Insights from the forefront of future of work thought leadership

As many businesses shift to a work from home strategy during the developing COVID 19 crisis, more Australians are working remotely than ever before. Rather than a passing trend, it appears the rise in remote working in Australia will permanently change our working culture. 

With benefits like supporting employee health, increased productivity, better work-life balance and the opportunity to cut costs by rationalising office space, it’s no wonder remote working is seen as the future of the workplace.  

But what do we know about the challenges of remote working in Australia and how to overcome them long term? And how will long-term remote work impact company culture? 

This post explores how an organisation might rationalise real estate costs, while still strengthening and maintaining its culture. 

Remote working benefits

Remote work had been on the rise for years before COVID 19 required people to shelter in place. Undeniably, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of remote work across the world. And with this acceleration, companies have noticed some fantastic benefits for both employees and employers, not least of which is saving money on commercial real estate.  While there are some more benefits of this strategy, there are also some watch-outs too. 

Productivity and performance

Pre-COVID 19, a study found that 49% of professionals noted that they chose to work at home to complete deep, high-concentration work. So it’s not surprising that remote workers tend to be more productive. With more time and fewer distractions having a positive impact on productivity, remote work enables employees to focus on performance, results and higher quality work. Interestingly, this increased productivity and performance translate into greater employee engagement, which is significantly lowering absenteeism. 

However, not all types of work are easy to perform in isolation – in the Owl Labs Global State of Remote Work report, respondents said brainstorms are the most challenging meetings to follow and participate in when working remotely. Perhaps more surprisingly, a different study found that dull repetitive tasks are also more difficult for remote workers.

Rationalise commercial rent and other associated costs 

Remote working cuts costs for both employees and employers. According to Global Workplace Analytics, a part-time remote worker saves their company an average of $11,000 per year on rent and other associated office costs.  So adopting a work-from-home stance for the longer term can clearly help to rationalise space and lower rent costs for an organisation. 

However, a  physical workplace is more than an overhead cost of running a business. Culture, collaboration and connection between individuals and teams are essential to overall unity and directed output in an organisation. So the reduction of rent cannot be considered in isolation – any space reduction must be considered in terms of the longer-term impact on culture also. 

Healthier and happier employees

Aside from the obvious benefit of reducing the risk of spreading COVID 19, working remotely – even part-time, has been shown to increase happiness and lower stress for employees. Factors leading to improved employee wellness include:

• More time for exercise
• Healthy eating
• Less exposure to illness
• More time for interests and hobbies
• Improved personal relationships

However, without the ability to leave ‘the office’ many employees are now working longer hours. A recent Bluejeans survey found employees are working an additional 3.13 hours per day from home. It’s therefore unsurprising that working at home can lead to the blurring of work and non-work boundaries which can lead to increased stress levels. 

Additionally, while remote work is well-received currently, due to COVID-19, Australians have only been working remotely for around five months (true at the time of writing). As the pandemic progresses and eventually passes, it is possible that extended remote work practices may become inhibiting and that a stronger delineation between work and home is desired. 

Attracting and retaining talent

In a Zapier remote work report, about 75% of workers said they would be willing to quit a job that didn’t allow remote working for one that did. Unsurprising then that top HR executives recognise that offering remote working and flexibility will help a company to attract top talent and source the best candidates, regardless of location. 

Having said that,  some office-based collaboration and connection is still largely desired, and intelligent workplace strategy and design – even in a smaller corporate space, will assist in meeting those collaborative goals. 

Why you might consider rationalising – not leaving – your commercial office space 

Many organisations are now rationalising their commercial spaces, looking for some kind of hybrid solution that ensures culture and connection can be maintained, while remote work can support wellbeing, productivity and balance.  

Collaboration and communication

Water cooler conversations, lunch with a colleague, team chats over coffee, all of these co-located office scenarios allow passive information gathering, which is lacking for remote workers. While a Slack chat is helpful, it doesn’t have the same impact as an in-person interaction. In fact, a study found that a face-to-face request is 34 times more successful than an email. 

