With a virtual farewell party, you’ve got to have some activities planned, or you’ll end up with 20 faces blinking at each other expectantly from their Zoom boxes. <ul><li>One fail-safe activity is a quiz about the departing co-worker: questions about projects they worked on, the name of their dog, what instrument they play in their punk-rock band, etc.</li><li>It’s also a good idea to ask at least one person to give a toast (typically the departing colleague’s manager or another higher-up who knows them pretty well), and to give the person who’s leaving a chance to say a few words if they’d like. </li></ul>

The best activities for a remote farewell party

When a departing colleague has been at the organization for a while, it can be fun to invite former co-workers to the farewell, too.It turns the Zoom gathering into a mini-reunion, as well as a sort of retrospective This Is Your Life moment. Even if they can’t attend, they may be able to share stories or tributes about the departing colleague that can be included in a goodbye card or read aloud during a Zoom call.

Inviting alumni to company parties

<ul><li>A fond farewell lets the person who’s leaving the company know how much they’ve been appreciated, and affirms that the parting is on good terms.</li><li>The decision to leave a job can be kind of like a birthday—a moment when we take stock of our lives and do a lot of existential pondering. In both cases, a celebration can help people feel supported at a time when they may be a bit vulnerable.</li><li>A party gives people who still work at the company an opportunity to feel a sense of closure, too. Some people may feel quite sad when a co-worker they’re close to leaves; others may worry about their future.</li></ul>

Why it’s important to throw goodbye parties for co-workers

Managers can consider the work that goes into throwing goodbye parties (and doing other tasks that contribute to a convivial workplace culture) when determining promotions and raises.They can assign office parties to an employee-focused on internal talent as part of their formal job description. Or they can ask different people to take charge of farewell parties on a rotating basis, so the work doesn’t fall disproportionately on just one or two employees.

Recognizing the work that goes into a goodbye party

Virtual goodbye parties can be tricky to manage. But as more people switch jobs, knowing how to organize a proper sendoff for departing colleagues is an important skill.

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

teamwork

Teamwork

How to throw a good farewell party for a remote colleague

As we pass the pandemic's two-year anniversary, employers are officially welcoming more people back to the office. One of the most difficult changes during the pandemic has been our ways of communicating and collaborating. Constrained to a computer screen and videoconferencing, we've adopted unnatural and habitual ways of working with each other. When we return to the office, we won't necessarily bounce back to some pre-pandemic way of working.

In-person gatherings are blooming again

Research can pinpoint exactly what is happening in our brains when we connect over screens. <ul><li>Connecting with others over video conferencing requires our brains to work harder to accommodate the millisecond delay in sound.  </li><li>At the same time, we have multiple eyes staring at us, sometimes unnaturally sized or too close, which our bodies can see as a threat.</li><li>We’ve lacked the unscripted and unexpected moments of being together in person, like the surprise of bumping into a friend or the spontaneous whiteboarding of a new idea.</li></ul>

Our shared reality has suffered

Going back to the office will be new terrain. To help ease into collaboration and communication, pay attention to the following: <ul><li>Don’t overschedule yourself. Allow yourself some open, non-task time and space to readjust.</li><li>Set an intention for connection. Research shows that our minds wander 37% of the workday. Returning to the office can lead to distraction, which is not ideal for collaboration and connection. Try to set an intention to reorient your attention.</li><li>Get more sleep. Extra commuting, catch-up socializing, and mental overload will be tiring.</li></ul>

Looking forward

Research shows that social isolation was the top challenge for those working from home. If your staff returns to the office, consider the following.<ul><li>Talk. Have a return-to-office plan and keep talking about it. When there is clarity about the strategy and plan, employees have 36% more pleasant feelings about being back in the office.</li><li>Organize schedules by key moments, not by days of the week. Plan in-office days when your team will most benefit from a shared reality.</li><li>Design office spaces for different ways of interacting.</li><li>Have agenda-free social interactions.</li></ul>

How leaders can create spaces that nurture connection

It’s time again for shared reality. Melissa Afton of Potential Project explains how to ease back into working with others IRL.


