August 2021
44
Trends and Hot Topics
Hybrid Workspaces: Facility and Operational Considerations What the Pandemic has Taught Us about the Flexible Workplace
This article originally appeared on Tradeline, Inc.’s website, written by Lisa Wesel, editor at Tradeline, Inc. Occupancy restrictions are being lifted across the country, and companies and institutions are anxious to get back to business. But it’s clear that for many, the workplace will never look the same. After a year-and-a-half of maintaining only a virtual presence in the office, classroom, and to some extent even the lab, employees want to retain some of the autonomy and flexibility they discovered while working remotely. And employers, who have learned that much of the corporate and academic mission can be fulfilled from anywhere without sacrificing productivity, want to make better use of their space. One likely scenario going forward is a hybrid workplace: a combination of remote and in-person activity. In a recent Tradeline survey of 155 individuals at 115 organizations nationwide, 76% of the respondents named hybrid workplaces as their top space planning and management priority. “A substantial majority of our employees would want to have some
Denny Hall, the oldest building on the University of Washington Campus, was gut renovated in 2018 to include a central stairway, open spaces for students to study and collaborate, a large active learning classroom, and shared anthropology research and teaching labs. / Photo courtesy of University of Washington
version of a hybrid model,” says Stephen Majeski, senior associate dean for Research and Infrastructure, College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. “We want people back.
It creates connectivity, interaction, spontaneity, water cooler talk, creativity. A lot of staff and faculty miss that, but we also recognize that we don’t always need to be there. We can still work effectively in this hybrid mode.” Bill Fedun, director of Workplace Solutions at CUNA Mutual, is hearing the same thing at his company. “I think that’s what employees are going to expect, and if they don’t get that from us, they’ll find someone else who lets them have that flexibility,” he says. “From a talentretention point of view, it’s important to give people that option.” Kathryn Horne, director of planning, design, and construction at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, says, “The university is preparing for being fully back on campus this fall and we were back as of July 6. There are all these people saying, ‘I want to do something hybrid.’” A university task force is exploring the issues around remote work. “Now that they’ve had the opportunity to experience the flexibility of remote work, a lot of people want to continue it.” The question is, how do you manage that flexibility from an operational standpoint, and how do you capitalize on all that extra space? Cultural Shift
Before the pandemic, almost no one at the University of Washington worked remotely, says Majeski. It was permitted
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only under specific circumstances, with teleworking agreements that had to be vetted by human resources. That policy will be relaxed going forward, with employees no longer having to justify teleworking, though working 100% remotely will still be the rare exception. “We expect the vast majority of professional and classified staff will be full time on campus or a version of a hybrid model,” he says. “We are just beginning the process of implementing this, where departments will process requests from professional and classified staff saying they want to work ‘x’ number of days at home. “The tricky part, because we do have to be front-facing, is that they can’t all work remotely on Mondays and Fridays. We will need to develop a matrix of days and hours, so it’s balanced and there’s always a presence, which will be difficult with the smaller departments that have only one or two professional staff.” Remote work is not an entirely new concept for CUNA Mutual. Pre-pandemic, about 10% of the workforce was fully remote. “The previous thinking was that if you were within a reasonable drive to one of our offices, you were more or less expected to be in the office as a general rule,” says Fedun. The company made exceptions “so we didn’t limit where we were looking for talent.” This month, CUNA Mutual reopened
