As firms throughout the world experiment with bringing people back to work, leaders must act immediately to maintain a productive and secure workplace.

Workplace redesign to support corporate goals

We all have images of a normal office: private offices and cubicles, conference spaces, pantries, and common facilities. Few offices are created to meet certain company goals. While offices have evolved over the last decade, they may need to be completely redesigned for the post–COVID-19 era.

Organizations might designate places for interactions that cannot be conducted remotely. Should 80% of an organization’s space be dedicated to collaboration spaces rather than individual workstations? Should companies require all cubicle workers to work from home? Is working close to home a preferable alternative if only a few people need corporate office space for  rent?

The future workplace will rely heavily on technology to allow people to return to work safely before a vaccination is generally accessible. Management of employee access, timing of entry and reassembly, cleaning of the workplace, ventilation and spacing of employees will be required.

Dissolving the borders between being physically in the workplace and out of the office is essential for maintaining productivity, cooperation, and learning. In-office video conferencing can no longer be a group of individuals gazing at each other from a table while others watch from a screen on the side. Virtual whiteboards and other asynchronous collaborative tools will soon become commonplace.

Inventive resizing

Offices will need to be reinvented in a radical way. By rethinking how much and where space is needed, firms can better enhance collaboration, productivity, culture, and the work experience. A similar technique will ask where offices should be situated. Some corporations will keep them in cities to attract young talent and generate a sense of community and excitement. Others may relocate to suburban campuses.

In any case, the approaching transition will employ a mix of space solutions: owned, leased, flex, co-working, and remote work. 3% of the US office market before the crisis was flexible space. Flexibility was already in the works since their share had grown by 25% yearly for five years. According to a research, office-space decision-makers estimate main and satellite office work time to decrease by 12 and 9 percent, respectively, while flex office space will remain about steady and work from home will climb to 27 percent from 20 percent. 2

These improvements may not only enhance work but also save money. Rent, capital costs, facilities operations, maintenance, and management comprise real estate many corporations’ major cost areas. It frequently amounts to 10-20% of overall personnel-related expenses. While some companies have saved expenses by considering alternate working techniques and rethinking space management, many business leaders have taken this as a given. The opportunity to minimize real-estate expenditures post-COVID-19 is enormous. Getting competitive leasing rates and facilities management contracts isn’t enough. Real-estate groups should work with the company and HR to redesign the space swiftly and create win–win arrangements with landlords.

The stakes are high. Some companies might save 30% on real estate expenditures over time. Others may be eliminated by adopting a completely virtual model. Both might benefit from having workers work in many locations to boost organizational resilience and decrease risk.