Is your brain ready to go back to the office?

Nearly a decade ago, most candidates applied to 70-80 jobs before finding themselves in a company,  It wasn’t for lack of skills or education, but rather the labour market was so tight people had to take what they could get. Today, it’s a vastly different climate: falling birth rates, slowed immigration, record retirement, an exploding gig economy, and the workforce as we know it is hungry for talent.

The Job Climate: A Raincheck

In America alone, there are 11 million vacant positions and only 6.5 million people to fill them. We’re in the middle of a talent crisis. Employees have unprecedented leverage, and the Great Resignation as we know it is just beginning. <ul><li>When the pandemic first hit,  millions of employees learned how to operate in a remote world. </li><li>It introduced a cocktail of complexities; for one, many bosses weren’t especially supportive or skilled in leading remote teams. </li><li>This new work style propelled people to adjust their personal lives.</li></ul>

Wave 1: Change By Force(2020 Onwards)

As the office seems safe for return, employers across the country call their people back. To be clear, there are no outside forces mandating us back—leadership is. Not surprisingly, there’s a mixture of reactions. Over the next couple of months, we’ll see even more people quit because they simply don’t want to come back to the workplace. Their new home in the country is far more comfortable, they will avoid their lengthy commute, public toilets and also want to save money on gas.

Wave 2: Change By Choice(Mid 2022)

Employees have the upper hand as companies are desperate for talent; so employees can pressure their bosses to allow flexibility.Many companies are developing flexible systems and negotiable schedules for employees, including Wells Fargo, Ford, The Social Security Administration, and Microsoft.

The Present Reality

The third wave gradually happens. According to the <a href="https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/data.html">U.S. Census Bureau</a>, approximately 26.4 million people in the U.S. moved in 2021. We’ll see A-players putting their foot down to stay remote. Employers won’t have a choice but to let them work remotely if they want to keep them. But what happens to the rest of the office when the top dogs are allowed to work remotely? In short: animosity, disdain, and envy. Finally, frustration will boil over, and people will find flexible jobs.

Wave 3: Picking Favourites(Mid 2022 Onwards)

In reality, many companies are still tying the carrot-and-stick methodology instead of investing in solid cultures employees want to join. Instead, they try luring top talent by waving bonuses and extra cash. Those who forget to improve culture and workplace experience will see high turnover rates in the next 8-12 months because they hire people who aren’t a good fit. Essentially, there are two options to curb this: either companies invest in long-term leadership solutions or wait to see what happens if they don’t.

Wave 4: Kicking the Can Down the Field (2023)

Workforce reconfiguration is not only overdue—but necessary for the workplace of the future. Imagine this: 100+ million people switching jobs working in an atmosphere lighting them up, coworkers they want to be around, and an environment encouraging their best work. This Great Resignation (Reconfiguration) will create better, happier teams, parents, and spouses with more energy and fulfillment and better work from coast to coast.

The Bottom Line

This work futurist predicts new waves of worker unrest are on the horizon—especially as some companies press a return to the office.

business

Business

Why the Great Resignation is far from over

As a fairly new concept, the People Ops demand has boomed, with vacancies <a href="https://www.zenefits.com/workest/61-stats-about-people-operations-hr-the-workforce-remote-work-and-the-employee-experience-that-youll-definitely-want-to-know-if-youre-in-human-resources/">growing 6x faster</a> than their traditional HR equivalent. This is especially true for remote companies, where remote People Operations roles are actually the norm. People Operations teams are all about putting employees first. While many of the responsibilities cross over into traditional HR, People Ops focuses more broadly on maximizing employee effectiveness.

