Hybrid Workplace Solutions
Hybrid Workspace Solutions Explained
This website provides an overview of the concept Hybrid Working – the use of the term has increased since the pandemic, however, the concept has been utilised by many businesses, in various guises, for many years.
This website explains what hybrid working is, the history of the hybrid workplace model, which large companies are hybrid working, why it is becoming more popular as a workplace operations model, and discusses what the future of hybrid working may look like.
What is Hybrid Working?
Hybrid working is the concept of utilising a range of workplaces to carry out business operations. When a business uses a variety of workplace formats, they are said to be operating a hybrid workplace model.
Typically, this can include the following formats of workplace:
1. The home – team members ‘work from home’ on tasks that can be easily carried out away from a traditional place of work.
The type of work carried out at home varies from business-to-business and team members maintain contact via email, phone, and communication technology such as Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Basecamp and Slack. Work can be worked on collaboratively from remote locations using cloud-based technology such as SharePoint.
2. Satellite offices or workspaces – when team members ‘work near home’, they are utilising strategically placed workspaces that facilitate collaborative work or other tasks that cannot be efficiently, or securely, carried out in a home working environment.
These remote workspaces may be positioned in multiple locations and may be located in business or office parks that are easily accessible by employees, possibly with good car parking provisions. Thereby reducing the public transport commute for staff, in some cases.
Some companies have made arrangements with office providers to create a network of satellite workspaces that allow employees to work in a business environment outside of the home and the main office.
For instance, in January 2021, the FT reported that Standard Chartered Bank Plc had created a network of near-home workspaces by partnering with an international office provider. The arrangement allows the bank’s 95,000 employees to access 3,500 flexspaces throughout the world.
Although, some Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies had similar arrangements with office providers and operators, pre-pandemic.
3. The main office – the main headquarters office, or offices, are utilised for in-office work. The use of the office continues to vary from business-to-business depending on multiple factors. It is most commonly used for front-office and mid-office tasks, client meetings, launches, meetings and so forth.
In some cases, the office is used as somewhat of a corporate showroom for a business and, in these cases, some companies are downsizing their office footprint but upgrading the quality of the office in terms of location and/or fitout.
Many employers and employees prefer to or need to use the main office for the majority of their operations. Many employers that operate a hybrid workplace model will continue to allow staff to continue to work in the main office as often as they wish, including full-time.
Whilst this concept of working has been utilised by many businesses for many years, following the enforced lockdowns brought about by the pandemic, many businesses are currently re-evaluating their operations model, and looking towards potentially using hybrid working models, for the first time.
Whilst office and workspace requirements between companies vary greatly between businesses, many are looking to increase efficiencies across their business model canvases and are looking for office solutions that elicit the greater returns on investment.
And, due to the collective trauma of the pandemic, many businesses are looking to create safe and productive working environments for their staff, and working arrangements that enhance work-life balance and good mental health and well-being.
There is somewhat of an increase in experimentation with the use of office space, post-pandemic, and many businesses are now looking at workspaces and offices with flexible contracts with which to use as ‘testing beds’ for new models.
What Is the History of Hybrid Working
As Cal Newport reported in the New Yorker, in May 2020, the origins of remote work dates back six decades.
In the 1960s, an engineer named Jack Nilles, built long-range communications systems for the US Air Force. Later, at NASA, he helped design probes that could send messages back to Earth from space. In the early 1970s, he focused his attention on an Earth-based problem - traffic congestion.
Suburban sprawl combined with cheap petrol were creating traffic jams because more people were commuting to the same town and city centres.
In 1973, the OPEC oil embargo began, and gas prices quadrupled, so America’s car-based work culture suddenly seemed unsustainable.
That year, Nilles published a book, ‘The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff’ in which he and proposed that the congestion problem was actually a communications problem.
