past twelve months is far from over.’ Covid19 will, in all likelihood, merely be the first in a series of global pandemics: we know, for example, that there are approximately 1.7 million unknown viruses with the potential to cross over from other species and affect people. Our reliance on volume food production and the fact that many humans live in close proximity to wild animals, for instance, increases the risk of zoonosis making us, “the perfectly positioned blub of protein,” (check out The Jump/BBC Sounds) ripe for infection.

“... 1995 Teleworking (WFH) was being lauded as a solution to achieving a reduction in urban t pages 06 – 07

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

... the big change between ‘ teleworking’ and WFH is, of course, the speed, scale and range of the digital tools now on tap to each and every one of us...

n traffic congestion energy conservation and improving air quality in our cities.”

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Introduction

It’s clear we need to meet the twin threat of pandemics and climate change creatively (and meet them head on), and that part of that will entail re-imagining what the future of work, and the workplace, is going to be.

Pre-January 2020, we commuted en masse into large offices where pretty much everyone important to the development and prosperity of the organisation congregated together. In retrospect, this seems to be a wantonly risky manoeuvre, and not one we should rush to reinstate given that 2020’s pandemic is unlikely to be our last.

How do we design our workplaces to be resilient and adaptable; able to solve these challenges and prosper in a post-Covid19 world?

In an article for The Idler in summer 2020, titled My Fantasy Office, the great business thinker Charles Handy offered playful suggestions that echo the thinking behind Relationship Buildings ® : “ I do think the elements of the club culture [think Soho House] will start to creep into the corporate world as people want to have some of the comforts of home without the drudgeries and distractions of it. Where it is a pleasure to go to work and a delight to be there whilst still allowing you to creep off home – if that’s where you work best. And so we may well be drifting to a world of home work and office meeting. And, left a lot to our own discretion as to what the mixture will be.

To me this seems ideal. I don’t like to be a human resource or to be told when to work or how to work. I like the camaraderie of the office but I like the individual pleasures of being alone at home. If I can manage to have both then I am well pleased. So whether my fantasy office ever comes to reality, we shall see.”

The volume and quality of the reports, publications, books, journalism and surveys we’ve reviewed in the production of this report add substance and credibility to Orangebox’s instinctive belief that the office postCovid19 is going to be very different to how it was pre-pandemic.

We’re all in this global crisis together, and each of us is having to adapt to the ways in which it's changing not just how we work but also what work itself means – and how it sits within the balance of our lives.

Navigating this new WFH and hybrid working life isn’t going to be easy, which is why we’ve collated, discussed and analysed the very best of the reporting out there within this Relationship Buildings® review.

Relationship Buildings ® isn’t just a compelling new Smartworking® narrative, it’s also a go-to guide for our clients, offering valuable insight and direction into what the post-Covid19 workplace can potentially become.

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pages 08 – 09

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spot the difference

home

office

“ Telework has plenty of potential to change our working lives, and our home lives, for the better. Our task is to try to make sure that the potential is realised – and this is going to be a social, rather than a technological, challenge.”

Andrew Bibby 1995

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Chapter 1

Chapter 1 We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship ® Buildings

This report is focused on global insight and research from the last 16 months on the future of the workplace in the post-Covid world. Our analysis suggests that organisations beginning the process of re-envisioning their workplaces in light of recently published research, surveys and insights will find the Relationship Buildings ® narrative compelling and useful. The phrase ‘we need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings ® ’, is, I think, a succinct description of the insights and ideas outlined within this report.

Hi Tom I’m working from home today

“ Who the f… would ever want to stream video?”

Steve Jobs

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Ok, great... can you send me the latest file and we can go through it together?

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

The Most

IMPORTANT advances are the least predictable ones...

30% of all office space will be consumed flexibly by 2030

A note of caution… In his highly influential 2007 book Black Swan, on the ‘impact of the highly improbable’, Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses the ‘hindsight bias’: the human tendency to postrationalise an impossible-to-predict event as inevitable. “We are explanationseeking animals who tend to think that everything has an identifiable cause and grab the most important one as the explanation. In spite of the empirical record, we continue to project into the future as if we were good at it, using tools and methods that exclude rare events. Prediction is firmly institutionalised in our world. We are suckers for those who help navigate uncertainty,” noted Taleb.

We are, “demonstrably arrogant about what we think we know.

We certainly know a lot, but we have a built-in tendency to think that we know a little more than we actually do.”

The interesting observation from Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) that, “the most important advances are the least predictable ones, those lying out of the path of the imagination,” (quoted by Taleb), would seem to offer a useful starting point when trying to reimagine our world of work in the wake of Covid19. No previous event during my career has provoked such soul-searching, analysis, surveying and projecting in an attempt to figure out what the future holds. In researching Relationship Buildings® , we have accessed and read over fifty extensive bodies of work; a density of reporting that gives us some confidence in the range of conclusions we’ve reached.

The first is the consensus (as of spring 2021) that the infrastructure costs of large office buildings are going to be hard to justify if they’re only in use three days a week, raising the question: do you downsize, repurpose, or opt for a combination of the two?

JLL

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One thing is clear from our research: returning to the status quo is not on the cards for the overwhelming majority of organisations.

The biggest risk is the temptation to dither in the vain hope that everything will eventually return to normal. The ongoing economic fallout from global lockdown means, however, that procrastination is not an option. And if we meet this opportunity with insight and creativity, we have a rare chance to reset the culture and practice of contemporary work.

“COVID-19 gives us a chance to reshape our world and reimagine work.”

Roland Busch CEO Siemens

pages 10 – 11

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Chapter 1

“ We will carry out trials of hybrid working in late spring, involving thousands of staff, and

77% ‘expressed a desire’ to continue to work from home.”

William Chalmers, Lloyds Banking Group Finance Director

A recent Harvard Business Review reported that knowledge workers believe they have been more productive at home during the pandemic because they have been able to “focus on what really matters.” In a recent Work Survey fielded by Wakefield Research on behalf of ServiceNow, 87% of employees said the new way of working was an improvement.

“ We are testing a hypothesis that a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration, and wellbeing. No company at our scale has ever created a fully hybrid work force model — though a few are starting to test it, so it will be interesting to try.”

