How Hybrid Work Will Transform Our Workplaces

The ongoing, wide-scale shift to hybrid work will have manifold implications for the workplace, influencing the ways in which companies and people leverage those workplaces to do business and advance their careers.  

While each company will take a different approach to implementing hybrid work, a number of changes are already emerging. 

The good news: companies that successfully adopt hybrid work have the potential to create more productive workplaces, embrace flexibility and retain valuable talent.

Here are three key ways in which hybrid work already is transforming our workplaces—and how companies think about their real-estate portfolios.

A hybrid workplace will need to be a destination that attracts employees. 

Even as companies allow their employees greater flexibility by adopting hybrid work, many still want their employees to come into the office for at least part of the week.

Time in the office can yield greater organizational cohesion, help promote a shared workplace culture and foster serendipitous interactions among employees. Each  can benefit innovation and productivity.

Hybrid work also gives employees more opportunity to work away from the office. Organizations that want their employees in the office will need to provide a compelling destination, a preferred place to get work done. We call this the ‘consumerization’ of the workplace, whereby organizations will reimagine their workplace as a magnet, or destination, that competes for people’s attendance much like retail and hospitality venues appeal to consumers today.

Good office planning is a bit like good urban planning. A well-planned city designates both public and private spaces. Similarly, great offices feature central gathering spaces that attract employees—cafes, for instance, or inviting collaboration spaces. These types of places draw people together and can be considered an office’s ‘urban core.’

Organizations will need to think differently about the shared spaces and services they provide. The same is true for the technology and amenities that make their workplace a highly attractive destination for their people.

Newly hybrid companies will benefit from adding amenities to collaboration spaces to help draw their employees to the office and to one another. These can include reconfiguring for more on-site events, adding more café and break areas, and improving and expanding food-and-beverage services. Other possibilities include enhancing the technology and meeting venues for employees working both at the office and remotely. These spaces will likely also command a larger portion of a given workspace, as companies reduce their assigned seating.

The net result means offices will offer better services, with greater technology, integration and connectivity.

Hybrid companies will use less office space, but they’ll see more use of that space.

Most organizations that historically provided one space per worker kept 10% to 15% more space in reserve for contingencies. This ‘just-in-case’ approach to space planning came at a huge cost in capital and operating costs.

The move to hybrid work will likely change that calculus for most organizations. By and large, companies are now rethinking the investments they make in the workplace.

This may mean some organizations lease less space directly to accommodate an increasingly virtual workforce. They might simultaneously accommodate their peak periods office use by enlisting flexible space or coworking providers.

Put another way, office space investments will likely move from a ‘just-in-case’ to a ‘just-in-time’ model. 

But if organizations use less office space, they are also likely to see more intense use of that remaining space, thanks to an ongoing trend called activity-based work. It’s a workplace design ethos that favors unique settings tailored to different types of work. 

Historically, companies have, on average. regularly used around 65% of their office space. Someone with an assigned space at an office was likely present in it about two-thirds of the time, accounting for vacation, sick days, business travel and other events.

CBRE predicts this number will likely approach 75% to 80% as companies implement more desk sharing between employees. That dynamic will reduce the need to hold vacant space in reserve.

Companies that successfully adopt hybrid work will be poised to better retain talent.   

The biggest question and concern most organizations now must confront: How to calibrate successful hybrid work policies among different teams and people? Many companies have a legacy of senior managers with more traditional attitudes about how and where work is best performed. But they now also have a workforce that has unequivocally stated a desire for more flexibility.

In short, the challenge is putting in place policies that are equitable and appealing to their workforces while maintaining organizational productivity.

If a company allows its employees greater flexibility until more certainty emerges, but it then starts to see an effect on business, it can always pull people back into the office. But a company that takes a hard line and requires employees to come back to the office risks losing talent. It’s a lot harder to recover from the impact that has on a business.

Even before the pandemic, research showed that employees were more likely to stay with companies that afforded them some flexibility. In fact, CBRE found that having the flexibility to work virtually was the No. 1 benefit job seekers sought out.  

At the same time, CBRE also found 62% of people want to go back to the office for at least part of the week for team connection and community. 

That makes it critically important for companies to meet their employees where they are—both in terms of offering flexibility to work outside the office at least part of the time and by providing them attractive destinations to engage with their colleagues and teams.

Lenny Beaudoin is Executive Managing Director and Global Lead for Workplace, Design and Occupancy at CBRE.