Viewpoint: Hybrid Headaches
It’s clear that hybrid work is here to stay, but getting the most effective hybrid working models in place has been a learning experience for everyone—facilities managers, employees, IT teams, and even building architects and designers.
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While hybrid working is a boon for work-life balance, it doesn’t come without its challenges. As businesses look to maintain a thriving, engaged, and productive workforce, there needs to be parameters in place to make sure things don’t run wild. Three key areas that businesses have widely struggled with since going hybrid are inclusivity, driving innovation, and ensuring their workplace culture thrives. To achieve all of these and make hybrid work a success, businesses need the right mixture of culture, technology, and office facilities.
Purpose and Presence
A key tenet to successful hybrid working is trust. While individuals are part of a team, they equally need to be given the freedom to develop their own skills and reach their own objectives. Sometimes quiet focus is needed, away from emails and instant messaging, and employees shouldn’t feel that the pressure of "presenteeism" to distract them from getting on with focused tasks.
If employees are being called into the office, there also needs to be purposeful presence. This means there should be a reason for employees making the journey in, such as an in-person meeting or brainstorm session with the entire team, rather than just carrying out solo tasks like written work or admin that could be done more effectively at home.
Regardless of where employees are, they should feel empowered to speak up in meetings, stay engaged, and contribute meaningfully. Technology is central to the concept of meeting equity, and a new breed of meeting room solutions are now available featuring intelligent innovations to make sure everyone is seen and heard clearly. For example, Logitech Sight is an innovative tabletop meeting room camera that helps to ensure in-room participants are presented face-on to at-home participants, as if everyone has a seat at the same table.
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As well as seeing clearly, businesses also need to focus on audio. We’ve all been on a video call that sounds like you’re dialing into a bowling alley—and the best way to feel excluded is by not being able to hear what’s going on.
While intelligent technology can go a long way toward improving audio through directional microphones and AI noise suppression, meeting room acoustics are equally important. In the room itself, it’s worth reducing hard surfaces that cause echo and including lots of soft furnishings that can absorb further ambient noise (and are also perceived as welcoming). It’s also worth considering adding fabric padding to walls, which can often blend into a meeting space aesthetic.
The Office 'Magnet'
Businesses should also promote equality, participation, and empathy. A good way of doing this is to make sure that offices themselves are “magnets”—places that employees want to come to and where they feel like they are part of a wider community.
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To accomplish this, it might be time to rethink what me mean by an office. In the context of hybrid, we should instead think of them as "relationship buildings" that are designed around welcoming team members and making connections. In some respects, offices should almost feel like a home. For example, think of incorporating a "welcome lounge" for when employees arrive, a calm and peaceful area to help shake off any commute-induced stress.
Technology is central to the concept of meeting equity, and a new breed of meeting room solutions are now available featuring intelligent innovations to make sure everyone is seen and heard clearly.
To promote sociability, corridors should instead be thought of as "avenues" that are designed to deliberately slow you down and promote "bump talk," those spontaneous conversations sparked by unexpectedly seeing a colleague. That interaction might just spur a new idea or initiative that wouldn’t have come about otherwise.
Offices should also look to incorporate flexible architecture, where spaces can be adapted and changed with mobile furniture and technology. Fixed furniture can be anchoring and oppressive, but flexible spaces help to add to workplace dynamism and add a sense of spontaneity.
All of this should also be done with sustainability at front of mind—going hybrid shouldn’t come at an environmental cost. We’re increasingly seeing office furniture that has been made from repurposed or natural materials, and new technologies are starting to incorporate post-recycled plastics to reduce their environmental impact, helping organizations to stay to their sustainability targets.
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Ultimately, we are on an ongoing journey with hybrid working. We certainly haven’t reached its final destination yet, and there will likely be some more turns in the road ahead as organizations and employees continue to find the best ways to work in a hybrid model. As we navigate this dynamic, the key to hybrid working success will be adopting a test-and-learn approach, while maintaining a flexible approach to how technology, facilities, and culture come together.
