The pendulum on return-to-office (RTO) has swung wildly in the last three years, so it’s no wonder that employees feel bewildered and stressed out. In the RTO debate, we’ve reported on extremes from the viral video of a CEO accusing employees of secretly working multiple jobs while logged in remotely to workers pushing back by going on strike when mandates were handed down.
On the other (more humane) side, we’ve chronicled how leaders have adjusted to hybrid work, which a McKinsey report shows has been adapted by 90% of the organizations they surveyed. Owl Labs went from having just a few people working remotely pre-pandemic to truly hybrid, where attendance at its headquarters outside Boston ranges from 25% to 50% capacity midweek to nearly empty Mondays and Fridays. CEO Frank Weishaupt is a believer: “When I think of all the time I’ve spent in my life commuting—time I could have given back to my family, my health, and the company—hybrid makes sense,” he told Fast Company’s Shalene Gupta.
This has been particularly valuable for the youngest members of the workforce. As Jenn Lim, CEO of Delivering Happiness, observed, “This hybrid + remote model gives Gen Zers the choice to escape cramped housing quarters and feel what it’s like to thrive in the office and read actual body language, not just what’s being emitted through a screen.”
And while remote work has been a boon to working parents who have more flexibility and autonomy to deal with childcare, there are also downsides. A Bright Horizons survey revealed that 33% of working parents said at-home work was isolating, and 41% agreed with the statement: “Sometimes I go for days without going outside when I work from home.” As a work-at-home parent, Fast Company contributing writer Sarah Bregel wrote: “I have to say, that hits hard. Sometimes, greeting the postman in the early evening, or hollering at the dog, is the only time I hear the sound of my own voice in a day.”
Now that hybrid models have been backed by definitive research and meta-analysis, there is some discussion about what the office should look like and how best to entice people to come in at least part of the time. Taking the researchers recommendations, the architects at NBBJ came up with the concept of the 40% office. The name refers to the rough average amount of time people should be working together in person, and based their design recommendations on flexible space. “For instance, we helped one media company create storage spaces that can readily convert into personal offices, and designed conference spaces for a tech company with demountable walls for added flexibility,” they explained.
The office-as-ping-pong-style playground may be a relic of the “before times,” as architects are now pressing the importance of employee feedback to help leaders understand how to create spaces that actually function for this uncertain future of work.
Yet while the research may render the RTO debate dead, there are plenty of ways to reimagine the office of the future. Some commercial real estate firms are even betting big that the future of work will be in-person. One building in Boston is getting a $40 million retrofit to include a biergarten, a food hall, and—you guessed it—a game room. The more things change . . .
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