People Operations

<ul><li>Focusing their entire mission on employee satisfaction and performance. </li><li>Optimizing the entire employee journey, including onboarding and training.</li><li>Cultivating a great employer brand.</li><li>Attracting, evaluating, and hiring talent through optimized hiring processes.</li><li>Modernizing and automating functions such as payroll and recruitment.</li><li>Supporting employees day-to-day with areas such as benefits, company policies, and work/life balance.</li><li>Analyzing people metrics such as turnover rates, time to hire, and employee satisfaction to identify areas of improvement.</li></ul>

The Work Of People Operations

Traditional HR:<ul><li>Narrowly focuses on traditional HR topics such as pay, benefits, and recruitment.</li><li>Ensures employees work in a way that reduces the ‘people’ risk for the company.</li><li>Tells employees about key decisions and policy changes.</li></ul>People Operations:<ul><li>Takes a strategic and holistic view of the needs and performance of People.</li><li>Focused on making people happy, more productive, and more connected with the whole company.</li><li>Consults employees, co-creating key decisions and changes.</li></ul>

People Operations Vs HR

By taking a holistic people-focused approach, remote People Operations specialists help distributed teams overcome the following key challenges:<ul><li>Collaborating and coordinating work across time zones. </li><li>Providing clear and consistent guidance on communication, processes, and habits.</li><li>Fostering best-practice sharing between colleagues.</li><li>Polishing remote hiring processes to hire faster and more confidently.</li><li>Levelling the playing field for pay and benefits across different countries.</li><li>Enabling remote employees with the right technology. </li><li>Maintaining engagement with organizational objectives. </li></ul>

Importance Of People Ops In Remote Organizations: Overcoming Challenges

For remote companies, People Operations become the heartbeat of the business. By focusing on the people, their needs, and ultimately their satisfaction, remote People Operations teams have to create an amazing culture. We all know that feeling truly part of an organization is hard when you’re remote, as nothing quite helps you connect with your team like being in a room with them.

Creating an Amazing Culture

From a recruitment perspective, adopting a People Ops model inevitably leads to a much reduced time to hire. Bring together a fantastic employer brand (focused on putting people first), slick and efficient recruitment processes, and innovative hiring technology, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for rapid, high-quality recruitment. That helps optimize one of the critical recruitment KPIs, time-to-hire, slicing the time it takes to fill a vacancy when one becomes available.

Reducing Time-to-Hire

All of this comes together to improve employee effectiveness. People Ops teams listen to the challenges employees face and put their needs first when it comes to developing solutions. Feeling valued, prioritized, and cared for improves employee satisfaction and, ultimately, employee performance. People Ops managers focus all of their energy on ensuring key metrics such as employee satisfaction, churn rate, and workforce engagement are optimized.

Boosting Employee Effectiveness

Whether you’re hiring a People Ops specialist or looking to make the transition yourself, here are some of the skills and qualities needed to become a People Ops superstar!Collaboration: People Ops is all about co-creating a better way of working, so you need to be able to work well with others. Not only is this important to keep your people happy, but it’s also important to collaborate upward too. This ensures your strategic People Operations work aligns with the organization’s goals and objectives.

Skills or Qualities That Make a Great Remote People Ops Specialist: Collaboration

People Ops specialists need to be able to understand what makes people tick. They need compassion and empathy to understand the challenges employees face to accurately come up with solutions.

Emotional Intelligence

People Ops isn’t as reactive as traditional HR. Instead, People Ops leaders have to be able to tackle situations and come up with problems proactively. Especially for new and exciting remote companies, you may need to think outside the box, harnessing creativity and confidence to try something new.

Problem Solving

People Ops is a results-driven business with success decided by key metrics such as employee satisfaction and churn rate. However your organization collects their data, you need to be an expert at analysis to fully understand it and turn it into actionable outputs.

Analytical Skills

Data shows that <a href="https://img.en25.com/Web/CPP/Conflict_report.pdf">85% of employees</a> experience workplace conflict in their lifetime. As a People Ops specialist, that conflict will come to your door, so you need to be able to manage and diffuse it as effectively as possible.