Sundar Pichai, Alphabet CEO

The winter of 2020 and spring of 2021 have seen an endless stream of headlines about organisations considering large scale and dramatic change as a means to regain vitality, such as this one in the FT from 19 March 2021: “BA explores sale of headquarters in shift to homeworking.” Yet it wasn’t long ago that Waterside was lauded as an exemplifier of a refined and vibrant contemporary office architecture. Aviation has, of course, been hit particularly badly by the pandemic, and will (alongside other badly affected industries) be forced to make changes that are even more dramatic than those facing more fortunate, less badly affected industries. Remember that Waterside not so long ago, was lauded as an exemplifier of a refined and vibrant contemporary office architecture. The FT report went on, “British Airways is exploring the sale of its headquarters as part of a plan to allow its head office staff to split their time permanently between home and office working after the pandemic.

The airline has hired property consultants to evaluate a sale of the sprawling Waterside complex on the outskirts of Heathrow airport in West London, which houses 2,000 staff.” Stuart Kennedy, BA’s Director of People confirmed that this was one option being considered. “Many of us are based at Waterside and it’s not clear if such a large office will play a part in our future,” he said, adding that, “one of the very few positive aspects of the pandemic had been how well staff had adapted to working remotely.”

The FT reported that, “the airline has undergone a painful restructuring since the pandemic first grounded its aircraft, and cut about 10,000 staff last year to leave it with a workforce of 30,000. Most of these work on the ground as flight and cabin crew, engineers and airport staff.” The FT contacted more than 20 other companies about their plans for the office, and most said they expected to bring in some form of hybrid working.

A whole host of organisations, dominated by, but not limited to, banks and financial institutions seem to agree with BA that hybrid working is about to overturn our previously unchallenged belief about what our corporate HQs should be. In February 2020 the FT ran an article titled, ‘Employers aim for hybrid working after Covid19 pandemic’: “PwC is carrying out a survey of its 22,000 UK staff, with preliminary findings suggesting many workers want a return to three or four days in the office. ‘This will necessitate a fully hybrid model of working,’ said Kevin Ellis, chair of the professional services company’s UK business. Lloyds Banking Group will carry out trials of hybrid working in late spring, involving thousands of its staff, and finance director William Chalmers said 77% of employees ‘expressed a desire’ to continue to work from home. Most of the roles at NatWest will have an element of homeworking when staff return to the bank’s offices later this year. Deutsche Bank said plans were being developed ‘towards the implementation of a hybrid future working model, combining the benefits of flexible working with the benefits of spending time together in the office.’”

E X CESS BAGGAGE ?

B R I T I S H A I R WAY S H E A D Q UA R T E R S

WFO BA/H Q

PR E 2020 / ...

WFH WORK FROM OFFICE

PO ST 2 021 / ...

WORK FROM HOME

E X CESS BAGGAGE ?

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Chapter 1

Insurance broker AON said it would undertake, “an in-depth analysis of what the ‘future of work’ will look like . . . which will involve a hybrid of working from offices, from home and other locations.” Virgin Media said it was starting on a ‘future ways of work’ strategy, which was likely to result in offices being adapted for hybrid working.

Sarah Willett, Chief People Officer at the Liverpool-based The Very Group (owner of Littlewoods.com) also supported hybrid working, saying, “We want our colleagues to be hyper productive at home and hyper collaborative in the office.” The move to hybrid working means many companies plan to cut their office space, with HSBC saying it expected to shrink its property footprint by 40 per cent and Lloyds aiming to reduce office space by 20 per cent. BT is also pressing ahead with cutting its UK offices from 300 to just 30, while restating its commitment to offices as places for “collaboration and knowledge sharing.”

Both The British Council for Offices and the London-based Institute of Directors reported similar strategies underway, with the BCO reporting that 75% of their survey respondents were, “anticipating more home-working after the pandemic with more than half planning to reduce how they use physical office space in the future.” Their report also recommended that the British Government, “help smaller employers to invest in technology to support home workers through research and development tax breaks,” commenting that WFH would become a long-term trend and that, “most office workers have no plans to return five days a week,” with 62% of senior executives and 58% of entry-level workers wanting to divide their time between their homes and workplaces. Seven out of 10 of their respondents agreed that, “the office was important for learning and development,” while two-thirds said their career had been helped by relationships they made in the office.

“ Our 15,000 office-based staff won’t be back five days a week in the office and I certainly won’t. I will keep a mix of flexible working. It’s good for staff, it’s also good for customers.”

Chris O’Shea CEO Centrica

“ 87% of employees say the office is important for collaborating with team members and building relationships — their top-rated needs for the office.”

PwC

pages 14 – 15

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

“ 2/3 of people surveyed said their career had been helped by relationships they made in the office.”

BCO

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Chapter 1

Global research has flagged up the level of anxiety and stress many of us are experiencing, something that typically turns us inwards, making it harder to connect with others. We’re going to need help if we’re to reconnect with our colleagues, rebuild relationships, get our careers back on track, and potentially make our organisations more successful, relevant and vital than they were pre-pandemic. Our return to offices saturated with enabling tech, from Acrobat to Zapier, is an opportunity to do more than just minimise the damage and try to get back to where we were.

It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity (we will use this phrase repeatedly through this report) to build in a new and important level of resilience and flexibility, and recalibrate what our workplaces can be. This needs to happen from the outset, and by design.

In spring 2020, there was a bit of a shortage in the supply of Plexiglas; the knee-jerk response of employers needing to keep everyone safe having been to position them behind transparent screens. Though potentially life-saving within some hospitality and, more importantly, retail environments, this is too crude and simplistic a response for the workplace. Research published in the HBR showed that 70% of workers (UK and USA) prefer to stay working from home while Covid-19 is still circulating. And who can blame them, while the workplace’s primary response consists of Plexiglas and black & yellow chevron-taped spaces?

The research we have accessed is globally focused, and JLL’s Global Survey from summer 2020 is particularly salient, projecting that the impact of Covid19 on the real estate and flexible space market will be significant. The role of the office has been challenged.

The mass experiment in remote working has reinforced the need for the office to act as a communal space enabling collaboration, fostering innovation, emphasising company culture and supporting high-performing teams — rather than simply being a place to work. This leads to an increased focus on technologyenabled experiential workplaces that are best utilised for collaborative meetings and hosting clients/employees.

The pandemic hasn’t just dramatically changed the global real estate market, it’s also accelerated existing flexible space trends.

And the developments that drove the initial explosive growth of the flexible space market – including real estate portfolios becoming more agile, shorter lease lengths, employee experience and engagement programmes, health and wellbeing concerns, and the amenity race within the workplace – are still in play.

