Can You Imagine How COVID-19 is Changing the Role of the Offices?

Looking into the future, the consequences and game-changing nature of the Covid-19 lockdown seems very obvious. But staying here amidst it, we can only imagine how this pandemic will change the role of the offices and what will be the ‘new normal’. So, let’s imagine.

At present, working from home is almost the default mode for most non-furloughed employees. Projects being coordinated through regular Zoom or Teams calls and e-mail. At this point, phone calls are no longer enough, as staff pine for company of work colleagues they used to see day in, day out at the workplace. They can’t wait to return to the workplace to escape these things.

Then again, some people are cherishing the time saved from not driving to work and the flexibility of working from home. These things add time and value to their lives, in terms of managing childcare, home education and the daily cook.

Now, most employers will need considerably less office space as staff have already shown that they can work effectively from home. The principal view is that staff will attend the office only two to three days a week and can work the rest from home.

So, what will be the role of the office in the future?

All things considered, this will be more social space, used for brainstorming and team meetings, instead of sitting at workstations in front of computers. Staff can do that component of their work from home. It will require a re-think of office spaces with comfortable couches and coffee facilities replacing banks of desks.

Employers must also consider how they will create a bond, or maintain bonds among their existing teams. Currently, the business has had the option to run smoothly to Zoom calls, because team members know and trust each other. The more they work in isolation in the future, the harder it will be to keep up or sustain these friendly bonds.

Social activities that generally happened outside of work hours may become a part of the working week. If the social interaction we have taken for granted in the workplace disappears, employers will need to find better approaches to lead and build their teams. The employees that don't have any acquaintance with one another, will not go the extra mile for colleagues or businesses they don’t feel connected with them.

Unfortunately, we all have to create clear policies for working from home when we come out of lockdown. Staff are similarly as productive, if not more, homeworking where there are fewer interruptions. However, no one should expect that this will remain the case as we come out of lockdown.

Technology to monitor movements and time spent on the computer has been around for a long time but remains lightly utilised in the physical office environment. And today, it has been found unnecessary and intrusive, however, it may become a valuable tool in the virtual office world.

It should be a significantly more results-orientated approach. It is all right if employers do not care when work gets done if the objective has been met. The staff goes to the shops, drop the kids and have lunch out with his mum or partner once a week, just getting the job done should be the motive. However, such an approach does require a much clearer set of objectives and standard review. So the management layer needs to adapt and be retrained the most.

The best news for the companies who are moving to virtual offices is that geographical considerations have gone out the window. They will recruit the best individuals in the country or Europe, for the roles they need to fill and won’t worry about having the staff in the office each day. Company flats to be engaged with refreshing activities may soon be the norm, with the lower floors decked out as coffee shops, company gyms or rooms for evening mingling.

Just as combining the best of the offline high street area and online booking platforms, the new normal in office space is probably going to completely re-invented. With the clear presence of excess supply over demand in office space, in the following years, we will see sharp declines in city area office costs, making the capacity for employers to utilize the spaces more innovatively and openly to help to create a bond among their business teams.

Precisely what this resembles, we can only imagine, but change is coming fast, that’s for sure!