The bottom line is that there are fewer opportunities to communicate effectively when working remotely full time.

Smart workplace design with clever sensing technologies can instead help organisations to optimise their commercial space, in order to utilise space in a planned, efficient manner, maintaining social distance while reaping the benefits of commercial collaboration when in the office too. 

Building company culture

Humans are social creatures who have a biological requirement for connection with others. Being physically near colleagues provides us access to a broad range of subconscious information and non-verbal communication cues. Remote working full time and only connecting virtually cheats us of these opportunities – the impact of which will be realised over time.  

Take the opportunity to come together in person when it is safe to do so. Physical distancing solutions can be achieved with clever design and smart technology that manages room and desk availability in a user-friendly manner.  There are clever ways you can make employees feel (and be) safe in the office environment. Not only does this kind of investment rationalise rent now and help keep employees safe, but it ensures the efficient use of all office space into the future, further saving on commercial rent and making the best of the space you have. 

Employee wellbeing

While remote working is often seen as a bastion of employee wellbeing, it can lead to feelings of isolation and stress for some. It’s easy for boundaries to become blurred when employees aren’t leaving ‘the office’ at the end of the day. Without this clear distinction, unhealthy habits can form, like working back late and less in-person connection (whether that is with coworkers or family at home). 

A hybrid remote work and in-office solution can help to maintain such balance. In the office employees’ work and personal time boundaries are so much more defined. Similarly, supporting remote workers to find their ‘third place’ whether that be a 5 pm walk or a group call prior to logging off for the day can assist. Recent experiences also show that an ergonomic home office that is separated from casual living space also helps to delineate work and home life.  

Interruptions and distractions

While remote workers don’t need to worry about common office interruptions, they do have a whole host of new distractions at home. Whether it’s unannounced visitors, children arriving home from school, a spouse who types too loudly, or a delivery driver at the door, it can be challenging to maintain focus in non-commercial environments. 

Whether in the commercial office or not, there isn’t a way to avoid all interruptions, but there are some strategies that can assist. 

• Set office hours – you’re not to be disturbed between the hours of X and Y
• Noise-cancelling headphones (and tell others what it means when you’re wearing them)
• A home office with a door and a  ‘do not disturb’ sign when you need to keep your head down
• An option to attend a safe, well-designed commercial office where you can work quietly and comfortably with less distractions should home become challenging 

While remote work is likely to be a component of workplace strategy for some time, many Australian organisations are considering the longer term implications of this on culture and collaboration. Many conversations in the market are currently pitted around rationalising real estate costs by reducing and optimising commercial space. This then enables individuals and teams to work remotely some of the time, and use the office at other times – which is an extension of the activity-based trend we’ve been seeing for the last few years. 

To manage this successfully and for the long-term, you may wish to consider aspects of design that assist with social distancing, that help to optimise and utilise underused space, and assist employees to find and use workspaces with efficiency and ease.

If you are looking to optimise your workplace for staff productivity and wellbeing, our proven workplace strategy and design process thoroughly considers your current realities, business objectives and future plans – including remote working. Find out more about our process here. 

**Collaboration**,

/kəˌlabəˈreɪʃn/

noun

the action of working with someone to produce something.

How do we innovate for collaboration in the workplace? If we had written an article on 'collaboration and the evolving workplace' just six months ago, it probably would have started like this:

The rise of new and emerging workplace technologies over the last few years has not only changed the way we work but also the way the workplace looks and operates. Zoom meetings, Slack channels, Microsoft Teams, and the never-ending array of other remote working platforms and tools have allowed us to work together, without physically being together. It’s a trend that is growing…

But now, in an era of flexible working and advanced workplace technology, the conversation is no longer just about faster internet speeds or the launch of 5G enabling high-quality video connections. With a growing emphasis on flexible working arrangements and the integration of cutting-edge workplace technologies, the dialogue has shifted to HOW we can work most effectively and collaborate successfully in this new age. Technology is no longer merely the driver of the future of work; it’s the enabler.

