The end of the open space era. How will offices change after the pandemic?

The coronavirus pandemic has quite unexpectedly brought significant changes to the lives of a large number of people. Companies have sent their office workers home, allowing them to self-isolate at home, periodically showing their upper bodies on Zoom video conferences. Despite the fact that the current mass transition to remote work has become a forced necessity for most companies, there is every reason to expect that this event will have the most far-reaching consequences. Namely, even after the end of quarantine and the return of life to its more traditional way, office work will change forever, and remote work will become much more, and it will no longer be the lot of freelancers and low-level specialists with little experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift towards remote work. Opinions

There are a lot of opinions and forecasts about the impact of the quarantine pandemic on the future of office workers, and I must say, for the most part, these forecasts look very optimistic. And they also seem pretty realistic, unlike many other predictions about great changes in the future that you can hear in the media and the Internet. “Of course, this is not how I imagined the revolutionary transition to a distributed work model. But, nevertheless, it happens. Thanks to the pandemic, many companies have been able to finally build a culture that provides long-awaited work agility,” saysMatt Mullenweg is the CEO of Automattic, which owns the WordPress and Tumblr platforms. Mullenweg has been promoting flexible remote work in the IT industry for years. “This could be a chance to quickly reset the overall workflow approach. Millions of people will be able to live and work without tiresome commuting and a complete lack of flexibility in managing their time,” said Matt. Matt agrees Jennifer Christie (Jennifer Christie), head of HR-department Twitter: “Probably, everything will never be the same as it was before. People who have been hesitant about working remotely will find that it suits them perfectly. Managers who thought they couldn't manage a team remotely will change their minds. I think the changes will become permanent.”she said . By the way, Twitter has already allowed everyone to work from home permanently even after quarantine. The founder and head of the social network Twitter Jack Dorsey recently sentan email to all employees of the company, in which he said that they can continue to work remotely even after the end of the coronavirus pandemic. According to him, Twitter employees have the right to choose whether to stay at home or return to the office. And not only the leaders of Internet companies are so positively disposed. “Now many more people will switch to remote work in a permanent mode. This is absolutely accurate. The biggest hurdle for most companies was technology barriers, which we were mostly able to overcome. Also a big factor was the “old school” mindset of most leaders who believe that people need to be in the office to be productive. As for the latter, I think that some of these traditional companies will gladly return to the usual way of doing business after the crisis.predicts Cara Silletto, president of business consulting firm Crescendo Strategies.

How should the organization of office work change after the pandemic?

So, what exactly is most likely to change in office work after the quarantine is lifted and the global epidemic begins to wane? More precisely, how should office work change as a result of all this (for the better, mostly), and even more: what changes in office work should you demand from your employer?

1. The end of the handshake era?

   Many experts predict that after the epidemic, the world will begin to abandon handshakes as a common greeting. Which, I must say, seems to be a very adequate and more than timely change: a habit that arose among men in ancient times as a way to demonstrate their peace-loving intentions - showing that you have no weapons in your hands - has now become irrelevant and often harmful (handshakes are one of the main ways of transmitting infections).

   Here's what Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who essentially leads the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic in America, had to say about this: “To be honest, I don't think we've ever back to handshakes. This [i.e. not shaking hands] will not only help fight the coronavirus epidemic, but will most likely also significantly reduce the number of influenza cases in our country.”

2. The end of the fashion for open space?

   If the abolition of handshakes is unlikely to cause any strong emotions in the majority of our readers, then this change will surely find many supporters. The general transition to open space offices in most IT companies, presented as a movement towards openness and barrier-free, but in fact dictated more by the desire to place as many people as possible in one room and better control them, may finally be over.

   “I’m not saying that we all need to go back to working in cubicles like we did in the 50s, but I think office density needs to change,” said Arjun Kaicker, Head of Analytics and Research architectural firm Zaha Hadid Architects.

3. Workplace redevelopment.

   The abandonment of the open space model is likely to go hand in hand with a change in the layout of workplaces. Workers should get more space for and around their workplace.

   “Office desks have gotten smaller over time: from 1.8 meters standard office desks have shrunk first to 1.6 meters and then to 1.4 meters. Now, I think we will see the reverse process,” Kaiker predicts.

   Already, many companies are thinking about changing the layout of their open space offices. For example, the head of Peralta Design Ramon Peralta, in an interview with Marketplace, said that the company plans to install glass or plastic partitions in the office, or special cough shields.

4. The end of the fashion for endless meetings and meetings.

   Another emerging trend that will surely please many experienced office workers. It seems that the fashion for endless team-meetings and meetings, which has been established in the corporate environment over the past couple of decades, is coming to an end. What can not but rejoice. And it should also have a positive impact on efficiency: for example, according to the Doodle service, in 2019, due to inefficient meetings, companies in the United States lost almost $400 billion (in terms of wasted working time).

   “Video calls can easily replace almost all small-scale internal organizational meetings, and those leaders who cannot learn how to effectively conduct such video meetings will run into problems,” predicts Cara Ciletto of Crescendo Strategies.

5. The emergence of a fashion for “officeless” companies.

   Since the initial mass adoption of remote work has generally been a good one—at least as long as companies around the world aren’t particularly complaining about the drop in efficiency—it can be expected that the wholesale transition to remote work will lead to a vogue for companies without an office, which build their work entirely around remote work. It is possible that this will even lead to some social division among specialists: between enthusiasts of remote work and traditionalists, who are quite satisfied with offices.

Disadvantages and problems during the transition

But, in fairness, it must be said that the rejection of traditional offices in favor of remote work has a number of obvious disadvantages. Which, however, do not seem insurmountable at all.

• Technical problems.

  The global quarantine has led to a huge increase in the load on the networks of Internet providers - in some countries, such as Italy, network traffic has grown by more than 60% during peak periods. And the corporate systems of many large companies, being very outdated, were not ready for restructuring for remote work. In general, it can be stated that for a large company to function effectively on a completely remote basis will be quite a challenge, including from a technological point of view. Even though Internet technologies have advanced a lot in terms of speed and efficiency in recent years.

• Lack of interaction with living people.

  As the saying goes, a man needs a man. For many, the lack of live communication with other people when working remotely is a real problem. The availability of high-quality video communications partially solves this problem, but only partially. “I have worked remotely before. After a while, even an introvert has a desire to see another person, ” the Guardian quotes an employee of one of the IT companies as saying.

• Deterioration of motivation and weakening of social ties between employees.

  For many companies that base their business model on motivating employees and encouraging close communication with colleagues to create an atmosphere of unity and teamwork, the transition to remote work will definitely bring serious problems.

• Cyber ​​security and data privacy concerns.

  The fact that employees at all levels, from second assistant interns to directors and heads of departments, are working remotely certainly increases the risks for businesses associated with hacks of corporate networks and leaks of confidential data (which are now already high). For many serious companies, especially those that work with sensitive sensitive data, cybersecurity plays a fairly important role, and it will not be easy to ensure it while working remotely.

Results

What can be said in conclusion? Changes in the organization of office work, apparently, to be. How serious they will become, and how quickly they will pass, is still difficult to say. However, it also depends on you and me: if potential changes seem long overdue and right to you, demand them from your employer, and also support the movement of remote work enthusiasts (for example, by distributing this article). What other changes can office workers look forward to after the pandemic ends? We share our opinions in the comments.