Conflict Resolution 

Fundamentally, People Ops jobs are no different from any other jobs – there are loads out there, you just need to know where to find them.But if you’re explicitly fishing in the remote market, you need to take your search to some particular places.AngelList – What began as a startup funding brand is now a leader in promoting jobs for newly formed companies, many of which have a remote-first mindset.VentureLoop – Closely linked with venture-backed companies, VentureLoop is a great place to find roles with newly funded and exciting companies.Other options: WeWorkRemotely, and Startupers.

Finding Remote People Ops Jobs

Human Resources is obsolete. Enter People Operations.

Remote People Operations teams are awesome. We look at what People Ops is, why they're so great, and how to hire People Ops superstars now.

humanresources

Human Resources

Remote Company 101: What is People Operations? - Toggl Blog

<ul><li>Employees don’t want to come back more than occasionally</li><li>Having an increasing number of permanently remote employees is complicating</li><li>Workers who do endure the hassle of commuting into the office will regularly find themselves sitting at their desks with headphones on logging into Zoom meetings with their remote colleagues undermining leaders’ justification for any enforced hybrid or full-time in-office schedules.</li></ul>

The Return to the Office: Core Problems

<ul><li>Research suggests that the hybrid approach has little to no impact on productivity and culture, connection, and innovation improve with in-person time</li><li>With workers who have been hired remotely or have moved out of range of an office, "it's a tricky issue."</li><li>One approach is to give them a certain amount of time to relocate to where they can be part of the hybrid schedule. Another is to grandfather them in and let them remain remote</li><li>This has the downside of the frustration and two-tier system and is likely to decrease their ability to get promoted because of proximity bias.</li></ul>

Most Companies Should Stick To A Hybrid Approach

Companies with a preference that workers be in the office all or most of the time might have to pay more to recruit and retain them.HubSpot's strategy includes three Es: enablement, experimentation, empathy:  enablement involves equipping managers and workers with tools and support for hybrid, such as templates for 1:1 meetings and connectivity suggestions;  experimentation includes virtual events, so that employees from different teams can get to know each other; empathy includes special support for caregivers and employees of color, including training and encouraging managers to talk about t<warningtag>heir own experiences.</warningtag>

The Money Issue

We’ve recently heard from leaders who are finding the coming return to office even messier than they anticipated. Some share a set of core problems:&hellip;

When No One Really Wants to Return to the Office

Today flexible work schedules have become the new normal for employers and employees. Approximately 76% of employees prefer flexible work schedules as an attractive incentive for improving satisfaction levels.Flexible hours refer to giving employees the freedom of adjusting and choosing their working hours and days based on suitability.Job needs, how the organization performs within its industry, and the employee’s preferences or demands influence flexible working hours. Working hours are agreed upon by both the employer and the employee.

Flexible Working Hours

Many organizations are implementing more flexible schedule policies because they see the benefits of allowing their staff to work from home.
<ul>
<li>Concentrate on work outcomes and deadlines</li>
<li>Invest in better training and tracking tools.</li>
<li>Hold one-on-one meetings regularly</li>
<li>Establish a Double-Coverage Attendance System</li>
<li>Establish Employee Mutual Contracts</li>
<li>Make the switch from FaceTime to Flex Time.</li>
<li>Hold daily team meetings regularly.</li>
<li>Create Collaboration Workflow Solutions.</li>
</ul>

More Companies Going Flexi

Here is what needs to be done in managing a flexible work schedule:
<ul>
<li>Incorporate communication and project management software: This keeps teams updated about who is doing what and how much work has finished.</li>
<li>Foster a virtual environment of collaboration: Collaborative teams produce more productive outcomes.</li>
<li>Offering great support to employees, in providing direction and resources contributes</li>
<li>Focus on employee recognition and motivation.</li>
<li>Promote boundaries and work/life balance.</li>
</ul>