Although collaboration-enabling technology isn’t new, there is a lingering association between physical proximity and collaboration. And while this association is partially valid, collaboration is a lot more than being in the same room—opportunely, our new ‘normal’ is shaping up to include a lot less of this.

Given effective collaboration is a booster of employee satisfaction and happiness, we’re looking forward to a future where collaboration is a seamless experience for everyone involved. Let’s explore the challenges we’re facing and what the future has in store for collaboration in the workplace.

**Out with the old (style of collaboration), in with the new**

A fundamental shift we’ve noticed is the adoption of, rather than the investment in, the tools needed for remote or virtual collaboration. This is because most organisations already had the means; they just weren’t using them. Companies are recognising the benefits of flexible working, and with benefits come challenges, which we’ll explore a little later in this article.

First, what could collaboration look like in the future workspace?

**Collaboration in the future workplace**

With close-proximity discussions by the water cooler, large-scale meetings, and chatter-filled shared spaces abandoned for the foreseeable future, collaboration has become even more critical—because the requirement for intelligent and effective co-created work has not gone away.

The future of work is here now, and thanks to technology and economic shifts, the workplace is undeniably evolving. So, what does collaboration look like in the future workspace?

Remote work may be the new normal, but it’s not always the choicest way for teams to engage. Yet to succeed in today’s dynamic, connected world, teams need to master the art of successful collaboration—whether working remotely or not.

We foresee the future workspace as a hybrid of in-office and remote work. With collaboration straddling safe physical proximity and virtual connections, don’t be surprised to see a virtual-first prioritisation of communication channels and methods.

The flow between the experience of physical and virtual spaces will be central to success. The workplace will converge the physical and virtual worlds, centred on supporting workers to communicate clearly and effectively—wherever they are located.

Many companies are already investing in meeting room acoustics to ensure those not physically at the office can participate and experience a meeting just like an in-person attendee. Others are holding 100% virtual meetings with in-person staff scattered around the office on video and headsets to level the playing field between remote and non-remote staff. The goal is to ensure that those who are not physically present don’t have a different or subpar experience of a meeting so they can contribute fully to the collaborative effort of the team and stay engaged.

And to preserve precious time for collaboration (rather than tech wrangling), plug-and-play technologies that require minimal setup will be expected. Ease of use is essential. And on a more futuristic note, 3D telepresence (or hologram) technology, once thought of as far-flung sci-fi stuff, is on the horizon. We’ll be watching closely.

**The challenges of collaboration in the future workplace**

Companies are recognising the benefits of flexible working, and with benefits come challenges:

**Dispersed teams**

While dispersed teams aren’t new, they are the new normal. Regardless of the structure, having a team spread across multiple locations presents a considerable challenge. Aside from managerial problems, creating an organisational culture is immeasurably harder without a central location.

**Conflicts in working style**

Understanding and respecting each individual’s working style is critical for successful collaboration. Even when working in the same physical space, conflicts in working style have always existed. Add a little distance and less face-to-face interaction, and you have a recipe for small conflicts to become seriously damaging to relationships and productivity.

**Trust**

While also an important overriding business principle, trust is expressly significant to successful collaboration. Trust builds the foundation for productive, constructive conversations. On the other hand, distrust due to transparency issues and misunderstandings will damage collaboration within and between teams. But building trust across time and space can be slower coming or even inhibited by poor communication channels.

**(Mis)communication**

The impact of the coronavirus on our society has been far-reaching, some changes were temporary and others had a lasting effect. One area that has been significantly affected is the workplace environment and our expectations for the future of offices.

In previous discussions about the future of work in Australia, we have emphasised the challenges posed by skills shortages, the competition for talent, and the need to manage a diverse workforce spanning multiple generations.

These challenges have thrown up a need for organisations to: 

• Increase employee benefits and flexible working options to attract talent
• Compete more readily for talent on a global scale, and
• Reduce focus on degrees, skills and experience in favour of talent and purpose.

