Focus Business Blog
Important Leadership Tips For Returning To The Office
Your teams will be nervous about July 19th, there will be many who look forward to the old normal, there are many who are used to this normal and enjoy working remotely, and there are many who expect a hybrid office approach.
Here are the leadership tips to follow to ensure smooth sailing for July 19th – back to the office day.
Are you based in England and concerned around July 19th return to the office?
The future of work should be flexible and hybrid (consider reading our free hybrid office ebook), however, we have seen many businesses default to a return to the office.
Here are the questions to ask your leadership teams on how they are thinking and how they made the key decisions.
It is unusual you would hear a company be as bold as suggesting
‘Companies Miss Out on Talent If Not Offering Remote Work‘.
This is not a new narrative but one that is extremely timely and will resonate with many potential candidates looking to make the shift from other tech giants looking to enforce a return to the office.
In the supported video, Slack’s chief people officer Nadia Rawlinson speaks very openly and well on how Slack are handling remote hiring and talent when it comes to working remotely.
The future of work has to be flexible and hybrid.
I recently was a keynote speaker for the online Future Of Work Conference.
The future of work presentation was created to help businesses consider the future of work and the future of their business.
This presentation should act as a guide and inspiration on how to rethink your current approach and lead your company and lean into the future.
As a huge advocate for hybrid work and the hybrid office (aka an arena), many businesses are requesting their staff to return to the office at least 3 days a week (including Apple & Google), with this in mind, the presentation enables any version of hybrid to work.
The key message of the future of business
Business is going to be culture first.
The Full Future Of Work Presentation
Since the start of 2020 we have seen a number of business changes, one important area that has not changed as much as normal is hiring and natural staff turnover.
As we see more vaccinations and confidence come back into economies, we will see large numbers of staff reconsider the roles they are in, their role within their team and importantly within their organisations.
We have seen in 2021 that many people are living in the better the devil you know, we are about to see this change.
Change Is Coming
This is where business leaders have to start internal conversations around the management team table, around the exec table and bring in human resources to start preparing for the influx of difficult conversations around staff members wanting to explore their options and for some receive offers from other companies and in some cases staff leaving for complete career changes.
Get Ahead Of Turnover
If your department or team has seen turnover, do not expect this to end, action the following:
This period is essential to understand the motives behind wanting to leave or a desire to improve their skills and where you are placed to assist.
Learn From The Market & Other Companies
In recent conversations; poor company culture, lack of career development and weak company strategy have all been areas raised as to why staff have wanted to leave.
In other conversations, something that many businesses have ignored is the requirement from the teams for hybrid and flexible working from home.
Do not allow your inflexibility in shifting to the hybrid office or making important tweaks including introducing hybrid perks
Not A Normal Time
This situation is something a manager or department lead experiences throughout the year, however, with summer approaching and changing landscape, we will see a rush for talent.
We will likely see more investment made into company developments and into key growth departments and more roles becoming available, more recruitment companies contact staff and headhunters going through teams and approaching them for an alternative role.
Prepare Yourself & Your Future
As a manager or department lead it is imperative to have discussions around headcount and knowing if you are likely to lose someone you will be able to replace and reshape your team.
You will likely see more change than you want but it is essential to be ahead of this wave of change and be able to reduce any anxiety around headcount and if you are in a position to hire a way to show your plan and lead from the front.
This week Nick and I discussed the future state of work, obviously, this is very topical with the return to the office and the chatter around how Basecamp has changed their policy and saw backlash, how Google are not giving clear communication to their employees and how the likes of Twitter, IBM and Slack are suggesting you can work from wherever you like vs having to be in one HQ or a satellite office.
With so much of this discussion being relevant to Focus, I wanted to share this specific episode for you to read and share with your executive team.
On the podcast we discuss:
The future can be hard to predict, however, Nick and I have broken down what and how as much as possible for businesses of all sizes.
This podcast helps you understand how you can overcome some challenges, how to be smarter with hybrid, what your options might be and how to learn from big companies like Salesforces approach to feedback loops and maybe on the other side, Coinbase and their move to close their HQ.
If podcasts are not your thing, happily read the full transcript below.
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It Is Time To Reshape Your Office & Default To Hybrid Thinking
This is a long form guide. If you would like to download as a PDF, select download below
It’s time, time to rethink how you reshape your office to improve your business.
Over the last year, the office for most has been empty, it has the traditional lines and banks of desks, it has the kitchen in the middle of the office and numerous meeting rooms with the management offices at the top of the office overlooking the empty banks of desks.
The Opportunity For Positive Change, It’s Not A Threat
This traditional model has to change, the banks of desks will have to be remodelled, more distance between the desks and people will have to be put in place, many meeting rooms will have to be reshaped, rethought and will require more space and fewer chairs.
