Brief Idea
Post Covid, how will our offices look like. What can be the Office layout changes, cultural changes, cost changes. What can be the new opportunities. To know more about the perspective read on.
Office Layout
Pre Covid Era Traditional
During the pre-Covid era majority of IT companies were running traditional offices and focussed to have massive buildings to accommodate thousands of workforce to be able to work synchronously. Offices layouts consisted of a setup which typically had team based layouts with desks for Project Managers, Team Leaders and the team members. To enable quick communication and cross collaboration.
Post Covid Possible Hybrid Layouts
There may be a cap of people going to the office going forward, Reduction in dedicated cabins, Isolated Seating spaces instead of long connected running bays.
- There can be pull down and hanging bays.
- There can be some standing but foldable desks.
- There can be some desks for people going to office Regularly.
- Sanitizer & Mask holders in place on every desk
Attendance System
Pre Covid
There were biometric machines which were installed to keep a tap on the office working hours and doubled as Attendance system.
Post Covid
There still can be system where people Checkin and Checkout. Companies may or may not have this system. It may be necessary for companies providing IT services. But for companies working on products, generally have clear goals and milestones, hence it may or may not be necessary. Also, companies generally have standups, so it needs to be thought whether its really required or not.
Now, only the Leave management needs to thought out again. If someone is on leave, they have to create a mechanism that it is tracked and people are not misusing it. The same policy should be applicable to remote and non remote people.
Office Commute
Pre Covid
Big IT Companies used to hire buses to ensure people are reaching safely and on time to avoid traffic and other commuting issues.
Post Covid
Many people are now working from the hometown. They will not require any travel to Office daily. Hence no need to hire those buses and all. Or the companies can collaborate and work on a strategies to use the bus services on round robin basis. Like Monday one company, Tuesday another and so on. And they can fix few number of days on which the employees can come for different companies. And that can also be rotational or some other logic as per the company.
One to One Face Time
Pre Covid
If you want to interact with any colleague face to face. You have to go the desk of the person, and start interacting, many a times disturbing others too.
Post Covid
In the new era the other person is simply a call (Audio Phone/Video) away. One big benefit is that only the two people will get affected and not the other members. Downside is that their is so physical contact, hence no hugs or pat on the backs, which are great for motivating or consoling or simply bonding better. You will just have to use Emojis to express.
Micromanagement
Pre Covid
Some Managers or team leaders used to keep a check on the machines by taking a stroll on the floor and used to micro manage by occasionally peeking into the systems.
Post Covid
Micromanagement can still continue to exist even remotely. There can be insecurities and anxieties in the Managers ,their lack of trust on the team and lack of patience. This can lead to asking for continuous updates every 10 minutes or whatever is the level of insecurity. This can be very tricky going forward. It will impact the hiring process as well. The people who are self managed will find their place and others will have hard time coping with this new normal.
Travel Time
Pre Covid Never ending Travel Time
There were people who used to travel anywhere between 30 mins to 4 hours to office. And similar time back to home. That makes 260 hours – close to 30 days – that is a whole 1 month considering 8 working hours for the minimum. And maximum it comes to be 8 months for people living far away. On an average if the time is around 1 hour to and fro it comes out to be 2 months.
Post Covid
This above calculated increase will be the extra available time in the employee’s kitty. They can use this time at their discretion and utilization this to get better sleep, learning new skills, spending time with the family. This time is savings for the whole country. Imagine what can be the outcome if even 10,000 highly skilled employees utilize 2 months of this time properly. I am sure if this time gets utilized properly, it can work towards reducing the impact of Corona worldwide.
Office as a place of Worship
Pre Covid
There are many people who love coming to office everyday. These people used to get proper environment and surroundings under which they felt great to work in. They enjoyed having a clear marking between office time and home time. They enjoyed meeting each other personally face to face. They loved having lunch with each others in the physical cafeteria. They loved quick brainstorming sessions happening in the physical conference rooms. They loved interacting with new acquaintances occasionally.