The personal computer had not yet been invented, and there was no easy way to relocate work into the home, as can be done today. However, Nilles imagined a system that could ease the traffic crisis - if companies built smaller satellite offices in out-of-town suburban areas and city outskirts, then employees could commute to many different, closer locations, perhaps on foot or by bicycle.
In his model, a system of human messengers and mainframe computers could keep these distributed operations synchronized, replicating the communication that goes on within a single, main or headquarters office building. Nilles coined the terms ‘tele-commuting’ and ‘telework’ to describe this hypothetical arrangement.
The remote satellite office model didn’t catch on, but it didn’t matter because, over the next decade, advances in computer and network technology vaulted it.
In the following decades, technical advances arrived with increasing frequency. In the 1990s, office workers started using networked PCs and teams embraced e-mail and file-sharing. People began spending less time in meetings and on the phone and more time interacting with their computers.
As computer prices dropped, many bought comparable machines for their homes, using modems to access the same tools they used at work.
In 1994, AT&T held its first ‘Employee Telecommuting Day’ and in 1996, the federal government launched a program to increase remote work options for its employees.
In the early 2000s, broadband Internet made home connections substantially faster, and, in 2003, a pair of European programmers released Skype, which took advantage of this broadband explosion to enable cheap audio communication.
In 2004, they added conference-call functionality, and, in 2006, video conferencing.
By 2007, Skype had been downloaded half a billion times.
Office work seemed on the brink of a profound shift. Instead of commuting into crowded cities, workers would soon relocate to more affordable, rural areas - they’d enjoy flexible schedules, picking up their kids from school, incorporate leisure time into their workday and sit down for family dinners after productive days working form home.
Some envisioned more radical departures - in his book ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ from 2007, Tim Ferriss, suggested that readers negotiate remote work agreements with their employers and then move to parts of the world where the cost of living was low. He also recommended services that would facilitate the ‘new rich’ lifestyle such as Earth Class Mail.
‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ became a huge bestseller and Tim Ferriss’s subsequent and ongoing podcast boasts more than 600 million downloads.
But just when the remote work revolution looked inevitable, it lost momentum. In 2013, the recently-appointed CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, put a stop to all remote work at the company by means of a memo to all staff stating, ”Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home” and “We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together”.
Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other companies curtailed their telework programs. Silicon Valley companies then became known for their elaborate working environments —free breakfasts, coffee bars, meditation rooms, climbing gyms, sleep pods —that they used to keep workers at the office. A month after the Yahoo memo landed, an article in Business Insider lauded the range of in-office enticements on offer in Silicon Valley – some of which included concierge services for engineers.
In the period up to the 2019 pandemic, remote work became the exception rather than the norm. ‘Flexible working’ arrangements tended to be seen as a perk - a 2018 survey found that only around 3% of American employees worked from home (WFH) more than half of the time. And yet the technological infrastructure designed for telecommuting hadn’t gone away, it had vastly improved.
It enabled employees to answer emails on the tube or draft pre-dawn memos in their kitchens. Jack Nilles dreamed of remote work replacing office work, but the plan backfired - using advanced telecommunications technologies, we were now working from home while also commuting. As Cal Newport observed, ‘we worked everywhere’.
In 2020, as offices were shut by government lockdowns, the global population of office workers compulsorily entered the largest remote work experiment ever conducted.
The Terminology of Hybrid Working
Although the concept of a company having distributed teams with various team members working in a range of workplaces or forms of workplace has been with us for decades, the terms ‘hybrid working’ and ‘hybrid workplace models’ have picked up quite a bit of traction since 2020 and the pandemic.
Due to the global lockdowns around the world in 2020 and 2021, businesses entered into the largest work-from-home experiment ever conducted.
Most of the global population, either directly or indirectly, experienced the concept and, for this reason, hybrid working and various others have become a part of the wider used phraseology or lexicon.
Some examples include:
Smart Working – a process of utilising a workplace operations model that maximises business efficiencies.
