Covid-19 quarantine is stretching us non-essential workers (all the 8pm claps for those at the medical frontline) in a number of ways. Some of us are juggling home schooling, house cleaning, master chef cooking, along with a full-day work schedule.
It can all feel a bit overwhelming, and you may be beating yourself up about still being in PJs at 2pm or freaking out at your neighbour who has turned into a noisy DIY guru just as you're about to start an important video-call meeting.
We're all adjusting to a new normal, but sometimes you have to switch the camera on for that zoom meeting you know.
Anyhoo. It’s all good - let this twitter thread give you life.
What started out as an innocent post about how one couple have had to share a micro, studio apartment as their office and living space, has since turned into wonderful relief of just how we humans are dealing with the WFH change. All while our kids and fur babies watch on in bemusement.
Right. We wouldn't rule out these budget-friendly home office ideas.
But these crazy situations also beg the question, 'Is the traditional office space a thing of the past?'
Because let's face it, many of us across the country are looking forward to the prospect of going back to an office environment, where work is just work.
David Seinker, founder and CEO of The Business Exchange, believes there will be no returning to normal any time soon, if ever.
“Rather than a return to normal once this is over, corporates are going to have to entirely overhaul their thinking about office to accommodate a number of factors," he says - suggesting these four as all important.
1. The shrinking workforce
Unfortunately, the human workforce is going to be a big casualty of the Covid-19 lockdown. With so many businesses making a lot less revenue than before, there have already been large-scale retrenchments across the board, and many companies will look to take up less space at their respective head offices.
“Businesses will find themselves in a big office space with an expensive lease, and not enough people to fill the desks,” Seinker predicts.
Large companies will now seek to diversify and reduce risk, while also looking for smaller or serviced office spaces with flexible leases as opposed to five- to 10-year agreements. They will want spaces that offer other “nice-to-have” services such as cleaning services, IT support and more, built into the lease agreement.
2. Higher health and safety expectations
“Going forward, employees will expect cleaner offices and better measures to ensure their safety,” says Seinker. “They will also be apprehensive about touching surfaces that others have touched before them.”
Those who can afford it will look into automatic doors and elevators that don’t require users to even press a button. Those who can’t will need to provide hand sanitiser at all public touch points as people’s concerns about possible contamination will be with us for a very long time going forward.
“At The Business Exchange, we have implemented several safety protocols that will continue once lockdown has been lifted. These include all guests being required to sanitise before entering our properties, outsourced deep-cleaning by professional companies, social distancing through spacing standards, and the use of non-contact thermometers to measure temperatures of all guests entering any of our premises.”
3. Cost savings
“Businesses would have lost a lot of money during the lockdown, and will have to look at how to trim their budgets once employees return to work,” cautions Seinker.
Larger companies will try to better utilise their office space by reducing the overall size of their workspaces, so reducing rental costs, while others may adopt more of a hybrid model which sees most staff work from the office while the remainder work remotely from spaces such as those offered by The Business Exchange.
Managing long-term risk will also become more important, so corporate companies can be expected to seek more flexibility in their lease terms. They may even look to decentralise their head offices and possibly locate different departments at different addresses. Businesses of all sizes can be expected to reduce lease investment and overall property costs, including fit-out and furnishings going forward.
4. No more open plan
The trend of the last few years for many businesses has been to put their employees in an open plan office space. While this may have looked good and been a clever use of floor space, it has meant that employees sit closer together and so are more exposed to the spread of germs.
“We have also ensured that unlike traditional serviced office space, our work spaces at The Business Exchange are more spread out and spacious so that people don’t feel crowded in the offices. This is and will be key to social distancing in the future," says Seinker
“The traditional office space as we know it today is no longer viable. Employees are going to be much more demanding of their bosses in terms of taking care of their health needs, while companies’ financial security is going to require smarter thinking about how money is spent.
“While it will never again be ‘business as usual’, we can certainly adapt to the new normal through a combination of innovative thinking and clever team management and business scramble in order to accommodate the rapid change in office space requirements.”
