Cureosities | The Future of Work: Space

We’ve all lived an experience over the past few years that uprooted our understanding of how the world works and put some basic truths up for debate. While the lively debates about working remotely or going back to the office may have quieted down some recently, there is still a disconnect between the amount of office space available for use and the number of people actually using it. Most organizations seem to be settling into a 3/2 split between office and home, but business leaders are still trying to figure out how to navigate their under-utilized office spaces. There aren’t easy answers because the solution has to be specific to each business and its people, but using some common approaches to what is needed from office space in this post-pandemic world, organizations will be able to chart a path forward that best suits their people, mission and values.

Social spaces are more important than ever, supporting community and random interactions throughout the organization. Plants, rich materials and thoughtful furniture design enables these spaces to be destinations within the office.

First and foremost, if remote work is part of how an organization now operates, their office space needs to evolve in order to best serve the functions needed for those coming in. Remote work is best suited for individual, focused work, and that’s generally how people are using it. Workers come into the office for the comradery, connection, and collaboration, in other words: the people. According to a recent survey, a full 85% of why people come into the office is for interacting with others. Just 15% of workers are looking for space for individual work time, so why would we have 70% of our office space, a pre-covid metric, be taken up with individual desks?

It is a very real issue that companies have office space based on metrics and space types that were needed before the pandemic, when we worked in a different way. Workspace, which is a significant overhead cost, is now underused across the board, often sitting at half capacity or less, without a strategy on how to pivot.

So what can be done?

Implementation of all the great ideas that futurists are coming up with is complicated, in large part, because it’s a multi-faceted issue. Many aspects of the evolution are rooted in organizational psychology, personal interactions and the cultivation of culture (writings from Adam Grant, Brene Brown, Simon Sinek, and Jim Collins are all fantastic resources for learning more about how organizations can thrive). Much of this is beyond my purview, but as an architect and designer of space, I am able to build from these ideas by designing spaces with a constant eye toward connection, flexibility and trust.

The primary reasons people report for coming into the office center around interactions with others, including comradery, collaboration, and in-person meetings. Spaces like this with ample daylight, easy access to technology and comfortable furniture are go-to spots in an office design.

Human connection, as I’ve discussed before, is so central to why we do what we do every day. It gives purpose, meaning, and warmth to our individual existence, and human connection is what pushes people to see intrinsic value in being in the office. They enjoy their colleagues, they learn from them, and they do better, more purposeful work when they’re better connected to those around them. True social connection takes time to develop, and in most organizations, people work in teams and have inherent connections within those teams. So in addition to creating compelling workspace, our goal with office design can be fostering connections beyond small teams to unify organizations overall.

The concepts of “weak” and “strong” ties in social relationships goes back 50 years to Mark Granovetter, but this concept is getting more and more attention in recent years. Weak social ties are those that fill in the gaps, they’re the casual acquaintances and distant connections, and in professional organizations, these ties provide outside perspective and break down siloed thinking, which in turn leads to more creativity and innovation. Unless carefully cultivated, these types of connections are what suffer most in an exclusively remote work environment. These weak ties often don’t happen remotely because they tend to be more ad hoc and random in their development.

Creating a variety of spaces with varied spatial qualities, such as a quiet library, and making sure the social agreement is in place for how these spaces are intended to be used allows for people to seek out different spaces based on what they need and how they want to work at a given time.

What even one individual needs to do their best work will often change throughout the day, let alone the individual needs from person to person, and office space needs to support this diversity in order to support individuals. Creating spaces with abundant choice available to employees enables choice throughout their day. Perhaps one person wants the energy of the open workspace so they can ask their colleagues questions every so often as they’re working through a tricky problem. Maybe an entry-level team member needs an enclosed workstation in order to focus and check their work. Perhaps a manager wants to shift spots every couple hours in order to reset as they’re going through spreadsheets.

