Reimagining Office Life Post Pandemic

The year 2020 has brought in unprecedented challenges for human existence. This is the time when we, as a community, need to rise to the occasion and act swiftly to safeguard the human interest and everybody around us. This is precisely what has become the mission of every company, which is now trying to get back to their routine after the extended lockdowns. This is the time when companies across industries are using the insights gained from the long stretch of work-from-home experience and reimagining the most creative and effective ways of enforcing the system of work.

Changing attitude and roles within the office

Before the pandemic, offices worked on a traditional system which was quite critical to winning the war of talent, culture and productivity. They had immense competition for getting the prime office spaces in some of the major urban areas. However, post the breakout of the pandemic, the same companies are more open to ideas of working from home through effective technologies of video conferencing and such other digital collaboration. And, the results have been outstanding so far.

However, many people have complained about productivity and working ambience not being the same in the case of working from home. This is when, we, at Dream Logo Design, had to work out ways for such people who were eager to join back work and get back to their regular 9-to-5 regime. Reopening office post the pandemic was a bit of a challenge for us as well. And, to implement everything smoothly, we had to have proper planning for every sphere.

4 Steps towards reimagining work-life post-pandemic

While we had to boldly question the long-held assumptions of reopening office and the limits of working from home, we understood that we had to find out solutions for different individuals with different issues. The one-size-fits-all solution doesn't exist. A lot has to go behind giving the employees a regular work routine which differed from job roles, geography, technology, the effect of the pandemic in specific locations, and above all, their safety. Here are some of the steps that we took forward while reimagining the work in future.

Reconstructing the mode of work

Our work never stopped during the lockdowns, and all of us collaborated the processes through remote work contexts. At this time, we had to categorize the importance of every process across geographical locations and functions. While previously we held brainstorming sessions and meetings with large groups of employees, now such courses need to be more asynchronous over the digital platforms followed by long hours of debates over video-conferencing.

We always focus on developing talent through sustainable community practices. So, we have concentrated upon improved operating models as a pre-cursor to living with the COVID-19. We have focused upon leveraging the best of both, working from the office and that from home.

Deciding on "People to Work" or "Work on people."

The competition to acquire and retain talent has become immense in the past few years. However, the location was always a significant factor in considering employment opportunities. The post-pandemic scenes are entirely different from what was before. Now, we have categorized the roles under the below-mentioned classifications. However, we still consider their upskills before considering them eligible. The following categorization includes:

1. fully remote (net positive value-creating outcome)
2. hybrid slight (net neutral result)
3. hybrid remote by exception (net negative effect but can be done remotely if needed)
4. on-site (not eligible for remote work)

Redesigning work-place to support the multi-layered organizational priorities

We have understood the fact that the earlier organizational priorities have to be completely redesigned to make way for activities which were explicitly not possible with remote working facilities. We kept our office space open for those who found it extremely difficult to work from home any further. The future of offices looks more technology-centric with more cleanliness and frequent sanitization for those who prefer to get back to their office desks. We have tried to remove the barriers between being physically present at the office and that working from home.

Resizing the footprint creativity

We are working on a transformational approach to reinventing our office culture. We needed to make sure that the space at the office was utilized in fostering the outcomes of work experience, learning, productivity and collaboration. In any way, we had to make sure that the number of employees so using the office facilities are always seated within the permissible range of social-distancing.

Now is the time

It is now a global struggle for the employer trying to bring back their employees to work. However, there has to be a perfect balance maintained between productivity and safety. So, it is quite essential to break the inertia and dispense the sub-optimal habits and systems of the past. Reinventing roles and well-planned execution of the job-roles is the need of the hour. With this, we are hoping to get a better experience of talent, improved collaboration, productivity and reduced costs. Transformational thinking on grounded facts is what it needs to leverage the change.