In terms of workplace design, we’ve seen businesses adjusting to employee expectations by creating diverse and flexible workspaces, such as quiet zones for deep work, or meeting areas for collaborative teamwork. For employers, this involved an intentional shift to consider the needs of their employees with workspaces that accommodate different types of work and working styles.

3 years after the global pandemic, how has the future of work changed and what can we expect the office of the future to look like?

It’s worth noting that disease and the fear of infection has influenced architecture and the form of our built environments many times in the past. Cholera prompted the introduction of sewerage systems, the bubonic plague in China led to rat-proofing buildings, and tuberculosis is at least partially responsible for the white, clean modernist aesthetic. 

There is little doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has also changing the way we use our workspaces.  

Contactless design

Base building architects and workplace designers are prioritising hands-free and contactless pathways through offices, using technology such as voice activation, sensors, facial recognition and smartphones. Ideally, we will be entering our buildings through sensor doors, calling the lift on our smartphones and using facial recognition to enter your office suite, making it to your desk without the need to needlessly touch surfaces. Embracing these technologies will further future-proof workspaces and increase visitor and employee engagement within the spaces.

Flexibility as we’ve never known it 

Not-withstanding the negative impact COVID-19 had on the world around us, most of us were empowered with trust from our employers overnight – and most responded in an exceptional manner.  Working flexibly and remotely was suddenly normalised and the stigma attached to it has disappeared.  

This period has been enlightening, giving us a fresh perspective on the way we work; a reset of work-life balance as we have not experienced in the recent past. We need to remember that with enlightenment comes responsibilities for us as employees, to work proactively to make the new environment work. As such, we’ve identified some success factors for individuals and teams working in the new normal: 

     1. The ability to work with autonomy

William Shakespeare, as always, makes this point with the least verbiage:  “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.” Organisations will benefit greatly from team members that are self-directed and who manage up and drive results rather than being passengers on this journey. 

     2. Physical distance requires – and often builds – trust 

Stronger bonds have been built in teams as we prove to ourselves and to each other that we are reliable and available – despite being physically distanced. 

     3. Flexibility requires an outcome focus 

Work is not a rigid time schedule, but rather is about goals you achieve and tasks you master. Our forced work-from-home time has shown us what we always knew, but were frightened to demonstrate: that it is the output and outcome that matter, not that you were still at your desk at 7pm on a Thursday. 

     4. True connection comes from knowing the people behind the work 

We’ve come to know each other on a deeper level now – being let into each other’s sanctuaries. We’ve seen changes in the way colleagues interact. Emotional barriers have been broken down as we’ve witnessed each other on Zoom calls, managing our work and home lives alongside one another. We’re meeting each other’s pets, kids and housemates; seeing inside their bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens. 

The clear boundaries between work and home have become blurred and this is often for the better, creating more genuine relationships and greater flexibility in response to different employees’ needs. Our relationships are no longer transactional and will hopefully never return to being just that. 

Managers and business leaders have also been innovative in how they support their teams from a distance, with many showing greater concern for employee mental health and wellbeing. As remote workers make up a greater portion of their teams in the future, employers need to continue to facilitate engaging employee onboarding, collaboration and connection.

So what happens next? 

IOur workplaces will always play a crucial role in maintaining cultural placemaking and binding teams together.  This means that organisations will look at their facilities in a different light and not calculate their required office space based on a rough 10 sqm/FTE (full time employee) which has become the norm. The thought that organisations may now appreciate wider thoroughfares and distancing workstations more spaciously is simply a more exciting and human alternative to the dense population approach of 2019. 

Now with hybrid working becoming the norm, focussed work can be done at home, and allowing the workspace as a hub for social connection, incidental conversation and collaboration. The golden moments that are not scheduled and often lead to innovation, happen in the office when no one plans it. By providing an activated, engaged hub which caters for various activities, a new workspace provides a variety of accommodation for staff counts way beyond the traditional 1/10 sqm calculations, whilst decreasing the density of bodies in space at any particular moment in time.

This has lead to some organisations keeping their current leased space but increasing their alternate accommodation, or indeed, decreasing their required space all together. We anticipate that this will need to be assessed for all organisations, based on their unique needs.