Hybrid Workspace Models / Hybrid Workplace Models / Blended Workplace Models - Utilising a variety of workplaces or workspaces whether that be the home, remote workspaces near home in satellite locations or a main/base or headquarter office.
Hybrid working – to participate in working practices within a Hybrid, Blended or Smart model.
Hub and Spoke – the concept of having a hub office/main office/headquarters/basecamp and various spokes which are geographically segmented workplaces – these ‘spokes’ include the home and satellite workspaces.
Flexible Working – the concept of working in a format that varies from the traditional Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm model. Usually allowing the employee or team member to have greater autonomy over working hours.
Remote Working – the concept of working in a location away from the main office.
WFH – Working from home
WFW – Working from work (or the main office)
WFO – Working from office
WNH – Working near home (usually in a satellite workspace or spoke). This reduces the need for an employee to commute into a busy town and city centre. Many WNH locations tend to be in office or business parks and are characterised by good transport links and ample car parking provision.
WFA – Working from anywhere (typically, away from the main office).
WFAITW – working from anywhere in the world and not necessarily in the same country that the main office is located.
WFB – An example of the above could be ‘working from boat’ as can be seen on this Instagram post below. Entrepreneurs and startups have been running their businesses from various types of workspace for decades. This picture was taken was pre-internet, smartphone and cloud computing.
Richard Branson working from his family’s canal boat in 1986
Video Explaining Hybrid Working
Below is a short and simple video outlining the basic premise of hybrid working:
Why Is Hybrid Working Becoming More Popular?
As The Office Providers posted on their Instagram feed in September 2020, the concept of hybrid working saw something of a resurgence during the pandemic:
The pandemic forced businesses and their employees out of their offices and into the only place that they could work from – the home.
As mentioned above, businesses have experimented with hybrid working for many years, with various levels of success. And, they had never had to adopt remote working policies at this scale.
During 2020 and 2021, the luxury of choice was taken away, and many businesses were able to survive.
With the help of government support and the silver lining that was the cloud (please excuse the pun), businesses were able to tolerate the extremely challenging economic conditions brought about by the pandemic.
As lockdowns lifted, businesses started to question whether they actually needed offices, after all.
Office space is one of the largest expenses to a business so prudent FDs and CFOs were amongst the first to raise the question.
However, as stated above, remote work has been available for decades and, if it was viable, businesses would have done away with offices years ago.
The pandemic increased the adoption of many things that were already in motion - online retailing, online gym classes, recipe kits, streaming services, and using QR codes to order drinks to your table in restaurants and bars, to name just a few.
The ‘great reset’ allowed many businesses to really stress test various technologies and new management styles and, for many, greater efficiencies were found.
Whilst some clickbait headlines declared that ‘the office was dead’, it was quite clear that a 100% remote working population was not going to be how the future looked.
Once the office was taken away, it became apparent how much it was missed by employees, managers and clients alike.
The benefits of the office including being the physical place that encouraged social cohesion of teams, the osmosis of ideas, a place for mentoring, the place for collaborative tasks, a team base and a trophy piece for a business.
Office workers spoke of missing the office routine, the benefits of separating work from home, enjoying the amenities of the town and city centre, and even the commute.
Many workers also spoke of being overworked in their home environment and not being able to switch off from their work tasks.
Whilst not all were banging at the doors of their offices to let them back in, it was clear that the office was being missed by both employers and employees alike, at least some of the time.
So, many businesses are now looking to create is a compromise between remote and in-office work.
One that benefits the employees in terms of work-life balance that was enjoyed through working from home, but also the benefits of in-office work.
It has been proven that technology and adaptive management styles can support a level of remote work, and the increased availability of office space on flexible terms has made experimentation with new hybrid working models safer and efficient for businesses.
The flexible workspace, or flex space, industry has been growing exponentially, somewhat in the background for some, since the last recession, having been established several decades ago.
Flexible workspace providers were amongst the first within the commercial real estate industry to adapt their spaces to make them Covid-compliant, during the pandemic, providing safe havens for those seeking places to work when governmental protocols allowed.
