There is an adage that there is strength in numbers. This seems obvious to many, even though many companies, large and small, do not seem to have fully grasped the concept…
The new norm for “post COVID” workspaces is to combine face-to-face with remote work: but employees must want to come back to their place of work. So how can this be done?
Beyond the design of new workspaces, which is a matter for specialists and involves a paradigm shift, the first step is to bring together ideas and people from HR, real estate, and facility management (FM).
These entities often think that they can work autonomously in terms of workspace without worrying about others. Let’s be clear: this approach is doomed to failure.
While real estate is concerned with building, location and space strategy, and FM seeks to optimise the management of infrastructure and user services, HR focuses - in general - on the social and human aspects. Everyone is of course a master of their own domain, but healthy emulation and collaboration is essential.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for these various entities to work in silos, without regard for each other’s objectives: the result can only be chaotic and incoherent for the employees-users-consumers. What to do:
• Have a strong but “neutral and non-political” sponsor: a kind soul who will push the project and support it from start to finish and beyond the emotional storms. The CFO is usually not the right person…
• Have a clear strategy for employee development, including health & safety.
• Appoint a recognised project leader who is appreciated for his or her professionalism, determination, and benevolence.
• Create a multidisciplinary exchange platform (HR, real estate, FM, etc.) in the field of workspaces to collect as much information as possible.
• Have a small, dedicated team of specialists of all ages and functions.
• Look for internal and/or external referents to act as promoters and challengers.
Other important resources could be listed, but the key is to pool knowledge, experience, and requirements to create the best possible solution for the company. This is where real estate, HR and FM must show their ability to work together.
If Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was a workspace concept: if it was, we would know about it and many specialists would have been unemployed for ages…
With the COVID-19 pandemic and the “reboot” that this has necessarily provoked, let’s bet that most company CEOs will know how to organise themselves accordingly.
Good luck, good thinking, and good reading.