How to Maintain Productivity with Flexible Work Hours: The Do's

<ul>
<li>Don’t allow employees who prefer higher guidance.</li>
<li>Don’t exclude employees for no reason. Employees engage more with the organization when they are treated fairly by the employer.</li>
<li>Don’t be adamant about timings. Flexibility in working not only means permitting employees to work from home but also involves giving liberty to them to choose their work hours</li>
<li>Don’t stop considering employees who are not in the office. If the employees do not get information on the organization’s decisions and performances, they feel lost in the working environment.</li>
</ul>

Don’ts of Flexible Work Schedule

Increased productivity and greater employee satisfaction are the key benefits of flexible working hours for employers.

How to Maintain Productivity with a Flexible Work Schedule

Researchers predict 73% of teams will include remote workers by 2028, but few companies make building and maintaining their culture with all workers – including virtual ones – a priority. Companies with remote teams should proactively create a connected culture. When you create a positive company culture, you do more than make work more enjoyable – you gain a big competitive advantage. Companies with cultures that foster employee engagement see nearly 60% more revenue per worker than average.

Remote Work: The Premise

<ul><li>Building a strong virtual culture hinges on trusting your workers.</li><li>Align your virtual culture with your core values and operating philosophy.</li><li>Invest time in screening new hires to make sure they fit your culture.</li><li>Create a training program to spread your culture, and appoint cultural ambassadors.</li><li>Encourage vulnerability to strengthen virtual relationships.</li><li>Use internal and external feedback to assess your corporate culture.</li><li>Enhance your virtual culture by investing in a collaboration tool.</li><li>Become a better virtual worker by adopting healthy habits.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways

Culture is the personality of a company. It defines the environment in which employees work and includes both the spoken and unspoken rules for how things get done in a company.A positive virtual culture requires trust. Employers may worry that their remote workers will underperform, but, in reality, remote workers often work harder than office workers. You don’t need to micromanage employees who work from their homes. Instead, check on their progress regularly so you discover any problems early.

Defining Company Culture

Treat remote workers as responsible adults, giving them autonomy and flexibility.This policy will contribute to their happiness and, in turn, they will feel a greater sense of loyalty to your company, thus building the foundations of a positive culture. Companies that have cultures rooted in trust see several benefits, including a 50% decrease in turnover rates, better stock market performance, and increased worker productivity, innovation and engagement.

Building a Strong Virtual Culture Hinges on Trusting Your Workers

The culture you create reflects the rules – both official and unspoken – that your company embraces. Before you create a virtual culture, reflect on your current culture. Ask why you provide the services or products you offer and what core values inform the decisions people make at your company. Examine your traditions – which can encompass anything from how you celebrate wins to what leisure activities team members enjoy together. All these things reinforce your culture and values.

Align Your Virtual Culture with Your Core Values and Operating Philosophy

After you identify and redefine your culture, start adding in virtual components. Everything your company does, from the way you conduct sales calls to the collaboration tools you use, should align with your core culture. Try to be flexible. Understand that remote workers will have different distractions – children interrupting, doorbells ringing – than office workers. Prioritize moments of human connection among your remote workers. For example, you might create space for informal chats before virtual meetings and encourage – but not require – people to turn on their videos.

Adding Virtual Components

Consider which aspects of your virtual and core cultures you can and can’t teach, then hire people who already possess the cultural aspects you value but couldn't teach, the intrinsic aspects of your culture. For example, teaching someone to be kind isn’t easy, so if you and your culture value this trait, screen potential hires to make sure they act with kindness. The teachable aspects of your culture, by contrast, might include certain skills and a core of knowledge about work-related topics, such as delivering projects to clients or working from home more efficiently.