Post Covid
People who love to go to Office probably will be capped. However, they should be able to enjoy the reduced congestion in the offices. They can enjoy flexi hours setup. It should not really matter much for them. There can be some people who are finding it difficult to continue WFH due to lack of resources or space. So that needs to be figured out.
Clients Data Security
Pre Covid
Clients were happy with the security setup in the company premises. The data protection was so tight in these Large MNC companies that you cannot even take single file outside the company. The servers used by these companies are hardened and few clients also visit the premises to ensure that their data is secure.
Post Covid
This one section I find most challenging for the organizations. There are so many challenges with remote working in terms of security. These may not be applicable to every industry just for example.
- Assigning Laptops or Desktops to all the employees
- Creating a Network across all the systems
- Ensuring data protection is enabled all the time
- How to safeguard against Theft of Hard disk drives
- How to safeguard against people recording or taking screenshots of important or confidential documents
These are just a few challenges. A major challenge can be life threat to employees who handle confidential documents to get unauthorized access. I believe ser are going to witness lot of changes in this area in very near future
Splurging Costs
Pre Covid
There were so many costs involved in a traditional office for both Employees and Employers. For example, Bigger and bigger Office spaces, Rented Apartments, Commuting to Office, Lunches, Snacks, Cigarettes. Celebrations at office. Trainings at office to name a few major ones. Also, regular maintenance of the office was higher. As was the wear and tear.
Post Covid
There will be a lot of restructuring happening accross the companies. For example,
Companies can look to adapt more towards coworking places reducing the heavy rental costs of the premium office spaces. For companies who own the space, they can invite others to work in colocation mode. Companies can also give their employees a fixed amount for a colocated office for people who may face challenges in setting up Work From Home Setup and are living far away from the office or above the Cap of people who can go to office.
Transport costs for employees and for organization could be reduced to minimal. No need to hire so many buses for ferrying employees.
Rent or accommodation costs for employees can also be fairly less, provided they can either work from home town or can shift to a lower rental place far away from the premium location due to office proximity.
Regular maintenance and other fixed costs slabs can be reduced a lot as the capacity of the office will be far less. Instead companies can give coupons or vouchers to the employees for the same which can be win win situation for both.
Water Cooler Chit chats
Pre Covid
We as social animals were always looking for a chit chat with the office mates and loved gossiping in the Office.
Post Covid
These chats post Covid will simply shift to either one on one chats or calls. There may be several groups created. Which will not be known to others and people would be talking over there. There can be some groups created where the chats disappear after a few minutes. To have untraceable top secret talks 🙂
Relaxing Office Breaks
Pre Covid
Those stress full meetings or boring trainings or the reviews or the pep talks, everything was followed by relaxing breaks to vent things out, to calm oneself, Attending the interview calls, Solving personal conflicts, Professional conflicts or Creating new bonds.
Post Covid
Post Covid and in Work From Home (WFH) mode there will be a very thin line between when are you working and when not. People will have to be good in time management to take care of this. People can still take breaks from the stressful meetings and other calls. More control and power to the people.
Team lunches
Pre Covid
There were Team Lunches, where colleagues used to see and meet each other physically and connect heart to heart and share their characters.
Long Brainstormings
We saw Conference rooms were used to have a quick meeting to mitigate a risk or long never ending brainstorming sessions to solve one of the most complex or the simple probems. It forced us to think in a shared space with all the physical energies were focused in synergy to reach out to a accepted solution.
Those in person physical interviews
The people used to come at limited Office Locations to appear for interviews. For several people it was multiple rounds tpo the office. A struggle for people who came from far away or from other cities. Also, some of them used to get nervous during the interviews.
Awesome Office Getaways
Offices generally had some kind of outings to a nearby getaway for the team bonding. It was really fun going out with team mates and enjoy the activities.
Vacations
Employees staying away from the families used to go on vacations to their home towns. Some of them missed their families a lot and regretted that they could not spend time with the loved ones back home.