Something I’ve learned over time, partially thanks to my children, is that every human’s brain is unique and needs different things in order to thrive. Trusting employees to have flexibility in their work location is inherently more inclusive. When people are given the choice to work where it works best for them, individual needs of neurodiversity are also addressed and supported, creating a more equitable and inclusive approach to work.

Space design can, and should, define certain qualities to facilitate certain work styles or experiences. For example, a quiet library space designed for individual focus creates a completely different type of experience than a cafe with music set up for chatter and social interactions. In deliberately designing spaces with different qualities and purpose, we create a variety of destinations around the office. People can seek out the spaces that support them best and overlap with others seeking similar things, setting the stage for common experiences and connections.

Individual workspace will still need to be a part of office space, but it won’t necessarily need to be as dominant of a space type as it was before remote work. Workspace will need to feel welcoming and be adjustable to individual needs in order to draw people into the office.

New office space today is solving problems that didn’t exist before, and we’re redefining metrics and space types in order to support a new way of working. In order to do that successfully, those that are ultimately going to be using the space need to help shape it. There are a variety of methods for engaging employees in programming, visioning and change management as it’s not always as straight forward as asking what people want. The critical step is to understand why they are looking for certain qualities in a space, what problem is really needing to be solved in order for the workspace to best serve them and the organization? These methods of engaging with employees also help to better define a company’s desired culture, values and goals to ensure they are central to the design of the space.

Another aspect of office design in this new age is that in order for space to act as a companion to remote work, it needs to be welcoming, comfortable and set a tone of “people-first.” When set in comparison to a person’s home, many existing office spaces will struggle to hold their own. The human comforts we can take for granted at home - access to views and daylight, comfortable lighting that we can adjust as needed, our favorite art, welcoming furniture - have not always been prioritized in office design. Home offices are tailored to the individual, so taking a thoughtful approach to window access, adjustability, light/daylight, materials, furniture and art in the office space can create a much more inviting and comfortable experience that is at least as welcoming as a home office and brings joy to those that get to use it.

The most important aspect to the success of change management is that employees feel they are being provided something better than what they had before. If individual ownership is removed or spaces are made smaller in order to provide more options, but it is all designed with a deft hand to create warm, welcoming, highly functional spaces, employees are more likely to be excited about a new approach to office space.

The way office space makes people feel is more important now as it is held in comparison to home office spaces. Encouraging people to come into the office is easier when it is an inspiring and comfortable space that supports their well-being and brings them joy.

Office spaces for management consulting companies like McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group and Deloitte already work within a similar model to what I’m describing here. Their companies are highly innovative, and their business models are based on a structure of flexibility, collaboration and mentorship. Having worked on new office designs for a couple of these companies previously in my career, the office layouts were unique at the time, but they are now quite apropos. In shifting away from dedicated offices, we were able to provide a variety of options for individual focus spaces as well as parallel group work where teams are able to work next to each other and periodically collaborate. These newly designed spaces resulted in organic in-office attendance increasing. Relaxing the office/workstation requirements of the workspace allowed for more opportunities for connection and cross-team collaboration, giving employees more reason and desire to come into the office.

So where to go with this?

While it might happen to be time for a lease negotiation and remodel, most businesses won’t be in the position to completely redo the whole office space right at this moment. Many business leaders are sitting with their spaces, not knowing what to do with them. The goal right now should be to understand what people need and want out of their collective work environment. Enhanced programming sessions along with testing zones for new layouts may help define the path for what is needed from the repositioned approach to office. The concept of “show, don’t tell” can be a very effective strategy for communicating new, different ideas in order to develop excitement around change rather than fear of an unknown.

One thing to keep in mind with the “future of work” is that there is no easy answer because each organization needs to figure out what it means for them. Moving into a “future of work” mindset means we’re rethinking what work is, pushing ourselves to put people first in order to enable them to do their best work. What that looks like isn’t really definable, but we can strive for that feeling of connecting space to the purpose, belonging and connection that makes it worth coming in for.