“Morgan Stanley reports a mere 18% of European office workers wanting to return to an office five days a week.” pages 16 – 17

The Guardian

We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings®

“ The notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past.”

Jes Staley, Barclays CEO

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Chapter 1

“ The nature of working within our offices will change to have a higher occupancy per square foot, because we’ll have a hybrid style of working.”

Noel Quinn, HSBC CEO

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

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The mass experiment in remote working has reinforced the need for the office to act as a communal space enabling collaboration, fostering innovation, emphasising company culture and supporting high-performing teams — rather than simply being a place to work.

This leads to an increased focus on

technology-enabled experiential workplaces that are best utilised for collaborative meetings and hosting clients/employees.

pages 18 – 19

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Chapter 1

JLL Research predicts that Covid19 will increase the demand for flexible space, although in a different form than before the pandemic. “While there are short, medium and long-term implications of Covid-19 for the sector, the future of real estate is a spectrum of flexible spaces, and we believe that 30% of all office space will be consumed flexibly by 2030.”

Likewise, the globally-focused Leesman index in their Review 30 offered the insight that, “If employees venture back to workplaces and nothing has changed, how will they feel? They have spent months having to innovate, adapting their homes and lives to a new workstyle, juggling homeschooling or care-giver responsibilities, or perhaps managing the social isolation of living and working alone. So, what have their employers done while they were away, while those offices were ripe for reinvention? Can an industry that procures, designs and builds in 10-year cycles innovate fast enough to have its workplace ready for returning employees to experience environments that reflect the new workstyles they have rapidly adapted to?”

Workplaces suffering from a surfeit of Plexiglas and one-way routes and no-go areas delineated by black and yellow chevron tape won’t instil confidence, let alone provide pleasure, reassurance or the stimulus needed to revive organisations. As we will explore further in Chapter 9, the contemporary open-plan workplace has at its best been somewhere it’s a pleasure to spend time in, offering everything from great coffee to multiple work settings, conducive to both collaboration and focused work. Its hard-won benefits will be highly valued after our return from forced exile, as we redesign and reappraise our new hybrid workspaces.

Dror Poleg wrote an insightful article in the New York Times in early January 2021, suggesting that, “The office will become more of a consumer product. And just like every consumer product, the office will have to continually fight for its customers and meet their needs.” And Leesman’s Review 30 noted, “For those organisations where working from home wasn’t an option before Covid-19, there’s really no going back to how it was. Employees’ expectations have now increased, so going back to the status quo would mean going backwards.”

In the spring of 2021, it’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since we were first forced to abandon our workplaces. It’s a period in which both a great deal and seemingly not much has happened. As a way of reflecting on the sensation that 2020 has passed in a flash, I was drawn to a headline in The Guardian by a

professor of clinical psychiatry, Richard A Friedman, which ran, “If you’re ecstatic after a trip to the shops, it’s your brain thanking you for the novelty.”

“The pandemic has been a vast uncontrolled experiment – not just in social isolation, which is bad enough, but also in the deprivation of novelty. Overnight we were stripped of our ability to roam around our world the way we usually do. Gone were the chance encounters with other people and the experience of new things and places: no travel, no adventures, no restaurants, no theatres, no crowds. We weren’t just quarantined from Covid: we were cut off from the ubiquitous stimulation of the unfamiliar and new.

Being deprived of novelty doesn’t just make us bored; it is actually bad for our brain, and for learning and memory. Being out and about in the world and having new experiences can promote the growth of the hippocampus and be cognitively beneficial.

Those experiences need not be expensive or elite, like the opera. They can be as simple as that trip to buy an air conditioner.

Humans evolved over millions of years to detect novel rewards and dangers in the environment – such as food, sex and predators – which conferred a big survival advantage in an unpredictable world. When we have a novel experience, we get a surge of dopamine in our reward pathway, which tells our brain something like: this is an important experience – remember it! That is why novelty, learning and memory are linked. We are more likely to learn in situations where there is a certain amount of novelty.

It is also why getting young people back to the classroom is so important. Virtual learning is largely devoid of the spontaneous and unexpected experiences that happen in a classroom, and which help enhance cognition.

The pandemic year has shown us that novelty is critical to our overall wellbeing, from learning and memory to brain development and the feeling of being vividly alive. We can’t live without it.”

Friedman’s article is a neat reminder (and we need as many as we can get!) that our experience during our working day – which include leaving home in the morning, spending the day mixing with our work colleagues, and returning home in the evening – isn’t just about having a productive day. It’s about looking after the needs of our mind and our body, our total wellbeing. And it’s a timely reminder of why we need the dynamism of our workplaces.

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

The full range of experiences that happen to us, from when we leave home in the morning to spending the day mixing with or work colleagues, to returning home in the evening, is not just about achieving a productive day. It’s about looking after the needs of our mind and our body; our total wellbeing and another pointer as to why we need the dynamism of our workplaces.

Hi Tim When you have finished your meeting, we are all in that new cafe around the corner

novelty . . . [noun] nov el ty

1. the quality or state of

being novel [newness] 2. something or happening that is unusual 3. an experience that can be cognitively beneficial. pages 20 – 21

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Chapter 1

“ If employees venture back to workplaces and nothing has changed, how will they feel?”

Leesman

funny graphic

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

At a time when organisations need to be focusing on first rebooting and then accelerating into a new vitality, the realisation that going back to the pre-Covid19 workplace would be damaging and retrogressive is important. A Boston Consulting Group report from autumn 2020 noted that when Siemens announced the offer of two to three days of mobile working per week as a new norm, deputy CEO Roland Busch commented, “Covid-19 gives us a chance to reshape our world and reimagine work.” The report mooted an optimistic scenario that more imaginative changes are beginning to take hold, with organisations creatively taking themselves into a new future, rather than implementing short-term fixes that will never work in the mid or long-term.

“Employers around the world are straddling a bridge between yesterday, when most employees at most companies were physically present at work, and tomorrow, when a vaccine or effective treatment will open the possibility of safe return to the traditional workplace. Yet even when that happens, remote work will have earned a permanent place in the employment mix.”

“Leaders have two challenges: how to manage remote working conditions amid the uncertainty of today, and how to prepare for and optimise the hybrid working models of tomorrow, in which fully inperson and remote work will be two ends of a fluid spectrum of options. The former is a necessity; the latter, an opportunity. Hybrid work models, done right, will allow organisations to better recruit talent, achieve innovation, and create value for all stakeholders. By acting boldly now, they can define a future of work that is more flexible, digital, and purposeful.”