Invest Time in Screening New Hires to Make Sure They Fit Your Culture

Few businesses train workers in their culture – more than 60% of companies don’t mention their culture when onboarding new employees. If you want your workers to embody your culture, teach them about it. Consider creating a culture curriculum highlighting the cultural traits you prioritize, such as diversity or collaboration. If you want a great culture, you have to actually tell your employees what your culture is and what it means to live up to it.

Create a Training Program to Spread Your Culture, and Appoint Cultural Ambassadors

<ul><li>Make both in-person and virtual learning methods available to workers, since people have different learning styles – some may prefer learning at home, while others prefer learning in a group. </li><li>Hire leaders who embrace your cultural values in their own lives to serve as role models. </li><li>Consider investing in mentorship programs for new leaders to guide them as they learn to adapt to your culture.</li></ul>

Tailor To Different Learning Styles

<ul><li>Enable employees to share your culture by inviting a select group of people from varying career levels to serve as cultural ambassadors and share your company culture. </li><li>Make ambassadors responsible for identifying charities your company can support, organizing internal events such as hackathons and providing feedback on decisions that could affect your culture. </li></ul>

Culture Sharing

Virtual relationships can develop into strong connections, just as in-person relationships do in the office, but remote connections may require extra effort. Create strong relationships by making an effort to be vulnerable and encouraging team members to do the same. When people display vulnerability, it triggers oxytocin production in those around them, increasing cooperation and feelings of empathy and trust.

Encourage Vulnerability to Strengthen Virtual Relationships

Consider bringing more of your personality to work: Perhaps you could craft a clever auto-reply or share small details about your life to help your colleagues feel a greater connection with you. Leave time for people to chat about non-work topics before virtual meetings to encourage distant team members to get to know one another. For example, the virtual call’s facilitator could spur conversation by asking a lighthearted question that prompts people to share details about themselves before the meeting.

Bring Your Personality To Work

Vulnerability is the secret ingredient and shortest route to building any strong, collaborative relationship, whether your relationship is strictly virtual or in person.

Be mindful that misunderstandings can cause conflicts during remote meetings since people have more difficulty interpreting one another’s tone of voice or body language in virtual communication settings. <ul><li>Proactively manage conflict by taking extra time to connect with people. </li><li>If you suspect that someone is upset, check-in via video chat or phone call.  </li><li>Decide how often you’d like your team to meet in person – if doing so is feasible. </li><li>If you don’t have a physical office space, consider cost-effective free spaces, such as coffee shops or restaurants.</li></ul>

Virtual Misunderstandings

Use all available metrics to measure your corporate culture. Figure out how frequently you’ll gather feedback on your culture and which sources you’ll draw from to make sure you have at least one quantifiable metric you can study over time. External sources – such as web platforms like Glassdoor that allow people to rate their employers – as well as internal feedback systems that use anonymous employee surveys are potent forms of data.

Use Internal and External Feedback to Assess Your Corporate Culture

Take time to enhance your culture by finding the best collaboration tool(Slack, Teams etc.) to facilitate internal communication and cooperation in your organization. Employees can become frustrated if they lack effective methods for connecting with one another and streamlining their workflow.The right collaboration platform builds your virtual culture, creates community, connects new hires to your culture, breaks down silos, facilitates multigenerational collaboration, creates greater transparency, improves employee engagement and collects data on how people collaborate.

Enhance Your Virtual Culture by Investing in A Collaboration Tool

Establish boundaries – Contrary to popular belief, many remote workers work too much.Choose your workspace carefully – Work somewhere with minimal distractions. Schedule time for breaks – Take time for activities, such as exercising at midday.Create your own schedule – Figure out the times of day when you are most productive.Don’t isolate yourself – Take time to connect with your co-workers, either virtually or in person.Stay present and focused – Don’t try to multitask during conference calls.Build relationships – Get to know your teammates virtually.

Become a Better Virtual Worker by Adopting Healthy Habits

The lifting of pandemic-era restrictions paves the way for millions of workers to return to their offices. For many employees, however, this is not an attractive prospect. And considering that talent is scarce, employers must think twice about ordering people back full-time.