The concept of it being all in the office has now gone, it will be a book in and book out, banks of desks per department is now going to be hotdesks and many departments will have to come to agreements on when it might be the tech day or could be the marketing day or the sales team on-site.
The office will have to be hybrid first, fully considered, the office will likely have to be shaped into an arena to cater to in person and on-screen performances for your teams to watch and participate via floating heads, audio, video, typed out Q&A.
Intentionality Is Key
The case for deliberate action has never been so clear, from owning communications channels, internal connections being built via specialist culture community management and crafted principles that are followed company-wide.
At focus, while our miss is to fix the broken world of work, we help companies with office and environment design and we have created a checklist to help guide you through reshaping your office.
Jump To Topic Areas
Less personal desks – the end of having a desk per person for the midterm future has to be removed, this will mean:
Booking in system
People are creatures of habit, booking in systems will have to be rolled out and spaces or specific desks will be reserved
All defaults to hot desks
That is right this means colleagues will be mixing more and required to hot desk, this will see many departmental changes and businesses deliberately looking at how they can mix different teams who struggle to interact cross-functionally
Zoom rooms – all rooms will have to equipped with the best connections, microphones and acoustics clearly considered. Laptops will become the canonical source of communication with investments into headsets and headphones with microphones a basic requirement. There will be a place for telephone conferencing however we have to consider how we enable hard of hearing and deaf colleagues to be able to interact and be on the same playing field as everyone else.
Camera first rooms
The majority of rooms will need to have camera’s added and easily sync with your internal network to enable more interactive sessions, there will be more arguments and fights over large meetings rooms and the conference room.
Multiple screens vs one screen
Typically most meetings rooms only have one screen, in the hybrid world this potentially will have to increase to multi-screen rooms or multiple inputs into multiple screens, this will enable more interaction, more interactive presentations and more collaborative efforts
Interactive panels and boards
Despite the raise of whiteboard features and tools like Muro, there will need to be more interactive panels, more boards and better surfaces to have more open problem solving and sketching sessions. Product and Marketing teams will be requesting this currently
Holographic presentations
Yes holograms will become a staple in in-office presentations and stand-ups.
Being able to present as if you were in person is going to incredibly important and something businesses of all sizes will have to plan for. AR will be the best way of researching and offering holograms currently.
360-degree cameras
There are many products on the market that offer voice tracking and speaker tracking, being able to track someone walking or pacing and presenting is going to be essential, considering investing in a number of these for large conferences or for all hands, townhalls and product demos.
Best in class microphones
A hugely important takeaway since working remote-first is:
Audio is vitally important for attention, being heard and getting the message across.
Businesses should invest in high-quality microphones, audio continues to be vitally important alongside video and connectivity quality.
More Tablets – Tablets will likely see another resurgence in popularity, this is down to the better quality camera, headphone jack and the portability of tablets, alongside being able to use iPads as a second screen or a dedicated conferencing tool. Consider how you leverage tablets and how you can create better interactions between colleagues when on video calls and presenting.
Self-cleaning Tech
We have seen large leaps in self-cleaning tech over the last twelve months, with the importance of clean and sanitised workspaces there will be a requirement to ensure areas are cleaner, sanitised more often and some emphasis should be placed back on the employees to clean as they go. Employee cleanliness and hygrine have never been so important to the health of the organisation.
Dedicated systems to remove crowding
Bringing awareness of the density of people and groups forming safely is of the highest importance for safety and awareness. Investing in dedicated systems to remove crowding and built-up areas of staff is critical to your staff’s health but also their wellness and welfare. This will also reduce anxiety levels and fear around returning to the office safely.
Shift patterns
This is an area many leaders have not fully considered and is an area where there is opportunity. With improved asynchronous communications, there should be less reliance on every staff member having to work at the same time. We have seen more flexibility can work and shift patterns allow more flexibility in travelling, in completing work and being a parent. If someone is a morning person enable these colleagues to start earlier and finish earlier, if others perform better in the afternoon or evenings, offer a way for more flexible patterns. Teams will have to be responsible to own this by team or by department however guidance from the leadership functions will add weight and importance to offering more flexible work patterns.
Team and department areas
There are going to be important sessions where teams will want to be in the same location at the same time, we will see that this instantly increases footfall into the office for on-sites, this also sees footfall increase for off-sites. This will have to be managed and organised by the booking system and be discussed for specific days for x or y department. This is not an easy negotiation however a vital one to plan for.
Mobile apps purpose-built for brainstorming and ideation – There are many elements of work that are traditionally in person, brainstorming and ideation has a buzz and feeling connected to it, connecting the hybrid workforce is going to be essential particularly with apps and software enabling better brainstorming and ideation.
