Location-flexible Work // Emerging Business Lessons in 2021

An article exploring how the location-flexible work concept can help prepare organizations to face the future of work.

It’s no secret that economies have been battered and bruised by the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020 the Sub-saharan region experienced an economic contraction of 1.9 per cent, the worst year on record, and while pandemic-related risks continue to dominate other factors must be considered.

Access to external financing to help boost commerce, political instability with many countries that are preparing for general elections, domestic insecurity from religious extremists, and climate change affecting food security, could continue to jeopardize projected recovery. It is predicted that in many Sub-Saharan countries, per capita incomes will not return to pre-crisis levels until 2025.

It means that making a turnaround during, and after this crisis will require innovation, agility and adaptability. Business leaders will need, now more than ever, to respond rapidly to revenue losses by re-evaluating their business models, and team dynamics to operate leanly and strive for sustainability.

Rethinking Corporate Culture

The 2020 pandemic crisis left all sectors & industries shaken up, forcing organizations to embrace mandatory remote work. Pre-pandemic, remote work also known as telework, was the preserve of techies, creative consultants, and media practitioners. Now the future of work will be significantly more location-flexible for all.

While organizations have now set in place parameters ensuring team safety & health, it’s clear that team members might not be ready to return to the pre-pandemic status quo. that included daily commutes to work. A case in point is the rebuttal that roughly 2,800 Apple team members shared with their CEO Tim Cook after they were informed of the new Apple’s remote location-flexible work policy starting September 2021.

“I know I’m not alone in missing the hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration of our in-person meetings and the sense of community we’ve all built.” Tim Cook, Apple CEO.

It might come as a shock that a company as large & as well known as Apple is facing corporate culture challenges. But it should be a clear indication that other business leaders should start looking into the matter. Good organizational culture is not just a catchphrase; rather it is necessary for business success. Companies with well thought out organizational cultural policies are likely to experience 1.5 times more revenue growth of 15 per cent or more over three years. Yet 85 per cent of organizations fail in transforming their cultures.

What we are trying to say is that culture is cultivated through clearly defined & consistent behaviours set out by the leadership. It looks at how the company adapts to customer needs, responds to an arising crisis, and goes on to affect aspects such as team punctuality, attitude, contract terms, benefits, accolades, and reprimands. Externally, culture can be seen in the tone of how the organization communicates.

Organizations are presented with the unique opportunity to retain the best of corporate culture while releasing from the aspects that create bureaucracy, inefficiencies, and processes whose review were long overdue. 

However, to have effective cultural transformations business leaders will have to touch base with their teams, to make sure their views are heard, and represented in the creation of new corporate culture policies. There are a few considerations to have while creating a great workplace culture:

• Encourage cross-functional & cross-hierarchal collaboration,
• Allow teams to be location-flexible by choosing which work setup is best for them,
• Make the best of remote location-flexible work by building up effective Work-Life Integration methods, and
• Build better safety nets & ensure greater inclusion for the most vulnerable team members.

Reigniting Innovation

We have all been operating beyond our comfort zones, as we find ways to work, manage, and interact with one another during a global pandemic. It’s been even harder for organizations to give clear strategies on how to adjust to the next normal. Understandably, they are protecting themselves from pandemic shocks, by not only spending less but also by taking fewer risks which might, in turn, hamper the attraction and retention of talent.

It may be that from a corporate perspective, productivity and team morale have significantly dropped during the pandemic due to remote work, but some may have a different take. The reduction of daily commutes to the office, selection of ideal location-flexible workspaces, & reduced constant disruption for many has in some ways boosted productivity.

“We all know that work will never be the same, even if we don’t yet know how it will be different.” ~ Stewart Butterfield, Slack co-founder and CEO.

However, the aspect that we might have ignored and can now agree has suffered a great deal would be – Innovation. The drastic nature of the pandemic has forced everyone to strip back to the basics, leaving little room for experimentation which requires effective tools and interaction.

Initially, teams needed the right kind of tools to collaborate virtually, once they identified them, they needed time to understand and settle into them. Team leaders have also been tasked to  establish regular ways to touch base & maintain that connection. Project briefing, status updates, one-on-one team reviews and brainstorming sessions suffered great setbacks leaving little room for great new ideas and innovations.

