20 The pandemic showed that the flexibility we were forced into should be affirmed in the future world of work, as it enables freedom to act and new ways of thinking at both the organisational and employee level. If this prediction is correct, the need for active leadership and culture-building efforts will rise within the organisations. An adaptable office in a changing world As the world around us grows more complex, coupled with internal complexities such as competing needs at work and potentially greater work-environment demands, I believe that the office will increasingly come to play a leading role in terms of holding the organisation together. To succeed, it is important to emphasise the role of the office as an aid to the business and an entity in service of the organisation’s culture. There will be more than one answer to the question of what makes an attractive office. I believe that the overarching task of the office of the future will be to unite the organisation in an adaptable way, while simultaneously creating the right conditions for synergies and greater innovation and productivity. Of course, that may be easier said than done. But in order for the office to take on the central role required for the best possible hybrid set-up, we need to both adopt new ways of thinking and test out a range of different office solutions. In addition, we also need to apply a premises strategy for hybrid working that does not compromise on the rigour or courage to think differently in the best interests of the organisation while recognising the different work-environment needs of different groups. This might mean having to humble ourselves in certain cases – for example, by giving private spaces to specialists who won’t otherwise return to the office (despite the risk of friction with different groups that this may entail). Or it might also be meeting the needs of a specific professional group for focused and creative teamwork by isolating them from managers and other colleagues via the project-office concept (see fact box). These groups can meet for brainstorming sessions during project periods at a special project office, which can be located either at the central office or elsewhere. The objective is to get groups such as sales staff and IT developers who work remotely to work here one or two days a week to then go back to their usual workplaces at the office or at home. In this future scenario, the organisation is seen as a living organism whose needs diverge and converge, and so the premises strategy needs to relate to this in an organic way. One respondent made the comparison of the various professional groups functioning like an orchestra playing together, with different participants and different repertoires. The risks of a decentralised office Another future scenario is one in which the organisation has several different offices within a single geographical area which function as hubs/co-working spaces for specific professional groups. Staff work periodically from their tailored hub environment and periodically from the main office where they can meet other colleagues and complete tasks that are best suited to this environment. The tailored hub spaces could also be located in the same place as the main office, so long as they are separate from the wider organisation and the sense of being off-site is retained. However, a decentralised office set-up with dispersed offices also entails a risk of operational fragmentation and may hamper culture-building efforts. As mentioned earlier, the antidote to this is conscious efforts to boost organisation culture. FACTS: The project office concept has arisen out of a greater need for project work within organisations and working life. What it means is that for so long as the project is ongoing, employees move into one or several project rooms set up especially for this purpose. This is a tailored and creative environment that they can bed into and make their own. Advantages include being able to leave work materials sitting out, physical proximity to colleagues (which in turn means better communication and sense of community) and privacy without outside scrutiny. This method has been shown to boost creativity which otherwise risks being stifled in more open workplaces. (References: Bodin Danielsson. C., 2014; Mitchell McCoy, J. 2000)
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