COVID-19 accelerated the future of work and the future of workplace design. To help businesses plan their workplace strategy for the future, we have assembled the most crucial future of work knowledge in one place. Check out all you need to know about the future of work here

In recent years, flexible work arrangements have been increasingly sought by the Australian workforce. However, it hasn’t been until the current COVID-19 crisis that many organisations have stumbled upon the overriding benefits of working from home. As a result, and also because people will not soon forget the potentially dangerous impact of personal contact, futurists are predicting that when quarantine ends, remote working will continue for many.

How to set up a home office 

Setting up an ergonomic home working environment is harder than it sounds. While stock imagery frequently features bespectacled models in grey wool, curling up on a trendy sofa with their laptop, the reality for many is far from that. Most of us make do with a makeshift desk, a static chair at the dining table, or perching on a stool at the kitchen bench.

However, if your company is serious about productivity, improving your team’s ergonomic set-up at home should be your top priority. Research completed by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries in the US recently found that ergonomics is well worth the investment.

The study showed that ergonomics significantly reduces company costs, with a 65 percent reduction in incidence rates and a 75 percent reduction in lost workdays. Additionally, ergonomics can improve employee productivity by up to 25 percent, as well as the quality of work, with a 67 percent average reduction in errors.

Of course, ergonomic workspaces increase employee engagement as staff recognise and appreciate the investment in their safety and comfort—and the numbers in the study support this too.

What exactly is an ergonomic workspace? 

An ergonomic workspace is one that is comfortable enough to improve both wellness and productivity. It can involve the proper arrangement or modification of existing furniture and equipment, or the purchase and installation of supportive items that are designed to align and support the body during work periods.

It usually includes items such as your office chair, key objects like the phone, print equipment and materials, keyboard and mouse, screen, footrest and desk, as well as light and your monitor. It can also extend to items that support helpful behaviours, such as office storage that prevent mess and distractions in your workspace.

Why consider investing in ergonomics at home? 

If remote working is to continue in some form over the coming months and perhaps years, and an ergonomic set-up can provide anywhere up to a 25 percent uplift in productivity, it seems like an obvious choice to invest in some best-practice home office set-ups. Just as commercial office design equips people for work and engagement, so too can remote workspaces.

Building a productive, ergonomic workspace at home

On an individual level, it could be relatively easy to read a guide and set yourself up for success. However, when managed from an organisational perspective, a little forethought, research and expert help can make all the difference.

1. Evaluation 

The first place to start is in evaluating the employee’s set-up. Is there a known issue with their workspace that can be fixed with rearranging furniture, buying ergonomic equipment or fixing lighting? If evaluating more than 20 employees in this way, you’ll need a well-designed survey so you can assess patterns and create a strategy that combats the majority of high-impact issues. Individual issues can be addressed thereafter.

2. Results and recommendations 

Results of your evaluation can mean purchasing equipment, or simply making some small changes to where and how people are currently set up.  A good ergonomic chair is a strong starting point that helps keep the body aligned and allow for some movement. There are many ergonomic options out there on the market, so choose an expert to work with for the best value, best practice options.

Remember – desk and chair position, body position, movement breaks and other behavioural aspects can have a huge impact in instances where you cannot afford to purchase equipment for every, single employee, so don’t discount training.

3. Employee training 

With every investment in a productive workspace comes a corresponding commitment to best practice behaviours from the company, as well as the individual.  Training on the seemingly smallest aspects of behaviour and office set-up can significantly reduce strains and injuries. For example, natural light decreases fatigue and improves feelings of wellbeing and happiness. Keeping a screen perpendicular to a window can reduce glare and therefore eye strain, while providing the required illumination for computer and desk work.

Employee training can deliver many specialist directives that are easy to implement but have a huge impact on wellbeing and output.

What to do next 

While the government is starting to talk about restrictions being lifted, many bodies predict that social distancing measures could continue as long as into 2022. As remote working is also more cost-beneficial to many organisations, this could mean that widespread remote working will continue long after social distancing measures are relaxed.