Innovative thinking, over time, is likely to be slowed down by the focus on productivity & delivery deadlines. However, business leaders can help create disruptive opportunities for the organization to innovate & discover by:

• Encouraging team members to set their schedules, as well as decide on suitable location-flexible workspaces whether at home, at the office, or a hybrid version of taking up a desk at a coworking space,
• Engaging elements of Design Thinking by bringing in all team functions, levels together to work together in deciding how to prepare for the future. Capture their thinking, promote their ideas and execute the most innovative ones, and
• Designing pods that are diverse but based on varied backgrounds and perspectives to help teams explore, build and perhaps execute ideas together.

With these and other ideas, organizations can engage innovation in any situation, and adapt and thrive in the creation of new products/services as well as effective solutions with customers.

Reimagining Office Space

Corporate culture and innovation are at the heart of how organizations will adapt to new ways of working to create safe, healthy, enjoyable environments for teams. However, the last frontier remains a core aspect that businesses are built upon. Pre-pandemic offices were critical to brand status, corporate culture, productivity, and talent acquisition & retention.

Organizations were on the lookout for prime office spaces in swanky neighbourhoods within urban cities as their headquarters, and hubs. Many rushed to establish behemoths of office real estate across the world. One such is Google which sits on the estimated USD 1 billion Mountain View, California campus that hosts 12 buildings on the 51.8-acre site and was reported to have spent at least $2.8 billion on properties in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and San Jose within the years of 2016-2018.

Emerging Business Lessons // Ways to Survive in 2021 and Beyond

Yet tough choices have had to be made despite the hefty investments made on the office campus. Earlier in the year, Google relaxed its policies on returning to work by permitting some employees to permanently work from home and others to be location-flexible for longer periods each year. Meaning that the full potential of the giant office park might never be fully realised with people utilising the park.

With the mandatory work from home regulations, entire buildings, floors, rooms, and desks remained empty, while the expectation of rent payments loomed. Organizations were faced with the decision to cancel 5-10 year office leases in a bid to stay financially afloat during the pandemic. The drop-in office space uptake will certainly affect the entire real estate industry triggered by the drops in rents, which in turn may cause a slow down in construction, and eventually a decline in tax revenues.

“At some point, things will settle, and we’ll figure out what we’re doing. But everything is different, which means you have to think about scenarios and strategy. There’s a difference between contingency planning and future planning. That’s where innovation from inside companies comes in.” ~ Amy Webb, Founder – Future Today.

Landlords and office space managers are facing an unprecedented hit on their revenues with estimates that they could lose up to 15 per cent if organizations institute working from home just one and a half days a week on average, to 30 per cent if they can work from home for 3 days. But not many are worried, the general feeling is that once everyone is vaccinated and it’s safe to go out, demand for office space will return.

However, return to office predictions have come up short in the last year, the best that landlords and office space managers can do is ensure that their properties are safe and healthy. A few ideas that have been and can continue to be implemented are:

• Installation of touchless fixtures to reduce the spread of pathogens,
• Make use of more durable materials that could stand up to frequent deep-cleaning,
• Increased maintenance of ventilation systems for enclosed spaces,
• Serve healthier food options and have outdoor dining areas to boost wellness, and
• Outfit meeting rooms with videoconferencing or VR technology to accommodate remote workers.

According to a report by PWC, Shifting changes in the world of work have occurred since March 2020 and they have had major impacts across the commercial real estate market. 

Most employees continue to be hesitant to return to the office indicating a preferred hybrid-arrangement even in a post-pandemic world. Most employees now want an even split between face-to-face and remote working, while just 10% of the survey respondent chose a traditional in-person environment.

There is also a growing appetite from workers to be employed by places that prioritize flexibility and hybrid-work arrangements into their culture. 

As such, while overall space requirements may remain as is, reconfigurations that comply with health and safety restrictions can foster safe collaborative environments, and bring employees back into the office.

We are still in the early stages of truly defining the future of work, the office space still serves a purpose as more than just a place to plug your laptop. It remains a place to focus on work, encourage teamwork, brief products, socialise, and network.

The window of opportunity is unpredictable and may require just a little creativity to get used to a new way of doing things. Business leaders need to provide vision and purpose, allow teams to be empowered to think afresh and get work done with location-flexibility as a strong option on the table. There are many exciting opportunities as we adjust to how & where we work.