Braid the Digital and Physical Experience

Bridging the gap between in-person and remote participants is hard, and hybrid work means there will inevitably be someone who is remote, regardless of how well teams coordinate their in-office days. Remote colleagues can feel frustrated and unable to participate equally, becoming less engaged. This is especially true for creative and innovative work, such as brainstorming, which often use analog whiteboards or other physical products that are difficult for people on the other side of the camera to fully experience.

The solution is to integrate physical spaces and technology with three key concepts in mind: equity, engagement, and ease.

For example, currently, many conference rooms consist of a long table with a monitor at the end. In-person attendees sit around the table while remote participants are featured in a grid of tiny boxes, often on the same screen as any shared content.

One way to create more equity is to give each participant their own screen, placing monitors on rolling carts that can easily be moved around. Teams can pull a remote colleague into a breakout session or up to the table. Many software systems now let you split people and content onto separate displays.

To be fully engaged, people need clear sightlines to one another and to the content. Designing for employee engagement in digital-to-physical space means thinking like a movie director—lights, camera, audio, content. Some solutions we’re seeing are angled or mobile tables, additional lighting, extra speakers, in-room microphones, and easy-to-move markerboards and displays.

In addition, research tells us more people will connect to a meeting on their individual devices as well as the technology in the room.¹ Ample power supplies, whiteboards, and a variety of software solutions will contribute to an easier, more seamless hybrid collaboration experience for people.

Flip Enclosed and Open Spaces

It is time to rethink the open plan. For decades, individual workstations have become more open with ever-increasing density, while meetings are held in enclosed conference rooms. As people return to the office, these spaces will begin to shift. Meetings will happen more often in open spaces with movable boundaries, and individual focus work will happen in enclosed spaces like pods or small enclaves.

Open collaboration spaces are inherently more flexible because they don’t require fixed features in their design, so they can morph and change as new work patterns emerge. Innovation, problem-solving, and co-creation often use agile approaches—for example, quick stand-up meetings that require visible, persistent content can be hosted in open spaces, defined by flexible furniture, easy-to-access tech, and other design elements.

Meanwhile, individual spaces will need more enclosure to provide the different levels of visual and acoustic privacy that people have come to expect while working at home. Video calls will happen everywhere, so enclosures—screens, panels, pods—will give people places to focus and mitigate disruptions.

Shift from Fixed to Fluid

Buildings are built for permanence. Meanwhile, the pace of business and change continues to accelerate. We can see the tensions between slow and fast emerge in the rise of pop-ups and coworking models with demand for shorter lease terms. Most companies that have real estate are asking, how much space do we need?

The hybrid future solves for a more fluid workplace that can flex as needs change. Not only does this accelerate innovation and advance the culture of the organization, it can ensure real estate is always optimized. At Steelcase, we’ve optimized our own space by designing an open area that supports hybrid meetings in the morning, becomes the café at lunch, hosts a town hall in the afternoon, and can be rented for an evening event.

Balance “We” and “Me” Work

The pandemic has caused us to rethink the purpose and meaning of the office and many leaders have come to the conclusion that the office is a place for collaborative work. A Gensler Research Institute study, conducted amid the height of the pandemic, shows full-time work-from-home employees saw a drop of 37% in average collaboration time.² Leaders are rightfully focused on boosting collaboration, and, as a result, Steelcase research shows that nearly two-thirds of leaders want to increase spaces for both in-person and hybrid forms of collaboration.³

But collaboration is not just about group work; it actually requires solitude too. Effective collaboration happens when there’s an ebb and flow of people coming together to work as a team and then moving apart to focus individually, process their ideas, and follow up on assigned tasks. Too much together time without enough individual focus time can result in groupthink, so it’s important that the pendulum not swing too far by designing offices that are all about the “we” and not balance the need for “me” spaces.

The jury is still out on whether working from home is more productive or not, but in the past year, employees report higher levels of productivity when their home allows them to work without interruption.⁴ We must provide places with appropriate privacy at the office, too, and employees should be able to easily move from one type of work to another without trekking across campus or getting hung up with complicated technology.

The office we return to must offer people a better experience than what they have at home, and that means giving employees the right mix of spaces for the types of work that need to get done. Organizations that choose a wait-and-see approach risk frustrating their employees who find that the old office doesn’t support the new ways they work—jeopardizing the competitive advantages of bringing people together. People whose organizations move forward and create workplaces that adapt, flex, and thrive will attract and retain the best talent and benefit from innovation and growth. The future office will be a competitive advantage for organizations that take advantage of this moment in time.

When we’re all back in the office, it won’t be the same, and that’s a good thing.

TAKEAWAYS

A well-executed hybrid workplace, designed for people and for the resilience of the organization, will help companies move forward, learn, and remain competitive. The following four design approaches will help you develop an effective hybrid strategy.

• Braid the physical and digital experiences together. Integrate physical spaces and technology with equity, engagement, and ease in mind.
• Flip open and enclosed spaces. Meetings will be more likely to happen in open spaces with moveable boundaries, while individual work will be in enclosed pods or enclaves.
• Shift from a fixed workspace to a fluid workspace that can flex as needs change. This will accelerate innovation and advance organizational culture while keeping real estate optimized.
• Don’t let an emphasis on group work and collaboration overshadow the need for focused work. Allow employees move between “we” and “me” time easily.

NOTES

1. 1. “Hybrid Collaboration Is Hard,” Steelcase, https://www.steelcase.com/research/articles/topics/work-better/hybrid-collaboration-hard/.

2. 2. “The Hybrid Future of Work,” Gensler U.S. Workplace Survey, Summer/Fall 2020, https://www.gensler.com/uploads/document/740/file/Gensler-US-Workplace-Survey-Summer-Fall-2020.pdf.

3. 3. “Real Questions, Real Answers About Hybrid Work,” Steelcase, https://www.steelcase.com/research/articles/topics/work-better/real-questions-real-answers-hybrid-work/.

4. 4. “The Hidden Bias of Working from Home,” Steelcase, https://www.steelcase.com/research/articles/topics/work-better/hidden-bias-working-home/.

Adapted from “4 Strategies for Building a Hybrid Workplace That Works” on hbr.org, July 22, 2021 (reprint #H06H1Q).