Virtual work isn't the model of the future-it's here now. But many companies struggle with setting their employees free from the office without sacrificing culture. Centric Consulting president Larry English is here to guide the way. Twenty years ago, Larry and his friends weren't happy in their consulting jobs. The long hours took a serious toll on their personal lives. So they built their own company where employees could work virtually and the culture would contribute to both the business's success and employee happiness. Since then, Centric Consulting has expanded to over 1,000 team members with operations in 12 US cities and India-and everyone works remotely some or most of the time. As Larry unpacks everything he's discovered about creating and sustaining a culture of collaborative teams, you'll learn: How and why you need to cultivate an atmosphere of trust in a virtual environment How to recruit and hire team members for remote work How to build strong relationships with people you don't see every day How to scale your virtual company without sacrificing culture How the right software tools can help build culture How to be a great virtual team member Sprinkled with funny, insightful stories from Larry and other Centric employees, Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams is the ultimate guidebook to remote work and a successful virtual culture.

books

Books

Virtual work isn't the model of the future-it's here now. But many companies struggle with setting their employees free from the office without sacrificing culture. Centric Consulting president Larry English is here to guide the way. Twenty years ago, Larry and his friends weren't happy in their consulting jobs. The long hours took a serious toll on their personal lives. So they built their own company where employees could work virtually and the culture would contribute to both the business's success and employee happiness. Since then, Centric Consulting has expanded to over 1,000 team members with operations in 12 US cities and India-and everyone works remotely some or most of the time. As Larry unpacks everything he's discovered about creating and sustaining a culture of collaborative teams, you'll learn: How and why you need to cultivate an atmosphere of trust in a virtual environmentHow to recruit and hire team members for remote workHow to build strong relationships with people you don't see every dayHow to scale your virtual company without sacrificing cultureHow the right software tools can help build cultureHow to be a great virtual team member Sprinkled with funny, insightful stories from Larry and other Centric employees, Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams is the ultimate guidebook to remote work and a successful virtual culture.

Larry English

Office Optional

The traditional layout of meeting rooms is undergoing a radical rethink as companies grapple with ways to create optimal collaboration spaces for<a href="https://qz.com/guide/hybrid-workplace/"> hybrid teams</a>.Instead of giant conference tables, many offices are redesigning the same space into small-sized theatres with large screens.

Changes In Office Design

The upheavals caused by the pandemic present a rare blank slate for architects and companies. The crisis in office space compels organizations to think more broadly and boldly.
Movable partitions, like the “<a href="https://qz.com/essentials/1964996/open-plan-offices/">dancing wall</a>” produced by the Swiss furniture company Vitra, are also proving useful. <a href="https://www.vitra.com/en-us/product/dancing-wall">This mobile fixture</a> that transforms into a bookshelf, coat rack, rolling coffee station, or plant stand allows companies to experiment with new space configurations as employees trickle back to the office.

The End of Cookie-Cutter Offices

Architects are rethinking the standard template for conference rooms. For GSK's new office, the Philadelphia-based firm FCA reconfigured a boardroom to look more like a movie theater.

Has remote work made conference tables obsolete?

<h3>Clothing choices are a critical component of how we think, behave, and interact with others.</h3> In the shift to remote work, some workers kept their office uniform while others picked comfortable home attire. After two years of working from home, there is still no solution for handling the work-from-home dress code.

Work-from-home dress code

Research shows that clothes influence how colleagues perceive each other and can change how employees think or feel about themselves. It is essential that companies and their workers think critically about the office dress code, and get it right. There's now clear guidance that companies, managers, and individual workers should consider in our new hybrid work reality.

