15 A balancing act between different needs Another thing that has become clear since the pandemic is that a good work environment is increasingly important for getting people to choose the office. The objective here is to accommodate two partially conflicting needs – the need for meetings and interactions and the need for focus and concentration alone or in groups. Several organisations in the study have reported that, since the pandemic, there is a pent-up demand for interaction and community between colleagues that digital meetings cannot provide. Organisations that allow a high level of remote working therefore need to consciously work to promote visual and physical proximity in their office architecture. However, this requires something of a balancing act in the design of the hybrid office. Proximity to others can result in unwanted stimuli and a feeling of being crowded. These are known as environmental stressors. With that being said, many of the respondents also state that a vibrant environment is important and that an overly spacious office can feel desolate, draining and outright unstimulating. “We need to forget about having tech developers in the physical office and find new ways to collaborate with them, which is absolutely something that can be done. We simply need to let them work remotely while the rest of us are on site.” The view of the respondents is that success will require greater focus to be placed on the needs of the different professional groups. IT developers and specialists are particularly difficult to draw back to the office. Their main reason for avoiding the office is that they have difficulties concentrating and work less efficiently at the office. Silence and focus, as well as opportunities for recovery, are thus the environmental factors that the office needs to offer here in order to compete with the home work environment. Besides the problem described above, there is also a catch-22 when it comes to hybrid working and office size which is related to both organisation culture and development. Organisations that reduce their office size need to consider that employees may avoid the office if this change impairs the office environment. The opportunity for spontaneous activities and encounters is thus diminished as a result. These encounters not only constitute an important organisational lubricant, but they can also be necessary to the organisation’s development and, in some cases, its survival.
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