When the workplace meets the worker: The future is here.

The chatter around returning to office is getting louder. I often hear two distinct emotions: Excitement about being able to resume social working, and curiosity on how much this long stint of working from home has changed – us as workers and the workplace itself. Here are my thoughts on what has changed and what remains:

The hybrid model: What does that even mean?

Most organizations are opting for a hybrid model. I am asked, bluntly so, if this is sitting on the fence? Frankly, no. It brings together the best of both worlds, which can exponentially benefit both the employee and employer. How we mix the two will influence the organization’s culture and everything that comes from it.

There are two distinct aspects of the future of work:

• Workplace technology: All tools, platforms, and technology that let you collaborate virtually will be foundational to an agile workplace that allows people to connect anywhere, anytime, and most times with any device. An array of enterprise social platforms have emerged lately, including skype, teams, connections, zoom, etc.
• Talent management technology: This builds on the shift of the remaining moments that matter in an employee lifecycle to a virtual environment – learning, performance management, onboarding, etc.

Neither of these two are new. However, the pandemic did accelerate their adoption at an unimaginable scale.

Whatever the origin story may be, the truth of the current world is that there have been certain learnings from the last two years that we will carry forward:

• Global mobility of skills: There is an increased interest in optimizing offshore delivery centers and building integrated global teams
• Democratizing of the workplace: There is more awareness on tapping into talent pools otherwise inaccessible due to time on space constraints – like people located in remote towns, working mothers who took career breaks for childcare, etc.

So, in a nutshell, today, we are taking work to the worker. While traditionally, the practice was for the worker seeking work and, therefore, the workplace.

What are the other key learnings which accelerated this transition?

• Contingency planning: The scale and rapidity of transition to virtual is, in hindsight, a big stress test on our system. The fact that we coped well will be the core of our contingency planning in the future.
• Collaborative work: The physical restrictions removed, virtual collaboration opened up new possibilities for bringing together a diverse team. Also, the fact that this was a globally shared experience has brought people together like never before.
• The productivity myth buster: While the markets and the larger economic environment went through some challenges, the workplace productivity has been consistent or even improved in some scenarios.
• Work-life balance: Flexibility broke the time-space barrier, and we have started conversations on what it truly means to balance work and life. It is not an either/or scenario, so there is more focus on wellness, purpose, and ownership enabling interventions that allow people to define the boundaries based on their need or want.
• Carbon footprint: While we have long been looking to be more sustainable, some practices that can trim down the carbon footprint are here to stay.

Having said this, there are areas which we need to look at, for instance – social wellness. While all the above pointers are great for solo working, there is a need to address social working. When people come together, we network, connect, innovate, and collaborate more intimately and powerfully.

In the future, I see offices as a social hub where we come together and bring in the ideas and heart into our vision, while in remote workspaces, we deliver on those thoughts. But it brings in the best of both worlds for the worker, work, workplace and of course ways of working.

The difference is you will have a bigger say in each of those aspects. So, the future of work is yours to build.