“We know that remote work works. We have exhaustively surveyed employers, employees, and HR directors since the start of the pandemic, and we will continue to take their pulse as organisations experiment with new work models. Three-quarters of the employees we surveyed in Germany, India, and the US who have transitioned to or remained remote during Covid19 say that they are at least as productive in performing their individual tasks as they were before the pandemic struck. And about half report that they are at least as productive on collaborative tasks that normally would be performed in conference or team rooms. Imagine what might be possible if organisations had the time to prepare for remote work.”

How and where we work (individually and collectively) is evolving quickly and dramatically, providing an exhilarating challenge for clients and designers alike. The Boston Consulting Group noted, “Imagine what might be possible if organisations had the time to prepare for remote work.” Combine that with what Relationship Buildings® could achieve if we give it the time and consideration it merits, and there's clearly potential for real and rewarding generational change.

As the insights and ideas explored in this report make clear, it’s time to stop talking about the office buildings of pre-January 2020, and start talking about the Relationship Buildings® of the future.

“ We are never going to go back how things were before.

The idea that people will return to the five-day week in the office has gone, and I think a much more blended approach is likely, two or three days in the office and two-three at home or wherever is going to be a much more typical pattern. Most people will value being able to work on that basis.”

Richard Kauntze, British Council for Offices CEO pages 22 – 23

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Chapter 1

There is a consensus that the infrastructure costs of large office buildings are going to be hard to justify if they’re only in use three days a week, raising the question: do you downsize, repurpose or opt for a combination of the two?

| We need to stop talking about office buildings and start thinking about Relationship Buildings

The office of pre-January 2020 is irrefutably changing, as a letter to shareholders written by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan in early April 2021 makes clear.

Dimon’s observations align with much of the reporting we’ve explored within this Relationship Buildings® report. And if a financial powerhouse such as JP Morgan, which up until now has depended on its numerous global offices and retail bank branches, is embracing WFH and hybrid working, what are the implications for less real estate-dependent organisations?

Dimon wrote: “The pandemic accelerated remote working capabilities, which will likely carry forward.

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we work in many ways, but, for the most part, it only accelerated ongoing trends. And while working from home will become more permanent in American business, it needs to work for both the company and its clients.

Generally speaking, we envision a model that will find many employees working in a location full time. That would include nearly all of the employees in our retail bank branches, as well as jobs in check processing, vaults, lockbox, sales and trading, critical operations functions and facilities, amenities, security, medical staff and many others.

Some employees will be working under a hybrid model. In all cases, these decisions depend upon what is optimal for our company and our clients, and we will extensively monitor and analyze outcomes to ensure this is the case.

Remote work will change how we manage our real estate. We will quickly move to a more “open seating” arrangement, in which digital tools will help manage seating arrangements, as well as needed amenities, such as conference room space. As a result, for every 100 employees, we may need seats for only 60 on average. This will significantly reduce our need for real estate.

The virtual world also presented some serious weaknesses. For example: Performing jobs remotely is more successful when people know one another and already have a large body of existing work to do. It does not work as well when people don’t know one another.

Most professionals learn their job through an apprenticeship model, which is almost impossible to replicate in the Zoom world. Over time, this drawback could dramatically undermine the character and culture you want to promote in your company.

A heavy reliance on Zoom meetings actually slows down decision making because there is little immediate follow-up.

And remote work virtually eliminates spontaneous learning and creativity because you don’t run into people at the coffee machine; talk with clients in unplanned scenarios.

Finally, we still intend to build our new headquarters in New York City.”

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Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Ten years collapsing to ten months “ Two years ago, relatively few executives considered competencies in crisis management, enterprise agility, cost management, workforce resiliency, innovation, or cash-flow management as critically important to their business.

Today, however, top executives tell a different tale.”

IBM Institute for Business, Covid-19 and the future of business

Executives are looking inward in the wake of Covid19.

Leaders plan to prioritise operational capabilities rather than external growth over the next two years.

Cost management 87% Enterprise agility 87% Cash flow and liquidity management 86% Cybersecurity 76% IT resiliency 75% IoT, cloud, and mobility 65% New product development 58% New market entry 52% IBM

“Post-Covid 19. . . . .

| Ten years collapsing to ten months

‘Slowly, slowly, then all at once,’ is a quote from David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker magazine, and also the title of a chapter in my book ‘That’s not a stick, that’s a log’ (published by Orangebox). It’s a saying that’s both relevant and resonant at the moment, while we deal with the fallout from Covid19, describing how, while largescale changes may seem to arrive unexpectedly and at speed, a little investigation will reveal that they’d been foretold by numerous experts.

Professor Kate Jones Chair from UCL’s view that, “Something like Covid-19 was on everyone’s agenda, the problem is we somehow have the attention span of a gnat,” is one shared by many of her peers. And then there’s Bill Gates’ prescient 2015 TED talk, warning that the world wasn’t prepared for an epidemic or pandemic, which included the following observations:

The last year forced us to adapt quickly and at scale, accelerating progress in everything from tech to science.

The following sentiments became commonplace: “We achieved in five months what would previously have taken five years,”; “What was achieved last year collapsed ten years into ten months,”; and in tech, “Two years of digital transformation was achieved in two months.” The following observation from Roy Jakobs, Chief Business Leader Connected Care at Phillips, is fairly typical: “The speed with which healthcare has changed is absolutely incredible. Our industry usually moves slower. But the Covid-19 outbreak has forced health systems and innovators alike to pivot and adapt quickly: countries including the US, China and the UK built thousands of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in just over one week; vaccine trials in humans started months sooner than they normally would; millions of healthcare workers left their loved ones at home to care for critically-ill patients. It’s been truly awe inspiring and heartwarming to witness.

“6 in 10 global businesses have accelerated digital transformation.”

And although we’re far from out of the crisis, our industry has made at least 10 years of progress in such a short period of time.”

Regarding the workplace, Peter Harrison CEO of Schroders commented, “In the space of a few months, we have made 20 years’ progress in attitudes towards flexible working, and we are going to continue with this momentum.”

IBM

. . . . .

