After having worked from home for months now, many employees have come to the same conclusion: They miss the office.
Only 12 percent want to continue working from home full-time, according to Gensler’s recent U.S. Work From Home Survey. The majority (70 percent) want to be in the office for most or all of the week — an office that’s been modified with their health in mind.
As a result, employers around the country and the world are faced with the challenge of figuring out how to bring the employees who want to be there into a workplace designed around their safety.
A new guide from Industrious aims to help. Returning to the Flexible Office: A Guide for Preparing Your Space and Your Team walks employers through the steps they can take to bring their teams back to the office, from evaluating a flexible workspace operator for health and safety to the changes you may want to make to your company’s private office or suite.
Flexible office spaces have two considerable advantages over traditional offices for the current moment: Their flexibility and their expertise. That flexibility refers both to the spaces themselves and their memberships. If the terms are monthly and all-inclusive, you can quickly move into an office and have everything you need for your business — such as fast, secure Wi-Fi and A/V-equipped conference rooms — then adjust your space as your needs change over time.
And unlike traditional offices, you don’t have to develop in-house expertise around health and safety or find a third-party provider to consult with — then sit down with your landlord to work out a plan. Instead, simply look for a flexible workspace operator that will take the lead in reimagining its spaces and services to enable physical distancing, cleaning and sanitization, and other health and safety measures, such as increased fresh airflow or the adoption of face masks in common spaces.
Although the flexible workspace operator will handle health and safety policies in the more public spaces, you’ll be able to determine what measures you want to take within your private office or suite. For instance, will you secure supplemental space, so that your entire team can work in the office while physical distancing? Or will you move to an alternating schedule, in which different shifts of employees work in the office on different days of the week? Returning to the Flexible Office outlines these considerations and others so that you can help your team comfortably and safely reenter the workplace.