They also created new products that allowed employees and businesses to rent, or licence, day offices, they created office time shares whereby multiple businesses could share office spaces, they created ultra-clean collaborative hubs for team meetings and helped businesses continue to communicate with their customers and clients through creating ‘Zoom Rooms’, podcast studios and studios spaces for virtual events.
The changing operations requirements of occupiers combined with an awareness of workplace products provided by the flex space industry is leading to increased adoption of various forms of hybrid workplace models.
The fact that these office spaces are available on shorter terms than leases, without onerous obligations, and on an all-inclusive basis is facilitating a disruption in working models that may create efficiencies for businesses and improve the collective well-being of workers.
Which Companies are Hybrid Working?
Of course, there is never a one-solution-fits-all when it comes to workplace operations. As chief executive of global freelancer recruitment platform, Toptal, Taso Du Val, stated in 2020, “there is no one correct answer to the balance of remote and in-office work.”
It is unwise to generalise how businesses will work in the future and myopic not to recognise the vast number of variables across businesses.
These variables include the size, age and location of a business, the culture, and the sector or industry that a business operates in.
There are variances in organisational structure and management styles within companies, too - the format of work carried about by various departments, and there are the varying needs and desires of individuals within an organisation as well.
Therefore, there are differences in the way different departments may approach their workplace operations within an organisation.
That being so, the business world as a whole, is observing how large household name organisations are approaching their business operations post-pandemic.
Below are some examples of how some large organisations are approaching hybrid working:
Amazon
The multinational conglomerate announced that there will continue to be a preference for in-office work post-pandemic. Amazon continued to acquire new office space to rent during the pandemic including 600,000 square feet of leased space in The Artise building in Bellevue, Washington in the US, in March 2021. The building is still under construction and is scheduled to open in 2024.
Apple
Tim Cook announced that, post-pandemic, employees will only have to come into the office three days of the week. However, it was stated that these days will need to correspond with the in-office days of fellow team members as the purpose of these days is for face-to-face contact, collaboration, mentoring, team bonding and other functions that cannot be easily replicated whilst working remotely.
The social networking service company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California and employed over 58,000 in December 2020. The majority of the company’s employees worked remotely from March 2020.
The technology company has 93 office locations across 37 countries and over half of the employees had expressed a desire to return to the office as soon as viable. Nevertheless, Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that he could envisage half of the workforce working in those offices and the other half working remotely over the next decade.
Nationwide
The British mutual financial institution - the largest building society in the world with over 15 million members has four corporate offices with its headquarters offices in Swindon, Wiltshire.
In 2020, it was announced that the building society would move to a permanent hybrid working model with a large portion of their team working from home, following successful trial periods during lockdown periods.
Netflix
The media streaming service and original programming production company employs approximately 10,000 and has office space locations in 26 countries.
CEO, Reed Hastings is an advocate for in-office, in-person collaboration and stated that he sees remote working as “a pure negative”.
TikTok
The Chinese video-sharing focused social networking service has four office locations globally with an estimated 3,500 employees.
In March 2021, the company announced that it had leased the entirety of Helical’s Kaleidoscope building in London, totalling 88,500 square feet of office space.
In July 2021, it was announced that all TikTok workers and interns in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland will return to the office three days a week when it is safe to do so.
An internal message read "there is no substitute for in-person collaboration and we are excited to reopen our offices in the United States. However, it is clear that many of us have adapted well to working from home and value flexibility and balance".
The global microblogging and social networking service is headquartered in San Francisco and has 32 office locations across 19 countries, with approximately 5,000 employees.
In 2020, CEO, Jack Dorsey, informed his employees that they can continue working from home “forever”.
However, understanding this option would not be suitable for everyone, the company is keeping the door open for those who wish to work within the traditional office structure.