“If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war. Not missiles, but microbes. We have invested a huge amount in nuclear deterrence, but we’ve actually invested very little in a system to stop an epidemic. We’re not ready for the next epidemic.”

the reality for businesses has radically shifted.”

IBM

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Chapter 2

While we have yet to count the total cost – economic, physical and emotional – of our lack of insight relating to and in preparation for a global pandemic, the shift in mindset that the crisis has necessitated has been positive and productive. Its results range from our newly found and surprising ability to work effectively at home with the help of diverse tech to scientists’ rapid development of multiple vaccines and partnering with delivery networks to inoculate our populations in double-quick time. If we choose to harness the insights and creative spirit Covid19 has brought about, this new mindset has the potential to advance not just the workplace but also humanity in profound and beneficial ways.

Historically, success in business tends to breed bureaucracy, adding time and complexity to decisionmaking and putting roadblocks in the way of change.

The pandemic has helped us understand that we need to be more agile; better at thinking on our feet.

We have to make bolder decisions more quickly, and develop the processes to realise them more expediently.

One of the most useful research documents we accessed while preparing this report was IBM’s Institute for Business Value ‘Covid-19 and the future of business’ report from autumn 2020, which saw interviews with 3,450 executives in 22 industries across 20 countries, and is worth quoting extensively: “We are on the leading edge of a self-reinforcing process, promising even greater acceleration ahead. This presents an enticing opportunity for executives who can manage complexity and drive competitiveness by tying digital transformation to business priorities— while others are still waiting for things to ‘go back to normal’. Organisational complexity remains the biggest hurdle to progress. More than twice as many executives mention it as a barrier today as in the past.

Another related obstacle: employee burnout. Data indicates that employees feel tired and overloaded, potentially as a reflection of that complexity.”

“All of this affords a new opportunity to build better businesses and a better world. It starts with enabling a diverse workforce to perform optimally — and building trust and confidence among employees will be critical. How they are treated now will have an outsize impact on perceptions and value in the future.

When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. And as executives struggle to make sense of the postCovid business environment, many find themselves leading from this gray area of indecision.”

“Two years ago, relatively few executives considered competencies in crisis management, enterprise agility, cost management, workforce resiliency, innovation, or cash-flow management as critically important to their business. Today, however, top executives tell a different tale. New research shows that, far from prioritising no particular capability, executives are prioritising all these capabilities. In the next two years, our findings show we should expect another huge shift in prioritisation. Executives are clearly telling us they plan to emphasise workforce safety and security, cost management, and enterprise agility.”

“Leaders are expecting more from their transformation initiatives. They identify competitiveness and workforce resilience as the benefits they most want from ongoing digital transformation. Transformation is also accelerating among a majority of organisations. But, strikingly, greater focus on transformation seems to be at the expense of customer relationships and partnering opportunities.”

4,500 said

“ they would like to work from home five days a week.”

Joe Garner CEO Nationwide

| Ten years collapsing to ten months

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Chapter 2

“Our overwhelming conclusion: Post-Covid19, the reality for businesses has radically shifted. Whether reflecting on current conditions or future plans, business leaders’ needs for speed and flexibility have been amplified dramatically. Old barriers are being brushed aside under the pressure of unrelenting disruption, rapidly evolving customer expectations, and an unprecedented pace of change.”

1 Trust and agility pay off Before the pandemic, many organisations distrusted both their technological capabilities and the skills of their workforces. With those anxieties having proved largely unfounded, they now recognise the need for speed.

Covid19 created a sense of urgency around digital transformation, but something bigger and more longlasting than crisis management is underway. The Covid crisis made reliance on tech platforms more acute, and they – along with the corporate teams who use them – delivered... It’s not that new tech was suddenly discovered and implemented; rather, we exploited the untapped potential inherent within existing tools.

Previous barriers to implementation were unceremoniously shoved aside, and those who moved first saw almost immediate benefits.

The authors conclude that, “Our research suggests key discoveries for the post-pandemic business landscape offering new perspectives on digital transformation, the future of work, transparency, and sustainability. Together, they provide a playbook for proactive leaders who understand that old ways of working are gone.”

For this chapter, I would like to suggest four other insights from the IBM report that I think are salient and helpful.

The Covid19 pandemic has forever altered how organisations around the world operate. Some 55% of respondents say the pandemic has resulted in, “permanent changes to our organisational strategy;” 60% say Covid19 has, “adjusted our approach to change management” and “accelerated process automation.”

People and planet are inextricably linked Executives’ concern for sustainability topics has skyrocketed in four years.

Executives have become more trusting of what technology can do and are pushing ahead with digital transformation, indicating that they’re planning for Covid19 recovery to include investment in technologies.

92

%

2 The human element is key to success

82

%

2022 2021

74%

2020 2019 2018

43%

32% Sustainability

Workforce safety and security

16% Environmental impact

While executives plan to expand almost all tech competencies as they attempt the digital transformation of their organisations, the secret to success actually lies in human resources. Our analysis confirms that the business competencies accounting for the largest part of an organisation’s expected growth are those centred around employees and customers, such as workforce training and customer experience management.

| Ten years collapsing to ten months

“ Before the pandemic, many organisations distrusted both their technological capabilities and the skills of their workforces. With those anxieties having proved largely unfounded, they now recognise the need for speed.”

IBM Institute for Business Covid-19 and the future of business

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Chapter 2

“ In the space of a few months, we have made 20 years’ progress in attitudes towards flexible working, and we are going to continue with this momentum.”

Peter Harrison CEO of Schroders

| Ten years collapsing to ten months

3

Traumatic stress has hijacked corporate strategy Executives are tasked with defining their organisation’s vision, but it can be hard to focus if you’re continually putting out fires. While workforce safety and resilience, cost management, and organisational agility emerge as top priorities for the short- and longer-term, the pandemic has amplified old business fears and introduced new ones. Since the beginning of 2020, executive priorities have been a bit changeable, and over the last few months they’ve reshuffled again.

4

People and planet are inextricably linked Executives’ concern for sustainability has skyrocketed in the last four years, and our research indicates that consumers’ passion for environmental issues remains high. Corporations have a heavier burden as they must make good on existing sustainability goals (reduced carbon footprints, more efficient waste management, etc) while simultaneously meeting an expanded and more complex definition of sustainability that includes health and safety requirements.

This may be among the more challenging – and critical – implications for post-Covid19 business, and will require not only new practices and new materials, but also new kinds of data and efficiencies.

