Season to Taste: Level Up your Return to the Office

Alex Hayes

Director of Sales

Spent the last 12 months doing applied research in the technique of “work from home”. Mom of 2 kids, 2 dogs, a cat, and a lover of the “mute” button on video calls.

We have been living in a year of uncertainty, but we actually (finally) (might) (maybe) have some answers on when we will be back to the office, so now it’s a matter of how, who, and what…

I’ve heard a lot of people in the last year, and even in the last month express an interest in figuring out the “what’s next”, but how do we start planning a reentry to the office when we don’t know when it will happen, who will be able to get back, and what the office will need? These questions have left people guessing, theorizing, and ultimately doing very little other than letting leases lapse or leaving their space as-is hoping it will work whenever people can use it again.

Here’s the thing: we actually do have some answers. So far the most complete data set and tangible output I’ve seen has come from our friends over at Steelcase. Sure, they make furniture, but they also have a really cool and comprehensive research and development team that partners with organizations like MIT to get a bigger picture of how people occupy space. In their latest publication they reference 8 primary studies in 10 countries. That’s over 32,000 people and 8,000 floorplans so far. A summary is linked here, but I’ll tell you high level: they found there were 5 different ways that people have experienced mandatory work from home and those experiences require a combination of 5 needs to return to the office, which translate into 4 shifts in the way we think about designing spaces, and all that to create some pretty tangible design principles. Talk about a run-on sentence. So just like in one of those blogs where you have to read a novel and a someone’s personal life story to get to the 4.5-star recipe: I’m now finally going to tell you why this is all relevant and tell you exactly what you need to get back to the office! 

Are you ready?

Nah just kidding. Here’s the thing, this information doesn’t design a space for you. We do have some cool renderings and ideas to get your wheels turning that address any number of the design principles, but also like a poorly written food blog, I’ll refer you back to a different post I wrote but continue my stream of consciousness here-- To create a space that works for your people, you have to know who your people are. Do you know the unique experiences that your team is having at their home office, and what they need to feel safe in coming back to a shared office? How about what ratio of time in the office and tools they’d need to be more productive? If you still have an office space, is it one that will inspire your team to come back, and will it be flexible enough in the future to continue to meet the needs of the work and a variety of individual experiences? These are huge questions and the only way to get answers is to ask. 

That’s a scary concept even if you have a small team, but certainly for companies with hundreds or thousands of employees. It’s scary, but it doesn’t have to be hard or complicated, especially now that we have a framework, because it’s given us a structure of questions to ask and how to ask them. What’s scarier is what will happen to the organizations that haven’t started thinking about getting back--or those that are waiting to see what everyone else does. Those companies are going to lose exceptional people at a rapid rate to organizations that show forethought and compassion and decide to invest some time and resources now to understand the needs of the future office and address them head on.

There’s a reason that Hyphn expanded beyond selling furniture a few years back. It’s the core piece of our business, and the outcome of many of our engagements, but we can also send and analyze surveys, do active workshops, and create change management programs and protocols to support a space that is intentional and supports the goals of the organization and the needs of their employees. That’s the plug for our services, but even if it’s not Hyphn doing that work for you, it’s work that will need to be done if you want an effective, and frankly, competitive, office in the next year and beyond.

Checkout out this relevant change management Case Study with MTA