The pause button has been firmly pressed on the workplace as we know it, as businesses like ours have had to pack up desks and take work home. Teams have been tested in their abilities to adjust to remote working and businesses have tried to adapt to the advice imposed by the UK Government in a bid to keep as many of us as safe as possible!

Whilst most of our efforts have been invested in making home working work for us, we can’t help but think of how this adjustment will affect the workplace once we return to it…

Once a level of normality is restored and businesses re-open their offices for employees to return to having spent weeks working from home, what will our ‘new normal’ look like?

Increased Demand for Resimercial Spaces

Prior to office closures, we were seeing aspects of the home being brought into the office through ‘Resimercial Design’, which quite literally means the combination of residential and commercial design. Biophilic elements, soft furnishings and casual breakout areas were becoming the norm for many creative, fun and forward-thinking businesses. Yet, this has been flipped on its head as we now all try to bring aspects of the office to our home!

However, we expect the tables to turn back around once we head back to the office, and resimercial design is going to be more relevant than ever. Having spent weeks working around our families, pets, and other home comforts, the workplace is going to need to adapt to workers’ new preferences. Comfortable spaces, sociable areas and bigger breakout areas may be more in demand than ever before, and businesses will be looking at ways to introduce these changes into their office space to ensure they are keeping up with changes in employee preferences.

Increased Remote Working

Now that many companies have mastered the working from home setup, we imagine levels of trust in workers to increase, allowing employees more say over where and how they work. Businesses that didn’t previously operate remotely and employees who weren’t previously interested in trying to work remotely have now tried and tested the method, and it’s unquestionable that some people will be keen to continue remote working to some extent.

Smaller Floorplan

As a result of this remote working, we imagine the future workplace to become more of a hub for social interaction and collaboration, as opposed to a place employees need to be in order to carry out their roles.

Because of this, we predict that many businesses will be looking to make their office space more lean and effective, meaning that the floorspace can be reduced in order to reduce the number of static workstations and instead shape a sociable hub to bring teams together.

The space available will look a lot less formal, instead promoting a collaborative and agile space to create a sociable hub to bring teams together.

For businesses already possessing these features, the change might come in the ratio of these areas in comparison to desk space, which may decrease.

So, What Next?

If you’re planning for the transition of your staff back into the office and want to look at ways in which you can make adjustments to your workspace as a result, we can help! Get in touch to discuss ways of making your space leaner and more efficient for you and your team.