So, for example, what is the environmental cost of meat spoiling or being discarded versus using more plastic to make it safer? How do we enable supply chains and last-mile delivery to get what businesses and consumers require without needless waste?

More sophisticated questions are coming, and leaders will be expected to provide more nuanced and educated answers.

This Relationship Buildings® report will access extensive reports and surveys from sources including business, universities, diverse publications and journalism, and where we believe an insight should be explored in depth (as in the above case), we’ll do so.

As a consequence of the pandemic, we’re witnessing both out-of-the-box quick thinking and once-in-a-lifetime risk-taking giving birth to important ongoing, radical innovations. It seems that the, ‘immovable stumbling blocks of pre-2020 are now tumbling like dominos.’ Yes, our clients will be shedding real estate and operating from less space, but our research indicates that this will result in them budgeting to create new generation, innovative

workplaces, and embracing the ‘changing mindsets’ thinking that’s behind Relationship Buildings® . With this report, we’re aiming to introduce these ideas, insights and options with the ‘light touch’ authority needed if they’re to succeed.

A short article in The Harvard Business Review summed up four areas at the heart of the changes being adopted by many organisations within their change programmes, areas that align with the thinking we introduced in our 8 Reasons Insight Document: First, conceptualising the office as an add-on to virtual work, as opposed to the default for where work happens.

Second, substantially increasing investment in new communication tools (and security for remote working).

Third, developing new HR metrics that recognise that proportionality and fairness matter more than ever before – and make this clearly visible to employees.

I’m drawn to what the CEO of Nationwide Building Society said during an announcement reported in The FT: “Nationwide, the UK’s second-largest mortgage lender, will allow the majority of its 13,000 office-based staff to carry on working from home full-time if they wish after the end of the coronavirus pandemic. The building society said it would introduce a ‘work anywhere’ policy after more than 4,500 employees responded to an internal survey saying that they would like to work from home five days a week.”

Nationwide CEO Joe Garner added, “Whatever leaderships of organisations say they want to happen, people will follow behaviour more than words. The evidence so far is showing you can have better outcomes, productivity, and wellbeing by being more flexible. But if organisations want that to happen, the leadership needs to behave the same way.”

Fourth, helping employees develop both ‘work-fromhome’ and ‘work-from-office’ muscles, as organisations try to find out what works best for their businesses in terms of both office space cost per employee and employee performance.

This once-in-a-generation opportunity to help our clients define what their next generation workspaces are going to be means Relationship Buildings® has the potential to be a real agent of change within this process; one with lasting impact.

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Chapter 2

“60% of senior management say Covid-19 has, ‘adjusted our approach to change management.’”

IBM

“ Less than 1 in 5 executives say they want to return to the office as it was pre-pandemic.”

PwC

“Our employees want certainty, and as a leader there is a huge amount of pressure to make definitive statements, but for now I think it’s important that we remain flexible in a situation that is changing rapidly.”

| Ten years collapsing to ten months

The extreme uncertainty of the current economic climate means it’s all too easy to feel pessimistic and anxious, but we’re actually on the brink of the biggest creative revolution in office design any of us will experience during our careers. That’s a real reason for optimism. However, the sheer quantity of changes happening simultaneously means it’s not going to be easy. A tech-focused article in Forbes from November 2020, headlined ‘Covid19 Has Accelerated Digital Transformation — With AI Playing A Key Role’, reported that, “Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses had been on a steady path toward digital transformation to achieve vast improvements in productivity health and safety, quality of products and customer experiences and even to obtain a sustainable planet and a circular economy.”

“The benefits of the next digital era seem almost endless, but the challenges of adopting the technologies that will enable it to transpire — AI, machine learning and deep learning at the edge (where rapid automation takes place) – have made businesses pause because it forces great behavioural and structural changes, like new business models, operating procedures, worker skill sets and mindsets. It can even affect cultures.

These have been some of the biggest stumbling blocks to reaching the next digital era until Covid19.”

“With our livelihoods at risk, the pandemic has served as a wake-up call to expedite the timeline for digital transformation exponentially. In fact, the time is now, and the need is critical and life-saving. A recent survey by IBM (the one extensively quoted above) confirms this by revealing that the majority of global businesses (6 in 10) have accelerated their digital transformation plans due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

It’s all too easy to be caught up in the speed of change and the novelty and excitement it generates, especially when an influential figurehead such as Mark Zukerberg remarks: “Remote workers have performed way better than expected, and as a result I’m projecting that as many as 50% of Facebook employees will be working remotely within a decade. It’s clear that Covid has changed a lot about our lives, and that certainly includes how most of us work. Coming out of this period, I expect that remote work is going to be a growing trend and we are going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale.”

Ten years collapsing to ten months has freed our thinking in ways almost unimaginable pre-January 2020. However, the pace of change will have to be tempered to ensure that the changes we bring to our redesigned hybrid workplace are well considered and provide us with the flexibility we need to experiment and see what works, what doesn’t and what needs adjusting.

“ Beware of turning offices into mere meeting places. Individual, focused work is still an essential component of working life (91.9% of employees).”

Gartner

We have previously reported a question asked by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, “Are we on the brink of a new paradigm for work?”: this is now being echoed in boardrooms around the globe. The aftermath of Covid19 has forced organisations into perhaps the most significant social experiment on the future of work any of us will experience, altering both the work we do and how and where we do it. But in this maelstrom of rapid change, after an absence from our workplaces of more than sixteen months and counting, our biggest change will be to re-establish our shared values, sense of purpose and company culture. (We will explore this in more detail later in this report.)

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Chapter 3 Welcome to the hybrid workplace

Working from home has emphasised why we need the office: “ Be on the lookout for what is lost,” cautioned Satya Nadella CEO of Microsoft in a New York Times interview; a warning not to get carried away by the success of home working. “Productivity stats for many of Microsoft’s workers have gone up, but that isn’t something to over-celebrate.

More meetings start and end on time, but what I miss is when you walk into a physical meeting you are talking to the person that is next to you; you’re able to connect with them for the two minutes before and after. That’s tough to replicate virtually, as are all the other soft skills crucial to managing and mentoring. We have to be careful not to replace one dogma with another.”

“ Given the choice, most of us would prefer our own personal desk, but we’re now saying that post Covid-19 we’d, ‘trade that assigned desk for greater work from home flexibility.’”