It may be worth modelling what this looks like for your business in the coming months and years. If remote working even for part of your workforce continues to make sense, you’re going to need to invest in the right equipment and advice for your people.

If setting up ergonomic home offices for your employees is something you’re not sure about, get an expert involved early in your planning and get your business ahead of the competitive curve.

Axiom Workplaces applies principles of ergonomic office design to remote working. We help organisations achieve maximum wellness, engagement and productivity for remote teams around the future of work.

The workplace is changing around us as we speak. With more and more people working remotely or with flexible work arrangements, employers are facing new challenges daily in how they create a positive company culture, enable collaboration, attract new talent and plan for growth.

Because of this, there is a serious conversation happening all over the globe about what the future of work and its workforce will look like. We’re in the middle of a massive overhaul of the workplace as we once knew it. The questions we are constantly being asked, and asking of ourselves, is how we can better shape workplaces to accommodate these shifts, while also future-proofing and facilitating these new ways of working.

With this is mind, we invited Cindy Lenferna De La Motte, Future of Work Strategist and Head of Customer and Community at Harvest Digital Planning, to join Annelie Xenofontos, Axiom’s Senior Workplace Strategist, to lead a conversation on company culture, how to create intelligent workplace design outcomes and the future of the workplace. The answers below are a summary of both their responses during the event.

What are the key challenges of the future workplace?

It’s here, it’s arrived and we are already working in this ‘future’ workplace. The key challenge here is the pace of the evolution, and how businesses and employees are keeping up.

Professional development, once considered a 'nice-to-have,' has now become a critical 'must-have' in the evolving future of work. Future of work strategists emphasize that individuals should dedicate three hours per week to enhancing their skills, ensuring they stay relevant and adaptable in the workplace over the next 25 years. By prioritizing continuous learning, professionals can future-proof their careers and remain competitive in an ever-changing job market.

Upskilling and innovation play a massive role; businesses alone cannot afford or accommodate the pace of upskilling that individuals need to keep up with the digital evolution that’s happening. Employees need to take on this growth mindset and responsibility for themselves, and employers need to wholeheartedly support and facilitate their learning.

Those in senior roles, leading business change and growth, cannot rest on their tried and tested measures. Instead, they must lead the way in updating their knowledge and learning so as to drive innovation both in their businesses and in their staff, ensuring their business remains competitive and up-to-date.

There are numerous meet-ups, short courses, podcasts, reading material and forums to meet up with other people, learn and share information. Gone are the days of doing a university degree that will see you through a job for life and into retirement. The lifetime of learning in degrees is now estimated to be three to five years post-graduation, so adopting a new approach and mindset to lifelong learning, even into retirement, is part of the future of work evolution.

From a workplace perspective, customisation is now a baseline requirement. We don’t want to fit in a box anymore. We are working in more sophisticated ways, and we want and expect a customised work environment that supports innovation, creativity and efficiency.

Businesses need to constantly think about what is next and their workplaces need to be conducive to thriving in this evolution.

What are the top skills needed for the future workplace?

Diversity and inclusion are topics that have been talked about for a while and are certainly on the HR agenda, but they need to be highly prioritised in the workplaces of the future. Workspaces need to be designed to facilitate the collaboration of employees of different ages, cultures and backgrounds, and to enable spontaneous conversations, innovation and learning to occur. The evolution of business practices doesn’t only come from business leaders anymore. It comes from every person in the workforce.

Young people coming into the workforce have a wealth of information to bring, while the current working generations have significant experience to draw on. Encouraging collaboration between generations through smart workplace design and technology allows a business and its staff to bolster and flex its knowledge base for now and into the future. This is where the magic of a diverse workforce happens.

In Australia, we are relatively good when it comes to creating a diverse workforce, particularly in larger cities, however inclusion of a diverse workforce still requires attention. We need to be choosing skills and capabilities over age, location and culture to keep our businesses at the forefront, and upskilling current team members into new roles to keep them relevant.

Is the war for talent real?

