The Latest Trends & Issues Impacting Your Workplace.

Leadership driving the return to the office 

• 75% of senior leaders rely heavily on in-person collaboration, both planned and impromptu. 
• 84% of leaders agree that more meaningful and effective collaboration takes place face-to-face. 
• The expectation is that those they collaborate with most should be present in the office. 
• The cascade effect is that leaders draw the rest of the workforce back to the office. 

• However, 83% of workers now rely on digital communication methods with their colleagues. 
• 70% say that digital communication improves their collaboration experience. 
• As a preference, 74% of UK workers want a hybrid workstyle with a blended mix of home and office working. 

Understanding when in-person or digital communication is the most appropriate medium for the task in hand will be an organisations key collective cultural learning. 

Focus on work 

• Workers have become accustomed to privacy while working from home. 
• 60% are able to always work undisturbed at home. 
• 50% feel more productive at home than when in the office. 
• When workers return to the office, they will expect to retain the privacy they have become accustomed when they need it. 

• Many will continue to carry out privacy and focus tasks at home as a preference. 
• With increasing uptake of video calls on personal laptops, noise will increase in the workplace. 

Strike the right balance for your organisation between collaborative and individual spaces. Ensure noise and distractions are controlled in focus settings and the appropriate etiquettes put in place.

Unallocated desk dilemma 

• Lockdown research found 83% of UK workers would prefer an assigned desk to a ‘hot-desk’ style of working. 
• However, 51% would give up that desk for greater autonomy and better workplace facilities. 
• With hybrid workstyles, and workers typically in only 2-3 days a week, assigned desking is economically unviable for most organisations. 
• When teams are in the office, they should be together in a ‘neighbourhood’ to optimise collaboration, learning and information flow. 
• Ensuring workers have surety of appropriate worksettings when in the office will be vital to gain trust in returning to a hybrid and mainly unassigned desk strategy. 

Use technology to develop worksetting booking strategies that ensure individuals and teams have the facilities they need to collaborate, focus and socialise when they are required to be in the office.