Gensler

I am satisfied with my job

Office full time 57% nnnnnnnnnn 1-2 days at home 70% nnnnnnnnnn 3-4 days at home 73% nnnnnnnnnn 5 days at home 66% nnnnnnnnnn

| Welcome to the hybrid workplace

Human interactions can be subtle; the fact that we care about each other expressed with a quick question regarding a colleague’s loved one, off-the-cuff banter about a hobby (usually, in the UK, cycling, dog walking or gardening) or a shared joke about something that’s in the news. These seemingly insignificant interactions are part of the glue that bonds us together as a workplace community. And, as discussed above, they are difficult to replicate remotely. I previously discussed how even something seemingly as slight as novelty is a literal brain changer, and we’re starting to appreciate how interactions we’d previously have passed off as insignificant are actually fundamental to both our wellbeing and our ability to do things well (something we’ll explore in more detail in chapter 6). Interactions like these are going to be fundamental to the success of Relationship Buildings® .

The combination of a sixteen-month absence from our workplaces and colleagues, and the fear arising out of the fact that, post-January 2020, we know that a rogue microbe holds the power to blow our world apart, is likely to make us much more circumspect, and mindful of the values and behaviours that we need to prosper. We all now recognise that as human beings we’re vulnerable, and we have a deeper understanding of how much we depend upon our friends, family and colleagues. The interconnectedness of all of these things is critical to a good, more balanced life and this understanding will inform much of our thinking and behavioural change over the next couple of years.

We recognise that our workplaces can enrich and help balance our lives, providing a sensory, social experience that online cannot. A global report from JLL (one of many equally authoritative and compelling reports) observed, “The mass experiment in remote working has reinforced the need for the office to act as a communal space enabling collaboration, fostering innovation, emphasising company culture and supporting high-performing teams — rather than simply a place to work. This leads to an increased focus on technology-enabled experiential workplaces that are best utilised for collaborative meetings and hosting clients/ employees.”

This, I think, should be balanced with the findings from Gensler’s latest UK and US workplace surveys (especially given the quality and consistency of their reporting over the last two decades), which offer invaluable and rigorous insights into workers’ sentiments regarding changes of work culture. In their report, ‘5 Trends Driving the New Post-Pandemic Workplace’, they suggest that workers, when returning to the workplace, “will now expect the ability to work remotely, and the autonomy to match work to the right setting far beyond the pandemic.”

This sentiment is endorsed by Kevin Ellis, UK Chairman of PwC. Speaking at the end of February 2021, as the company announced its decision to migrate its workforce from ‘office work’ into hybrid work (a decision that’s commonplace among similarly large organisations), Ellis said, “Without conscious planning now, there’s a risk that we lose the best bits of these new ways of working.”

PwC’s survey of its 22,000 UK staff found that many want to return to the office, but only for three or four days a week: “This will necessitate a fully hybrid model of working,” says Ellis. “We want to help enshrine new working patterns, so they outlast the pandemic.

The future of work is changing at such a pace that we have to evolve continually how we do things to meet the needs of our people and our clients.”

Gensler’s findings in ‘5 Trends’ showed that workers maintained strong productivity after the sudden transition to working from home last March. “This was not a surprise, as our pre-Covid research has consistently shown that people who spend at least a portion of their typical workweek outside the office have higher workplace satisfaction, job commitment, engagement, and score higher on indicators of innovation.”

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Chapter 3

If we’re all

scattered to the winds, each of us working in isolation, the casual interactions, team dynamics, shared values and common purpose that glue organisations together, building company culture and shared values, will evaporate.

| Welcome to the hybrid workplace

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Chapter 3

People want to connect, socialise, and collaborate when they go to the office.

56% working in-person with colleagues 45% socialising 37% focused work 37% impromptu face-to-face 35% brainstorming

| Welcome to the hybrid workplace

“We’re not the only firm to measure this; Gallup writes that in order to attract a new generation of talent, companies will have to adopt a forward-thinking mobility strategy. The most recent Gensler Workplace Surveys in the U.S. and among global regions found that those in a ‘hybrid model’ or those balancing days at the office with working from home appear more deliberate with how they use their time, have better awareness of what their colleagues are working on, and have higher job satisfaction overall.”

Their 2020 document also reports that, “Four out of the top five reasons office workers go into the office is to work together in-person, to socialize, to connect in an impromptu or informal manner and, if given the choice between an assigned desk or greater flexibility to work from home, half of workers would choose greater flexibility.”

They go on to report, “It’s not hyperbole to say the office won’t be the same. But that only means the office’s role as a place to connect, collaborate, and socialise will become more important. Working from home has emphasised why we need the office.”

As I mentioned in my introduction, confidence in the effectiveness of moving to a hybrid model for work is nothing new: it’s been tried and debated for the best part of thirty years. The accelerated tech innovation of the past decade, and particularly of the last five years, has also led to the demise of the fixed personal workstation and the old hierarchical office structure.

New technologies and new generations entering the workplace have created fresh opportunities, freeing us to work in more enjoyable, creative, collaborative and productive ways, within newly flexible, open-plan workplaces. Gensler and many other researchers collectively report similar findings that, given the choice, most of us would prefer our own personal desk, but we’re now saying that post Covid19 we’d, “trade that assigned desk for greater work from home flexibility.”

“ ... the office’s role as a place to connect, collaborate, and socialise will become more important. Working from home has emphasised why we need the office.”

For many of us, the office is still the place for focused work. But with the nature of work evolving to become more collaborative, it’s now also viewed as a place to connect in-person (while also being an environment that’s conducive to personal concentration and offering space to study). Gartner’s research cautions, “beware of turning offices into mere meeting places.

Individual, focused work is still an essential component of working life, important to 91.9% of employees. To think that employees won’t need spaces for some head-down, concentrated work on a day when they are in the office for a meeting is risky. Offices that employees will want to come to will need to support both individual and collaborative work in the future.”

Leesman reports in its Review 30 that, “We have also found that those with more complex work profiles, who do a wider range of different types of activities in their roles, are more likely to have a poorer experience working from home. More variety in your activities means more things that the environment needs to support. This is a very similar pattern that we see in conventional office workplaces, which mainly consist of workstations and meeting rooms with little variety of other types of workspaces. But whether or not this home working exercise has meant an improved or impaired experience for employees depends not only on the home working experience, but also on what they were used to before Covid-19.”