Connected whiteboards
Whiteboards are typically dumb, they are written on and wipe off, requiring to take a picture, upload and often redesign or type up will not be optimal in the hybrid workplace, investing in connected whiteboards will help improve teamwork and reduce friction between projects.
Best connecting WiFi and 5G
The office is going to have far more devices connected to the network than before, despite an estimated 40% returning to the office, there will be more devices connecting and taking up more bandwidth and sharing more video and audio, it is important to improve your connectivity and consider if 5G is an option where WiFi can be challenging to install.
The kitchen is a key component to the success of an office, the kitchen is a meeting area, a quick catch up and connection area and often important discussion stations. With fewer people in the office, this will mean you will be ordering less milk, fewer caffeinated beverages and reducing waste, this all has an impact on the way the office environment feels and will require better management.
Screens in the kitchen?
There is a school of thought that screens will have to be placed everywhere to enable spontaneous conversation, this could be true however more screens will mean trust will be lowered as surveillance will seem higher. Consider how you encourage and enable the kitchen to be reshaped to encourage safe conversation and bringing in other colleagues where applicable. The kitchen will be a vital open space where colleagues can reconnect, while we will be in phase one of returning to the office it is essential to manage flow in and around the kitchen with safe distancing. There is an opportunity to learn from companies such as Pixar who opened up and expanded their kitchen and dining areas to encourage more moments of connection and areas to break out in.
Less private phone booths more video conferencing breakouts – dedicated private phone booths were installed in many businesses to enable private calls and head down work to happen, we are likely to have to rethink this space and add in more video-based conferencing into these booths. This is an additional investment however with many businesses going to have to rely on video-based chat this is an area to consider for space and for productivity.
Is there still room for in-house coffee baristas?
For many businesses, co-working spaces and agencies this will mean the barista will likely have to reduce hours or be on strict management of crowding and introduce an ordering system.
Despite the role and the importance of connecting over hot beverages, this is one of the organisation’s perks that might have to sacrifice.
More mobile apps – Mobile apps are the ultimate convenience. Simple to learn, simple to use, simple to update will be key to win. It is likely businesses will need to be on more devices with better apps to enable quick interactions, quick requests, booking in and booking out of the office. WeWork and other co-working and building management did a good job with their apps, it will be good to map out all requests and the elements raised in this guide and hiring a developer to be able to connect into your main software to help to provide an employee view, a manager view, a department view and a company view.
More in-floor sensors
We should be clear the in-floor sensors are to improve knowledge around density, reduce crowding and understand if there are times or parts of the office that have more footfall than there should be. In-floor sensors should be clearly called out to staff to make them aware of this change and be clear for the reasons why.
Operated Turnstiles
If you have an office of over 15 people it can be difficult to manage flow in between the office and into the office, while apps and management software will help with understanding how many people are in the office if you have couriers, guests and small events happening, an operated turnstile will help control this and reduce any risk of too many people in the office or in lifts etc.
Foot-controlled lifts / elevators
Buttons are over-rated, right? Foot controls are going to be important to reduce the surfaces touched by hands. Adding a foot control will likely be costly however many landlords will be making plans to roll these out. Be proactive and reduce the friction as early as possible.
Well-Being First – Whilst we have lived through the last twelve to fifteen months in many locations across the world, we have seen the common cold and seasonal flu reduce down. Density and people connecting spreads gems, it is essential to consider how you have a well-being first environment. This means anyone who is feeling unwell, from a cold to having a higher temperature to having other symptoms they have to work from home. Likewise, mental health days will be vitally important to be called out and actually used without any sigma.
Any sniffles or sneezes will be treated differently than before, it is important to address early on and talk through why it is important to use the hybrid model if you have anything that resembles a cold. Many may consider this a step too far, however, for everyone’s peace of mind and to reduce any peer to peer friction there should be guidelines put in place.
More UV lights – UV lights have been used to combat numerous issues and bugs, there will be a demand for UV lightening and UV cleaning materials, it should be an area you research and then potentially invest in. A number of cleaning firms have started to invest heavily in UV lights and specific UV lights for high duty cleaning.
More outdoor space – Many countries are taking different approach however outdoor spaces and meeting areas will be prime real estate if your lease is coming to an end it will be important to look for an office or offices that include more open and outdoor spaces. One perk many offices may find is that the office is close to parks and will see the benefit of outdoor meetings, walk and talk meetings and a chance for more outdoor sessions. If you are in a position to consider a new office there are a number of new real estate demands to consider:
Good luck with remodelling your office and preparing your team for this essential move for your business. Refocusing the office as a safer, more open space will help your business to win.
Want to download and share? Download below
The office as an arena concept is going to be an important read.
Another important follow-up read is reducing anxiety returning to the office
This guide will be updated over time to consider new guidelines and studies, however, it is important to note you should follow local and national legal guidelines as these vary from town to town, city to city, state to state.
