What are the challenges of designing an office space for a hybrid working model?

As a lot of people have said, this is the beginning of a different way of looking at things. These things will change and evolve now that people's eyes have been opened to different ways of working. Even some of the real old school people and mindsets have opened up to this. But we don't actually know what the right answer is, and it may vary by company. It may vary by industry, or role, etc. There are certain roles that can only be done in the workplace. But there are other roles which are more productive remotely, and there are a lot of roles for which you only need to be in-person for certain types of work, like a meeting.

In facilities, it needs to be pretty straightforward, but we haven't figured out the right kind of configuration. It isn't a case of having the workplace be all offices or all open bullpen spaces. Some of the more progressive companies are figuring out that there are certain areas that need to be quiet spaces and they designate those as libraries. You go in there knowing that it's a place where you are meant to be silent and you respect the quiet.

There are many variables to figure out for hybrid models. I'm reminded of one individual, a former CIO, who had a nervous breakdown last year because they’re such an extrovert. Cooped up inside their apartment month after month was just too much for them, and they’re not an exception. People that are very extroverted need that time in the office with others because that's how they get energized. On the flip side, there are certain people for whom working from home has been a blessing in disguise.

We're just starting to figure this thing out. The Gen Z folks in our workforces will challenge us in constructive ways to rethink the way that we approach the office space. We have an innate desire to connect with people where appropriate. But the frequency by which you connect is a very personal thing. Some of us love getting the opportunity to do that every day. For others, maybe not so much. Hybrid models seem to be the best compromise that we've encountered in quite some time. Where it goes from here, time will tell.

We do well with everyone in the office; we know what that model looks like. We know what the fully-remote model looks like now. We've been doing that for the last two years. The hybrid approach is not trivial, especially models in which there are no fixed days during which everyone is in the office. What are the tools that you use in order to coordinate that, and as an office planning person, how do you effectively plan to know that you’re going to need capacity for a certain number of meeting rooms, desks and open spaces? How do you start to do that if that hybrid model will be widely flexible in terms of how people use it or don't use it?

It's going to be the wild west when you think about that hybrid model, and it has to be as we start to navigate it. It's not a bad thing. It's just that we will have to go through iterations of this to learn how people can most effectively work because the way people work will evolve over time. I'm also hearing that there are some generations that think working from home is crazy. They want to be somewhere else to work because they don't want their personal and work lives to mix. They want to have a healthy separation and they find that working from home mixes those two realms together.

We need to have an open mind about how we go through this. It affects everything from the decisions we make about it, to the technology we use, the office designs that we map out, as well as how we build and evolve cultures. All of this is in flux and it will be for some time to come.