As organisations migrate away from their expansive and exclusively ‘office space’ property portfolios towards more diverse Relationship Buildings® environments, they’ll need to create new and more diverse types of spaces. These spaces will facilitate everything described within this chapter and throughout this report, creating environments in which workers are able to develop their careers, connect, learn, build relationships, mentor and influence younger colleagues.

Gartner Research revealed in their 2020 Reimagine HR employee survey that, “only 36% of employees were high performers at organizations with a standard 40-hour workweek. Organizations that offer employees flexibility over when, where and how much they work, see 55% of their workforce as high performers. In 2021 we expect to see a rise of new jobs where employees will be measured by their output, as opposed to an agreed-upon set of hours.”

Gensler

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Chapter 3

“ Offices that employees will want to come to will need to support both individual and collaborative work in the future.”

“ Without conscious planning now, there’s a risk that we lose the best bits of these new ways of working.”

The research and surveys we’ve accessed can be condensed into five core ideas and practices that illustrate the purpose of the post Covid19 workplace, and also give an indication of what needs to happen to make Relationship Buildings® successful.

Working from home yes, but not at the loss of our workplace community Covid19 has fast-tracked workforces into working from home, something that, for many of us, has proved more productive and less complicated than we could possibly have imagined. As a result, organisations now understand that enabling workers to be based at home part of the time benefits both the workforce (through an improved work-life balance), and the environment (by reducing the number of commutes), and also offers significant cost savings to employer and employee alike.

Working from home does not, however, offer a longterm full-time solution. Collaboration, innovation and bringing new products and services to market all suffer while we’re barred from the workplace.

Kevin Ellis UK Chairman PwC

Shared values, sense of purpose and company culture “ If we want to sustain our work culture, purpose and values – and the relationships that build these – and perform at our best, we need to revisit the scale, structure and purpose of our offices to rebalance the levels of connectivity between ourselves and our colleagues. The design of physical places helps us express our business identities.”

Lockdown will inevitably have loosened the bonds so important to company culture. The rebuilding of communal trust and relationships and the inspiring and supporting of new ideas and achievements will only really happen once we’re within the embrace of Relationship Buildings® .

If we’re all scattered to the winds, each of us working in isolation, the casual interactions, team dynamics, shared values and common purpose that glue organisations together, building company culture and shared values, will evaporate. Post-lockdown, all organisations will have an enhanced appreciation for the workspace’s role in knitting together the cultural values and sense of purpose so essential to success (particularly in a recession economy).

Welcome to the hybrid workplace

“ Employees in a hybrid model are most likely to be satisfied with their jobs.”

Gensler 2020

The design of physical places helps us express our business identities. pages 42 – 43

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Chapter 3

The adoption of shift schedules and other initiatives to manage flexibility and sharing “Many of the benefits of having everyone work virtually will be lost if some employees come back to the office and others don’t. We have to find new strategies to blend both, and we have to begin this process now.”

In a report from January 2021, PwC reported that, “Companies that may have been slow to adopt technologies that support remote work — or to create clear rules and a secure structure around WFH — are playing catch-up. Optimizing the hybrid workplace requires accelerating investments to support virtual collaboration and creativity, as well as for scheduling and safety. Over 60% of executives expect to raise spending on virtual collaboration tools and manager training. Half plan to invest more in areas that support hybrid working models, including hoteling apps (50%) and communal space in the office (48%).”

“ 60% of executives expect to increase spending on virtual collaboration tools.”

PwC

The dissipation of immediate action Now that we’ve been working remotely for well over a year, the effectiveness and convenience of many aspects of digital tech have become clear. However, being in absentia from the office has also demonstrated that it can take multiple online meetings to solve a relatively simple problem, and that critical or urgent issues requiring a colleague’s help just aren’t as easy to address via Zoom.

Within the collaborative workplace, we’re used to the immediacy and convenience of having our colleagues nearby. If a question arises during a meeting, it’s quick and easy to pop out and check things with someone; if an issue needs resolving, it’s the work of moments to gather a few colleagues together for a quick discussion or brainstorm.

Working from home has given us a new appreciation of this immediacy, and of the efficacy of human-tohuman interaction. We need to develop new skillsets that reflect our organisation’s needs, programming in ‘collective’ time and synchronising our diaries via new enabling tech to get the most out of the time we spend together. This is going to require practice and time to perfect.

| Welcome to the hybrid workplace

The workplace as a regulated environment Many decades of experience, fine-tuning, improving and learning from mistakes have led to the recognition of refined employee wellbeing as an essential element of workplace best practice, something that’s valued highly all over the globe. The fact that workplaces had to close so abruptly, however, meant there really wasn’t time to ensure our scattered workforces were set up to work from home properly and safely.

As a manufacturer, it’s a legal requirement that Orangebox only bring products to market after conducting in-depth research, undertaking extensive development and testing, and complying fully with all relevant DSE (UK) and global regulations. Workplaces are the same: the organisations that create them have to meet strict legal requirements – from environmental standards and performance requirements to employee health and wellbeing. And, as Jim Taylour will explore in detail in Chapter 10, Relationship Buildings® have the potential to achieve a new, more focused and refined culture of wellbeing.

An article in Wired in November 2020 anticipates the return to the workplace post-vaccine, which, it says, “will usher in the dawn of the true hybrid office.”

Illustrating the continuing vitality of the workplace, Molzi, an Amazon marketing company that doubled

its staff as ecommerce became the big lockdown winner, discovered staff were desperate to move into the new, much bigger building it had subsequently leased in Farnham, Surrey. “We always knew we wanted to return to an office, and agreed terms even prior to the positive vaccine news,” says Molzi CEO Chris Mole.

Wired wrote that Mole, “expects the office to run like a WeWork-style social workplace where, ‘teams can organise their in-office days within their business units, and also continue to enjoy part-time remote working.’

Mole is starting to encourage employees to come in for socially distanced meetings and collaboration, as and when they feel comfortable, ‘when government guidelines allow. With the vaccines close, people are starting to return to the office, but having one no longer means forcing everyone to work in it all the time.’”

The new hybrid workplace is not the same as the pre-January 2020 workplace and, as discussed elsewhere, it would be a big misjudgment to persist in believing that nothing has changed. In chapters eight and nine we will explore the ideas and insights informing the design of Relationship Buildings® in more detail.

Encounters and interactions that would previously have been seen as casual and unimportant are actually fundamental to both our wellbeing and our ability to do things well. pages 44 – 45

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ISS UE 2 release date

26.05.2021