A place to socialise, collaborate, learn and develop. Welcome to the re-imagined workplace
What does the re-imagined office look like? As workforces return, how will the office adapt to changing expectations? How will it integrate both the offline and the online world? These questions just scratch the surface of the debate, and how employers are grappling with the opportunities presented by the great workplace experiment of the last few months.
3 minutes to read
We recently undertook a global occupier survey to reveal the real estate impact of COVID-19 and its effect on the workplace. Of all the questions asked, the overwhelming response was that occupiers believed they needed to implement a new workplace strategy – with over 80% of the feedback coming from occupiers within key economies including the UK and France.
These new workplace strategies will need to consider how much office space is required, as well as how it can facilitate employee demands around working from home and working closer to home. But this is just the tip of the iceberg; it is also apparent that office space itself needed re-imagining – with an emphasis on more collaborative spaces, a greater quality of space and a larger amount of personal space per employee.
There are many questions – and perhaps even more answers – to the debate around the future of the workplace. For example, it’s no longer a question of whether people can work from home, but who does work from home. We must consider where our best work takes place, and we need to think about how we integrate the virtual world and the physical one. Ultimately, we need to develop employee-centric insight that ensures we provide choices for individuals with different needs and provide a range of solutions that have employees’ experience, wellness and productivity at their heart.
The dynamics shaping the future of the workplace
What this insight reveals is that our clients recognise the importance the office will play in shaping their corporate cultures of the future. What they might not know is how to navigate this path. At Knight Frank, we are here to help; we have recently published two papers to signpost the way forward. Firstly, we bring you the ‘12 dynamics of the post-COVID workplace’, which responds to the popular death of the office narrative, an argument we do not buy one bit, and identifies the factors which will shape and influence portfolio and workplace strategy in the post-COVID age.
Explore The 12 dynamics of the post-COVID workplace here
Adapting the workplace to the new order
When it comes to assessing how to make the necessary changes to adapt to our new world, the right workplace strategy will differ by company and portfolio. In our second white paper, ‘Re-Imagining the Workplace’ we look at the 4 steps of transformation that will allow a business to recognise the changing needs of their employees, and provide the right solution to implement.
Download Re-Imagining the Workplace here
Industry perspectives on the future of the office
The authors of these papers – Dr Lee Elliott, Head of Global Occupier Research and Neil McLocklin, Head of EMEA Strategic Consulting – were recently joined on a webinar by Derek McManus, Chief Operating Officer at Telefonica, Elisa Rönkä, Head of Smart Office at Siemens. The panel discussed the role of the office in a post-COVID world. Specifically, they covered how ‘WFO’ and ‘WFH’ have different – but crucial – roles to play in optimising productivity and effectiveness.
The future will blend these options, with other settings like office space closer to home or shared hubs that facilitate innovation among multiple organisations. With these choices, the office will become more of a mindset than a location. On the webinar, the panel also discussed issues around economic pressures, sustainability, wellbeing and much more.
Register here for immediate access to this 45-minute webinar on-demand to hear more from these speakers.
‘What does the workplace of the future look like?’ is a question on everyone’s lips right now. At Knight Frank, we believe the question is the answer. There is an opportunity to re-imagine the workplace so that it becomes a better, more productive and more fulfilling experience for everyone; one that is ‘more human, more attractive, more connected, more flexible, more distributed and more sustainable. Welcome to the re-imagined workplace’ (Dr Lee Elliott).
Find out more about how our workplace consultants across the globe can work with you to develop your workplace of the future. ACWorld@knightfrank.com