The company is leaving the decision to work remotely or return to the office in the hands of the employees and stated that, "when we do decide to open offices, it also won't be a snap back to the way it was before. It will be careful, intentional, office by office and gradual”.
Whilst a blended approach to the workplace may work for some, it appears that is does not work for all.
Once thought of as suitable mainly for solopreneurs and start-ups or for large organisations with large technology and HR functions, it is clear that for even those companies with great resources, there is disagreement as to what business operations work best.
It would appear that the success of hybrid working is very much a case-by-case scenario, and adoption is being trialled tentatively.
What is the Future of Hybrid Working?
Following the ‘great reset’ and the ‘largest homeworking experiment ever conducted’ there is a growing number of businesses that are adopting a hybrid working approach.
Of course, this will look different for every business, sector, location and so forth.
Following financial pressures caused by the recessions created by the pandemic, businesses are looking to create efficiencies wherever they can, whilst also creating a framework for positive growth when economies recover.
Businesses are also becoming more mindful of looking after their people, too. So, a considered approach is being increasingly taken.
People-centric workspaces and working practices are being increasingly considered to help to improve the work-life balances of employees and to foster greater mental health and well-being amongst teams.
As hybrid working practices increase, it increases the number of remote working opportunities in the employment market, so businesses will need to recognise that hybrid working may improve the number of remote opportunities that their employees may now have.
There may also be a greater choice of employment opportunities for those living in suburban out-of-town locations that there may not have been before.
Whilst remote working opportunities will open work opportunities for those living far away from traditional office locations, there may be somewhat of a catch.
As Jack Kelly observed in Forbes in May 2020, as more people work from home, companies will quickly realise that they no longer need to draw upon job seekers from their immediate vicinity and could increasingly hire people nationwide or globally.
Typically, those who work in expensive cities are generally paid more than those living in less expensive areas, even when they possess the same skills and abilities. If a company hires someone who lives in Sheffield, for instance, they could pay considerably less than if they were to hire a person who lives in Greater London.
Companies could increasingly seek out the best talent around the country, and world, and pay them less than they would if they lived locally.
If businesses can help recoup the losses experienced during the pandemic, by hiring in lower-cost locations, it may be in their best interests to do so.
It may also become more difficult for employees to negotiate higher salaries, as management will believe that they could easily find a replacement somewhere else in other locations. This will be exacerbated by the estimated loss of 255 million full-time jobs brought about by the pandemic, globally.
Hybrid working policies may be a watershed event that helps increase the work-life balance and well-being for millions of workers, but could also hurt the careers of many people, too.
What is certain is that world of work is in flux, and no one is clear as to how the future of work will look.
In a press statement in 2020, referring to the company’s workplace policies, Twitter’s head of HR said that the company would “never probably be the same,” adding, “I do think we won’t go back”.
Reflecting a similar level of conviction felt by many.
Hybrid Working Resources
Below are resources that provide further information regarding hybrid workplace solutions:
Local.Gov
https://www.local.gov.uk/new-ways-working-local-government
This website maintained by the UK Government provides an overview of some the key considerations of developing a hybrid working organisation.
The Office Providers – UK Flexible Office Space Companies
https://www.theofficeproviders.com/flexible-office-space-and-workspace-providers-uk/
This is a directory of flexible workspace providers that operate flexible office space and workspaces in the UK that may be utilised within a business’ hybrid workplace model.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
https://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a UK government agency that provides guidance on best practice in relation to the use of Display Screen Equipment (DSE) in the workplace as well as for homeworkers, teachers and students using screens in their homes.
ISURV
ISURV is an online information service that was launched by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and provides insight from verified legal experts and industry practitioners relating to property and the built environment.
The portal contains technical information on a broad range of property and construction-related topics, as well as government legislation, RICS regulations, and property market surveys and research.
Disclaimer
The information contained herein has been processed by The Office Providers and does not constitute advice or endorsement. Information provided by this website is not a substitute for individually tailored commercial real estate advice.