Welcoming Employees back to The Office? Now is the time to rework your office layout!

As many companies are beginning to assess a continued work from home, in-office workplace, or a hybrid scenario, the truth is that there seems to be “no right or wrong way” rather, it depends entirely on the companies and their cultures. Companies like Google may cut the pay for U.S. workers who opt to work remotely. While others, such as Cisco, have a hybrid working plan that has no mandates about how often employees should work in the office. But other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, want workers to return to offices.

No matter what return-to-work plan companies are pushing, working from home is inevitably shifting from “an aberration” to “the new normal”. With a large segment of workforce teleworks, it’s time to consider reworking your office layout.

Studies show that office layout and other environmental factors affect employee well-being, financial success, and productivity.

There are increasingly more types of functional spaces in the office, before planning a new layout, the first thing to do is collect accurate and reliable data about how each space is being utilized.

Workstations: where office workers spend over 80% of their office time. Workstations are fixed and shared by flexibility, also leader’s and intern’s by position. Workstations need to be analyzed from multiple dimensions according to different workstation attributes.

Meeting rooms: should be analyzed depending on sizes and functions. Daily stand-up meetings, random problem-solving meetings, board meetings, etc., different meeting types require different room sizes and devices.

Cuddle space/meeting pods: for info-sharing or casual talk. For how long and by how many people the cuddle space/meeting pods are occupied should be taken special consideration.

Phone booths/concentration spaces: for employees who need a quiet place to make a call or concentrate on their work. Generally we need to pay attention to the overall utilization rate and single usage duration.

Recreational area/eating place: some organizations would use hot desks as eating places, and usage data during mealtime and working hours should be analyzed separately.

In conclusion, Senior leaders and employees both need to realize that it’s about what is right for the individual employees AND the collective community, AND the business. All of those factors need to be considered as everyone emerges from the Covid pandemic if we are to return to a healthy, safe workplace environment. It is imperative, that the business remains profitable and productive, that the employees all have jobs to come back to, and that the economy thrives. Whichever direction that your company is leaning in their decision about the Return-to-Work Workplace, reach out to Corporate RE Advisory Services and let us help you prepare an efficient and reliable plan that will work for you!

Email us directly at: corporateREadvisoryservices@gmail.com