How to build your workplace for a hybrid future

In just a few short years, hybrid work has gone from a nice to have to a need to have. More than half of UK work­ers say they’d con­sid­er leav­ing their employ­er if the option to work in a hybrid man­ner was tak­en away from them, accord­ing to YouGov data.

While the idea of mix­ing time at home and in a phys­i­cal work­place, along­side col­leagues, is still in the ear­ly stages of evo­lu­tion, work­ers have vot­ed – and they’ve said it’s here to stay. “A large num­ber of peo­ple who work in offices have got used to the idea that they can also be pro­duc­tive work­ing from home or a café, or even a dif­fer­ent coun­try,” says Steve Vatidis, exec­u­tive chair­man at work­place ana­lyt­ics com­pa­ny Hub­Star.

Employ­ees want a say in their work­ing sched­ules but need to know that the time they do spend togeth­er in a col­lec­tive work­place is going to be time well spent. They want the right tools, employ­ee expe­ri­ence, and evi­dence for col­lab­o­ra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Con­cur­rent­ly, that means employ­ers need to meet that demand, build­ing a mod­ern, hybrid work­place and cul­ture that allows work­ers to thrive – with all the halo ben­e­fits that brings. Hap­pi­er work­ers are more con­tent work­ers, and more con­tent work­ers are more like­ly to stay with a busi­ness, despite more com­pe­ti­tion among employ­ers than ever before. But that costs mon­ey – and is chal­leng­ing for busi­ness­es already scru­ti­n­is­ing their bot­tom line.

Employ­ers find them­selves in a dif­fi­cult halfway house. The busi­ness case for keep­ing offices is appar­ent: you need a phys­i­cal work­space to which your staff can com­mute in order to realise the ben­e­fits of col­lab­o­ra­tion and com­mu­ni­ty that result in bet­ter employ­ee reten­tion. Yet hokey-cokey employ­ees – with one foot in the office, and one foot out of it – mean that cost­ly real estate can often lie fal­low, silence ring­ing around the cor­ri­dors of a com­pa­ny.

Bal­anc­ing oper­a­tional effi­cien­cies with employ­ee well­be­ing and empow­er­ment is a dif­fi­cult thing to do. It’s com­pound­ed by the fact that every employ­ee has dif­fer­ing per­cep­tions and expec­ta­tions of the new world of work, and that many of the old pres­sures, includ­ing the need to meet envi­ron­men­tal goals, remain. Yet staff recruit­ment, moti­va­tion and reten­tion remain major fac­tors employ­ers need to con­sid­er. “Staff expe­ri­ences at work affect what you do; they affect turnover; they affect col­lab­o­ra­tion,” says Vatidis. “They’re at the core of the per­for­mance of any com­pa­ny, busi­ness or organ­i­sa­tion.”

The team at Hub­Star have spent 30 years help­ing large com­pa­nies make bet­ter use of their space and real estate – a mis­sion that has become more impor­tant than ever as the work­place goes hybrid, and senior busi­ness lead­ers con­sid­er the role their land and office port­fo­lio plays in their com­pa­nies going for­ward.

There is a place for the phys­i­cal work­space, says Vatidis, but it needs to be explained and pre­sent­ed to employ­ees and employ­ers in a much more cohe­sive, sen­si­ble way, giv­en the chang­ing face of work. There was a time, pre-pan­dem­ic, when busi­ness­es could rely on tra­di­tion to make the case for their work­spaces and their eco­nom­ic val­ue to a company’s bot­tom line. Work­ers came into the office every day because it was what had always been done; busi­ness­es kept cost­ly work­places on the bal­ance sheet because it was the norm.

Now new norms are being rewrit­ten – and both busi­ness lead­ers and rank and file employ­ees need to be con­vinced of the val­ue of the phys­i­cal work­space. “The world has start­ed recog­nis­ing the inevitable, there’s going to be sig­nif­i­cant change, and there’s a chance to bring about a change for the bet­ter if we do the right things,” says Vatidis. But in order to make the case for a new, improved office that works for every­one, you need to be in a posi­tion to under­stand that case your­self.

Hub­Star pro­vides that by design­ing, build­ing, sell­ing and ser­vic­ing tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms that deliv­er an ever-improv­ing work­place expe­ri­ence in a hybrid work­ing world. It uses data to help busi­ness­es work bet­ter, achiev­ing sought-after objec­tives and util­is­ing work­places in a bet­ter way than before the pan­dem­ic. Vatidis says that busi­ness­es that build their work­places for the hybrid future of work are those that use data-dri­ven tools and plat­forms that man­age work­place util­i­sa­tion intel­li­gent­ly while also respect­ing the choic­es and pri­va­cy of their work­ers. “With­out intrud­ing in any way into any kind of pri­va­cy, you can still have a rea­son­able idea on an anony­mous basis of what goes on,” says Vatidis. “You can inform the deci­sions peo­ple make in terms of when and where they want to come, and give them a chance to also make longer-term plans.”

Busi­ness­es that utilise this data can work with their employ­ees to pro­vide a way of work that meets their needs, while also ensur­ing the com­pa­ny runs smooth­ly. Rather than dic­tat­ing when work­ers come in, it pro­vides options for employ­ees to choose from. “And at the same time, it pro­vides aware­ness of what oth­er teams are doing for col­lab­o­ra­tion,” says Vatidis. “It’s able to adapt to what the con­straints are, and when there’s more or less space on a minute-by-minute basis, as oth­er peo­ple make their deci­sion.”

Take some­thing that was once seen as sim­ple in the phys­i­cal work­space that has become more chal­leng­ing in the hybrid one: organ­is­ing a team meet­ing. Fif­teen peo­ple who want to col­lab­o­rate with each oth­er can mean an awful lot of mails bounc­ing back and forth, and results in siloed think­ing with­out many oppor­tu­ni­ties for infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion – the kind that sparks the most inno­v­a­tive think­ing.

Using data-dri­ven work­place plat­forms like Hub­Star enables those meet­ings to be bet­ter organ­ised, tak­ing into account when work­ers who need to col­lab­o­rate togeth­er are like­ly to be in the same phys­i­cal space, and sug­gest­ing times that work. “The hybrid work­space becomes more mould­ed around your needs,” says Vatidis. Peo­ple don’t feel com­pelled to come in, which has a pos­i­tive impact on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. “Infor­ma­tion has been shared effec­tive­ly about how this can work,” he says. “It’s about being able to actu­al­ly influ­ence things that reduce stress, and gives employ­ees sat­is­fac­tion that we’re actu­al­ly mak­ing some­thing hap­pen rather than being car­ried along in the riv­er.”

For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it hubstar.com/hybrid-work-solution

Pro­mot­ed by Hub­Star