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Matt Alder

 

Twelve months ago, there was still a sense that a return to pre-pandemic office life as we knew it was still a possibility. One year on, the much-heralded return to the office has been continually delayed by further lockdowns and work-from-home mandates.

However, there is now a sense of cautious optimism that in 2022, as restrictions continue to lift, we will start to find out what post-pandemic working life really looks like.

The last two years have been transformational for how we think about work being done. Remote working has proved to have considerable advantages in terms of flexibility for employees.

It has also given employers the ability to access new pools of talented workers that aren't geographically tied to a commutable distance to specific office locations. A significant minority of organisations have seen so much value in remote work that they are abandoning their physical offices and plan to make the move to remote a permanent one.

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However, remote working has also brought some significant disadvantages in terms of employee isolation and the difficulties of translating some effective office ways of working into remote equivalents. It is therefore no surprise that many organisations are keen to reinstate the energy and serendipity that face-to-face working brings.

Although some have mandated a full return to the office, many more are exploring the concept of hybrid working. This is starting to throw up some interesting challenges in terms of working practices and workplace design.

Employees want a clear purpose for coming to the office on a particular day, rather than commuting in just to sit on team calls that they could do at home. It's clear that balancing the "when" and "why" of coming into the office is a critical element in this new working arrangement.

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Very much linked to this is the design of the office's physical space. Some companies are already taking the opportunity to redesign their spaces for collaboration, community, wellbeing and focus.

The challenge here is that the pandemic has liberated people to work in personal ways, making designing the collective office of the future a real challenge. There is a real danger that trying to please everyone will lead to unproductive spaces that serve no one.

The key to success for hybrid companies will be flexibility, listening and experimentation. There is no new one size fits all normal; there is only individual preference and choice. With today's tight talent markets, the employees are calling the shots.

Matt Alder, host of The Recruiting Future podcast, is a guest writer on behalf of s1jobs.