We have a skills shortage in Australia and the war for talent is real and fierce. According to the Australian HR Institute, there are almost one million more job opportunities than there are employed people in Australia.

The top companies are offering impressive compensation and benefit packages, which the most talented individuals are honing in on. And businesses are getting clever with what they are offering—thinking not just about more dollars, but also about the ways their staff want to work and live.

Your culture, mission, purpose and workspace have such an impact on your employer value proposition (EVP). From the moment someone walks into your office space, they think about whether it feels like a good company to work for. Is your office representative of your culture and attractive to talent?

A workplace that embodies the culture, mission and purpose of the company lives out its values and starts to hand back autonomy to staff, one of the biggest motivators for top talent. Invest in your employees through creating a space that’s meaningful to them and allows them to do their best work. Creating a comfortable work environment and reducing employee frustration are key metrics in your workspace design, as are:

• Green spaces
• Personalised spaces
• Quiet spaces
• Environmentally friendly processes
• A focus on health and wellbeing
• The opportunity for connection, creativity and deep work

Cindy says, “At Harvest Digital & Planning, we made a conscious decision to source the best candidates for skill and capability regardless of location. The world is literally our oyster and right now our team is 100 percent remote.”

Remote working comes with new challenges, but ones that we are working through, finding new ways to be inclusive and find the emotion in our day-to-day interactions as face-to-face teams do. With remote and flexible working becoming the norm, businesses and workplaces need to find new ways that work for them and their own cultures to address inclusion for remote teams. We don’t have all the answers but we are experimenting together.

What kind of technology and processes can you use to bring remote workers and workspaces together?

This will differ from organisation to organisation depending on your workplace culture and the type of work that you do. But at the heart of it is asking yourself what your team needs in order to stay connected at a human level, as well as at an operational level.

Some businesses initiatives that have worked for businesses we know are:

• Ensuring that all new employee onboarding is done face-to-face, even if that means flying someone to head office for an induction. Ensure that all managers of new staff make the time to make that face-to-face connection as this is the start of inclusion and sets the tone from the outset of the employment relationship.
• Connecting people back in through regular town halls or team-based meetings.
• Communication is critical so have a real-time tool like Slack or Skype for chat. This also helps reinforce culture.
• The “cupcake experience”: always consider who isn’t in the office to receive the cupcakes brought in by a team member. What can you do for those not getting a cupcake? It might seem like a small thing, but it goes miles when it comes to making a remote worker feel included.
• Pizza hour: bringing everyone together to eat pizza.
• Using emojis or gifs in communication allows emotion and sentiment to come through in email and internal comms.

Workplaces can evolve and flourish in businesses with lots of remote workers with some innovative thinking.

At Axiom, we encourage businesses we work with to think about how they might be innovative with their space depending on the outcomes they require. How much space do they really need? How can they reduce their environmental footprint, waste and cost by thinking about the way their staff will use the workspace?

Solutions such as agile working environments that chop and change according to business fluidity, spaces for technology that connect staff members both in-house and remotely, flexible working so spaces might be used differently on different days depending on who is in the office and the outcome they want to achieve, and even lending out space that is not used all the time—not only can it spark creative partnerships and collaborations but it’s also commercially viable.

Where do I start to futureproof my workplace?

Teaching new ways of work requires teaching individuals a growth mindset. For organisations and business owners, start with a small experiment or collaborate with a new partner to challenge your current ways of working.

Ask yourself, am I still doing the right thing? How could I reimagine my workforce connecting, thinking and innovating? Try something different that aligns with your business. Listen and engage your people and implement.

What are the top 3 things that a modern office should have for a thriving environment?

It’s a feeling thing! Each business has a different identity so it’s not a one size fits all approach. You have to tap in and consider what space and technology you need to create the feeling that you want your employees to have when they step into the office. You want staff to love going to work because it feels good.

Although we’re living through a period of rapid change and unprecedented uncertainty, there are still things businesses can do to future-proof their workplaces. Find out more about the future workforce in the Future of Work: A Progressive Leaders Guide To Staying Ahead