Clothing influences how you are perceived

Enclothed cognition describes how clothing and its symbolic associations affect thought and behaviour. Research found that making small changes to one's wardrobe, such as putting on a lab coat in the lab or wearing a power suit in the office can improve attention or increase one's sense of power. Wearing a suit increases testosterone levels and wearing a nurse's uniform increases empathy.

Enclothed cognition

Research shows that home attire consistently improved authenticity and engagement because workers felt more like themselves and were more engaged and productive at work. Clothing needs to be consistent with the setting in which it is worn. The setting of work matters more for work engagement than the content of the work task. Research shows companies don't have to wonder if they need to end the office dress code. Instead, to help workers bring their best selves to work, managers should encourage workers to wear clothes that fit where their work is being completed.

At home attire

If you’re among those who can still work remotely at least part of the time, you need to reconsider your wardrobe.


productivity

Productivity

What to wear to maximize productivity when you’re working from home, according to science

For all the triumphs of remote work, the social connection remains a pain point. One <a href="https://www.twingate.com/research/what-employees-miss/">survey</a> of 700 remote workers, who had previously worked in offices, found that social connection was the thing people missed most about offices, outranking office banter, a dedicated workspace, and face-to-face meetings. And yet, despite the obvious need, most companies haven’t figured out how best to broker connections in the virtual world.

Remote Work Is Not Like The Real Thing

Some companies are counting on the eventual return to offices to mend the social fabric of the workplace. Google and Facebook, which both <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/work-going-remote-why-big-tech-building/">expanded their real estate footprint</a> during the pandemic, have historically used their office space to create a sense of shared culture, and they will continue to do so. But many other companies have embraced remote work, allowing some or all of their employees to remain dispersed in the months to come.

Returning To A Physical Office

Isolated employees can be compared to gig workers, who may do the same tasks for different companies. People can still feel productive, even content, working by themselves. But when work feels transactional, it’s very easy to trade one laptop for another. It’s not surprising that turnover is so high.

The New Gig Work

At its essence, workplace culture is defined by shared norms and routines. Something as simple as providing free coffee can create an office routine for employees to meet each other or socialize. At their best, those small interactions open the door to friendships or collaboration. Even when they don’t, they give people a sense that they belong to a larger group.

The Old Workplace Culture

Remote work challenges these routines and office norms—when people come in when they leave, what they wear, and whom they interact with. The flexibility to work on your own time, and in sweatpants, if you choose, is one of the great advantages of remote work. But it can also leave employees feeling detached, and unsure when it’s appropriate to ping a coworker or how to start a conversation about something that’s not work-related.

Post-Pandemic Routines

Research on remote work is sparse, and the conclusions vary. Some studies find that workers are happier; others say workers experience more loneliness, irritability, worry, and guilt. Also, the recent research on remote work has taken place during the pandemic, making it difficult to separate whether people feel bad because of their work arrangement or because of the pandemic.One thing that is clear, though, is that remote workers do not tend to replace in-person interactions with virtual ones.

How Remote Work Works In The Long Run

Since remote work doesn’t seem to be going away, these problems will need to be solved, fast. Some companies trying their hand:Cleary: is a “digital lobby” where people can ask questions, post announcements, and congratulate each other on workplace wins.Tandem: encourages employees to share updates throughout the day so coworkers can see when they’re available for a chat.Donut: aims to create a human connection between people at work.

Companies On The Job

The price of this lost connection is more than just dissatisfied, disengaged, or departing employees. It can also cost companies the innovation that comes from people who know how to work together. Remote workers can be productive—even more so than when they work in offices. Productivity gains apply mainly to solo work, the kind that gig workers and freelancers do. Collaborative work, which is <a href="https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/how-collaboration-drives-innovation-success-march-2015.pdf">linked to innovation</a>, has not fared well.

The Price Of Lost Connections

Remote work: How It fares in the long run.

There are Zoom happy hours and digital water coolers, but employees feel disconnected, and work feels transactional.

It’s Tough to Build a Corporate Culture in a Remote-Work World

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