What’s the point of getting back to the office?
If you’re in charge, you might have two thoughts in mind. Filling the building up with people will justify paying all that rent. And it’ll surely be good to get back to ‘normal’.
But what was the point of that office in the first place?
In theory, having your people in one building helped you to co-ordinate your efforts; it gave your employees the chance to be managed, to learn, and to be trained. It helped you to create a culture.
But many bosses became too busy and too concerned with their personal performance to look after and develop anyone working for them. For junior people, the office didn’t hold much attraction. It became the place where hours of attendance and compliance with a dress code might be commented on, but not so much a place where wisdom and experience were shared. Training was provided by training departments.
The truth is there was a drift into not using those offices well. Now’s the time for fresh thinking on how to arrange your space and how to make the most of it.
If you want to get work done efficiently, encourage teams to work well together, share experience, and develop your people, what physical spaces will help you to achieve those objectives?
There’s room for new ideas here. We’ve moved on from two-person offices; they’re not the solution. And the answer won’t come from experts who designed those vast floors that look like typing pools from the 1950s, adding nothing but draining the spirits. If you want to hit the bullseye, you might have a bash at creating a place that helps people to do their work and gives them a chance of feeling valued.
So much for walls and furniture. Now’s the time, too, to face up to another, more important, challenge. How are you going to change behaviour so that you’re really doing all that managing, training, sharing of experience and developing? The furniture won’t do those things by itself. And there’s no point blaming the pandemic. Now’s your chance to reflect on how you can get the most out of your office, and to finish the year in better shape than you started it.