The Dynamic Office Comeback Post-Covid

A redesign of workspace to accommodate the management of workers’ well-being after the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

During the Coronavirus pandemic, working at the office was held in abeyance while the government continues to find ways to tackle the continuous accretion of Covid cases. Every medical advance against the Coronavirus changes the way the offices are going to operate in the near future. Rumor has it that companies are seeing the end of an open-plan workspace and reverting back to small, private offices that resemble closed-off cubicles. However, is that the only way forward? Or rather backwards? In the coming year, prioritising the minimisation of health risks are at the utmost importance for all companies that plan on reopening physical offices. How can we create an office space that does not sacrifice the open communication benefits of an open-plan workspace, and still be able to regulate the limitation of interaction to keep everyone healthy?

Working from Home Pros & Cons

In order to understand what a better workspace for future offices looks like, we must consider the pros and cons of working from home to smoothly transition remote workers to resume working in offices. Working from home has been a necessary protocol for the sake of minimising health risks during this pandemic. To some people, this is the best thing that could happen during this difficult time because it brought them some conveniences, especially for families with young children. However, for others who are used to more rigid work schedules, it felt like they couldn’t work from home with constant distractions from family members.

Most would agree that one of the biggest upsides of working from home is that they no longer have to commute to work, they simply wake up, make a coffee and get to work on the kitchen counter. No commute means saving time and money!

"No more crowded buses or trains. No more annoying traffic jams. Back in my office job I always hated this part of my day the most. I found it very stressful and depressing."

However, working from home meant that collaboration within teams would have to be done over online video calls through platforms like Zoom or Google Meet. This limits the flexibility of communication between workers, which might create potential blockers in getting projects done smoothly.

Lastly, flexible working hours is either one's favorite aspect or one's most disliked element that comes with working from home. It allows one to manage their time however they want around work and their personal life. Depending on the kind of person you are, you may like the freedom of merging your work with your personal life, or you may completely hate it due to the lack of personal space during your working hours at home.

Work-Life Balance Evolving to Work-life Integration

Another aspect to consider along with the #workingfromhome trend is work-life balance versus work-life integration. Work-life balance is an approach that has been used over the last several decades for people to manage their way of living, whereas work-life integration has been recently incorporated into our lives, when working from home became the only way to work. These approaches of lifestyles, although sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably, are distinctly different in their essence.

Work-Life Balance

Work-life Balance refers to the approach that separates the work and life aspect. This means that it is crucial to create clear boundaries that allow for exclusive spaces around the two aspects individually, whether it be physical or emotional boundaries. With #workingfromhome being the trend at the moment, many have lost these boundaries to their work-life balance, which forces them to change their lifestyle approach into work-life integration.

Work-Life Integration

Work-life integration, on the other hand, refers to the merge between the two aspects. Working is seen to be a part of life and therefore should be intertwined within our lifestyle and merged with one's day-to-day activities. We have seen an increase of people being forced to get used to this lifestyle approach during the pandemic. Many have had to turn their kitchen table into their work desk, and others have had to isolate themselves in their bedroom in order to create a physical work space away from the rest of the family.

There isn't any one solution that is "one size fits all", some may be more efficient living the work-life integration lifestyle, while others may find themselves more productive living a work-life balance lifestyle. It is up to you to understand which lifestyle works best for you through practical experiences, and analyze the upsides and downsides between these two approaches.

Incorporate Change into the Office Environment

The best solution for a post Covid office space is finding the silver-lining between working from home and an open-plan office space. An open-plan workspace promotes fluid communication between workers, creative collaboration process within teams and departments, and personal working spaces for each and every employee. While working from home allows for flexibility in how one works, but lacks the space for one to focus in a home filled with distractions.

An office should be able to offer workers a space for collaboration as well as an exclusive space for complete focus, which one cannot get from a coffee shop or at home. An office should also accommodate both rotational workers and workers who work five days a week. Since social distancing is still a key element to keep to reduce health risks for employees,

"We have to make everybody that uses those spaces feel like we've done our job to make them safe," according to Andrew Bennett, a design principal at the BOKA Powell architecture firm.

Safety protocols for offices are no longer regarding only the structure of the building and the building codes, such as the fire escapes and fire sprinklers check ups, it now includes "everything from social distancing to changes in airflow within buildings," suggested by the AIA's newly released guidelines.

Dynamic Workplace

Consider an article by Christopher Mims from The Wall Street Journal, "the 'dynamic workspace,' a pivot away from the open plan, built on the idea that with fewer employees coming to work on any given day, offices can offer them more flexibility of layout and management." Companies are considering the amount of people that come in for work and how they can minimise them to necessary workers that have to be at the office for five days a week. The rest of the workers are now going to be rotational-shift based, which means these changes must be accommodated when designing office spaces as well.

Okta Inc is in the business of building tools that allow secure access to business applications. Their design of office space takes into consideration that people would like to work in different environments throughout the day depending on what their task requires. The dynamic workspace they promote include elements from both the open-plan workspace and cellular offices.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, "Goodbye, Open Office. Hello, 'Dynamic Workplace." by Christopher Mims

"For me it's fairly clear we're going to move to this model across every industry, even the more traditional ones." ~ Armen Vartanian, senior vice president of global workplace services at Okta Inc.

Further Steps to Take

Without a doubt, managing health risks and social distance are continually going to be important factors for office reopening after Covid-19. There are bound to be changes in ways that workers operate within the office space. That being said, some further steps could be taken by simple redesigns of office spaces that will help companies transition to a germ-free office space beyond adapting the dynamic workplace design. These could include adding sinks fitted into the design of reception and common areas, investing in smart devices to avoid multiple people handling shared surfaces such as elevator buttons, coffee machines, conference room lightings, door handles, etc.

Another suggestion is that companies could consider partnering with co-working spaces in different areas to create a "remote workplace" that resembles a private coffee corner hotspots for remote workers. Remote workers can choose to "come in for work" at these remote hotspots when home is a distraction-filled area, and the company could simultaneously limit the amount of people that come into the office to minimise health risks. Lastly, design with people's well-being in mind is the essence of redesigning an office space.

Reference

Bullard G. 2020, Goodbye, Open Office? How Workspaces Will Change After Coronavirus, NPR, viewed 15 September 2020, <https://www.npr.org/local/305/2020/05/19/858865632/goodbye-open-office-how-workspaces-will-change-after-coronavirus>

Cheng D. 2018, Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Integration: How Are They Different, and Which One Is For You?, Inc., viewed 21 September 2020, <https://www.inc.com/dorcas-cheng-tozun/how-work-life-integration-can-help-you-have-it-all.html>

Dresdale R. 2016, Work-Life Balance Vs. Work-Life Integration, Is There Really A Difference?, Forbes, viewed 20 September 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelritlop/2016/12/18/work-life-balance-vs-work-life-integration-is-there-really-a-difference/#2b9e472d3727>

Mai D. 2020, 21 Work From Home Pros and Cons - The Surprising Truth Behind Remote Work, Digitalnomad, viewed 16 September 2020, <https://www.digitalnomadsoul.com/work-from-home-pros-and-cons/>

Mims C. 2020, Goodbye, Open Office. Hello, 'Dynamic Workplace.', The Wall Street Journal, viewed 16 September 2020, <https://www.wsj.com/articles/goodbye-open-office-hello-dynamic-workplace-11599883273?mod=hp_lead_pos11>