Where to from here? Prototyping our way to the new post COVID-19 normal

I recently wrote an article ( The Covid-19 Design Effect…) addressing the COVID-19 effect on the future of workplace design. Many companies are still trying to visualise the world they will go back to once COVID-19 has calmed down but the reality is, this new world is one no one has ever seen before and one that comes with great uncertainty.

The journey into the unknown…

As organisations start to recover from this global time of disruption and begin to evaluate their performance spaces — otherwise known as the office — they may stand and scratch their heads a little. The human need for feeling safe is one that will never be able to be ignored and in this new world, many will come back to the workplace with varying beliefs about hygiene and what environments they require to meet the unavoidable need to feel safe.

Making the old world work (for now) as we learn…

In the post pandemic short term, employees may be the inspiration behind new designs as they return to work with varying levels of caution and begin to build makeshift solutions. Organisations need to acknowledge that this is a time of improvisation as they make the old work and undergo a steep (and perhaps uncomfortable) learning curve. The open plan may temporarily resemble a shanty town as employees bring their beliefs and theories about contagious diseases (and how to deal with them) back to work. This is the time when organisations will experience multiple new normals driven by rapid learning. They will need to watch and listen more than ever.

Co-learning through COVID-19:

Due to this uncertainty, I believe that organisations will see a need to partner more with design companies and suppliers for their extensive insights and research around how people work. They will also benefit greatly if they keep their eyes and ears open to their workforce to better understand their physical and emotional needs in the aftermath of the pandemic. It will be a time of sharing insights, knowledge and new findings with each other. Collaboration and constant 360 feedback will be key during this time.

I see this process riding three waves…

1. Retrofit. Facility Management hacks and learnings:

This is where immediate challenges will be identified as organisations start to hack their existing office space to make it work. Addressing challenges will involve a lot of trial and error with some outcomes transitioning into a more permanent reality. Shielding, barriers, screens or simply more space between workstations — if real estate allows — will be part of this first effort. For this first wave, it is relatively easy to imagine what will be needed to make the space functional immediately — even if it isn’t perfect.

2. Reconfigure. The HR mental and emotional health analysis:

The pandemic will affect the workforce on an emotional level but to what scale is still unclear. Organisations will need to ‘get to know’ their employees again and really observe and listen to any changes in what they need to feel safe post COVID-19. This wave of feedback will no doubt lead to a second wave of hacks as further improvements are made to floor plans to address the identified emotional needs of the post COVID workplace. This process will take time but it will also shine a light on those organisations who value their employees and are serious about humanized performance spaces. The commitment to getting this right might be the catalyst to set those organisations who ‘care’, and therefore enter the employees ‘circle of trust’, apart from the rest. A differentiator that could, in the not so distant future, become a recruitment and retention tool for quality talent.

3. Reinvent. Organisational and structural change:

Once organisations have a better idea of the new landscape in which the world operates, it will be time for more permanent solutions. New requirements will emerge as we meet the new office norm. A norm that may well be inspired by a different function. Perhaps we will see new floorplan archetypes flooded with new types of furniture functioning in new spatial concepts. COVID-19 forced employees to stay at and work from home. For many organisations, this survival strategy unexpectedly became a productive and cost effective way to function and so, what once was considered a temporary arrangement may become the new norm. If this is the case, there is no doubt that the office space will change. Will Commercial Real Estate demand decrease as organisations question if they really need all of the square feet they currently occupy? As the future of Working From Home (WFH) unfolds and high density commutes are classified as a risk, many will question the ROI of the office commute. Surely not everyone’s home is set up perfectly (yet) for working from home. As a compromise, the commute might be kept as short as possible and if the new found ‘acceptable’ commute distance or duration is not within range of the organisation’s office space, a new office environment may emerge. Spaces that are in between the office and the home such as cafes or co-working spaces might also become an extension of the traditional office. As we make this post COVID-19 transition, perhaps organisations will not only replace working from the office with WFH but they may also be open to their workforce ‘working from anywhere’.

Prototyping our way out:

Prototyping at the customer level will be a part of every organisation as we hack, learn and improve our way out of this. While these design solutions may not be a long term addition, they will certainly serve to help organisations get back on track in the short term. I believe however that this is just the beginning of a wide spectrum of post COVID-19 innovation requests — some of which will be here to stay.

Some areas for consideration will include:

• High Density vs bacterial Hygiene: This is something organisations will not be able to ignore. We have all recently developed a strong awareness and education on the spread of germs, the lifetime of bacteria on various materials and so on. There is no going back from this. This awareness will shape future behaviours. Organisations may initially combat that with solutions such as desk shielding but will that be enough in the long term? Will a simple sneeze in the office cause unimaginable feelings of anxiety and what will that do to the culture of the organisation? Perhaps organisations will initially consider shift work arrangements as a form of crowd control and in the longer term reconsider the usage and the size of their real estate
• The Cultural Divide: While COVID-19 knew no geographic boundaries, the solutions certainly do. Different countries will be living a very different post COVID-19 reality and while we all step into this new global world of change, organisations will have to be sensitive to how each country adjusts and what each needs to get back to work. Again, this will be a time when organisations will need to team up with designers and those who specialise in performance spaces with a global knowledge of how societies work effectively. While COVID-19 took over the world, the design solution to deal with it will certainly be more granular as organisations marry the physiological profile of the geographies in which they operate and the design solutions to meet them.
• Humanized performance spaces: Many of the office spaces you see today were designed to meet several functions including a place for quiet, uninterrupted work, a place to collaborate, a place to entertain clients etc. COVID-19 has demonstrated in a very short amount of time that many of the functions the office used to play are perhaps no longer needed at the scale that they were once designed for. Steelcase commits millions of dollars a year in Research and Development and the results continue to indicate that we cannot ignore the importance of ‘collaboration’. COVID-19 will not eradicate the need for face to face collaboration and so I believe organisations will start to place more emphasis on office space as a place of collaboration. Further to that, organisations may start to direct more focus to the User Experience and how the office space can be used as a catalyst for weaving the social fabric of the organisation and building a community that can then thrive while they are working together (but yet separately) from their home or decentralised office spaces. It is certainly going to be an interesting time for designers to meet these new demands.

Welcome to the new normal:

It may take years to get there but the workplace we find when the world has healed will certainly look and feel different than it does today. Solutions will be found for old and new values under new circumstances. The trends certainly indicate that there will be more focus on working from home (and other spaces). The recent ‘collective mass remote working’ trial demonstrated to the world that working away from the office actually works for most of us to some extent. Unsurprisingly, we have started to see signs pointing towards organisations rethinking their real estate strategy to occupy a smaller footprint as well as decentralised, smaller locations. With this, we will see a more digital savvy collective with a temporary need for workplaces that facilitate both collaboration and the weaving of the ‘company culture social fabric’ — all while making sure not to compromise on the new standards of safety that each geography requires.

Covid19 has created global waves of iteration and prototyping for us to ride while we figure things out. And…once the waves become smaller and we finally reach the open water, it might be the very choices organisations make to meet this new world that create the new established norm.