The balanced workplace and the office of the future

Over the past year, our expectations around work have fundamentally changed. It’s transformed from a location to an activity we can do almost anywhere. Individuals have adapted to the pandemic and become accustomed to integrating their home and work lives. They’ve had breakfast with their children, which their old commute might never have allowed them to do before, they’ve been able to reduce corporate travel and spend more time with their loved ones, and they may have found themselves more productive as a result.

Balance has two meanings. It can be defined as a situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportion, or as the even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady. Both are relevant to the working world.

A balanced workplace will support people to lead lives where all aspects of their existence – work, family, friends, hobbies and personal values – feel supported and co-exist. The pandemic has highlighted the negative impacts of an unbalanced workplace – enforced working from home has been difficult for many people resulting in poor mental health, a lack of connection with colleagues, difficulty in collaborating, trouble focusing on concentrated tasks and a range of other stresses.

People used to talk about work and life as if they were two different realms. Even before Covid, the discourse focused more on work-life integration and it’s clear that the pandemic has further blurred the lines between our work and personal lives. While people will be glad to see the back of some of this blurring – trying to home-school children while working full-time, for example – there are other areas which will continue beyond the pandemic. Why shouldn’t people be able to have breakfast with their children, or pick them up from school sometimes and still have a fulfilling career? The positive impact on those children and their attitude towards work will benefit everyone. Why can’t they work longer hours on some days so they can have a shorter day to pursue a hobby or care for an elderly relative?

Everyone is different. Those in their 20s and early 30s often have a social life which revolves around the workplace, while those in their late 30s and 40s may have caring responsibilities which require them to be at home more. A balanced workplace will allow people to bring all aspects of themselves to work.

The pre-pandemic office was heavily focused around the desk and the meeting room – a somewhat binary way of working – but the post-pandemic office design needs to be more balanced and take into account all the different activities that happen within its walls. Just as people don’t typically cook in their bedroom, or have a shower in their kitchen, workplaces need to provide a variety of settings for different activities. In addition to desk space, this could include quiet zones for focused work; collaboration spaces including formal meeting rooms and more flexible spaces; refreshment areas for socialising and refuelling; wellbeing spaces for fitness and mindfulness; outdoor areas to improve wellness; anchor points such as auditoriums to encourage people to move through the space; and even well-designed empty space such as walkways and staircases where people can meet serendipitously.

A good variety of these areas will help to support the balanced workplace concept. In a somewhat damning indictment of our current workplaces, 87% of the 850 office workers we surveyed in March believe their workplace needs to change after Covid. Change needs to happen in the physical workplace in order to bring about the concept of the balanced workplace.

The past year has refocused people’s minds on what really matters in life – family, friends and community, health and wellbeing, personal fulfilment and individual values. The people returning to the workplace may have a different attitude to when they left last year. Companies that understand they need to adapt to people’s changed expectations and values by creating a more balanced workplace will be the ones which are most successful in the post-Covid world, attracting and retaining the best talent.

Everyone has had a different experience over the past year and they all need something different for them to work at their best. The balanced workplace approach supports people of all types and backgrounds including different generations, introverts and extroverts, people at different stages of their career and those with differing caring responsibilities. It helps the new graduate who might be keen to learn by working alongside more experienced people and develop a social network in a new town, as much as it helps the new parent who wants to be able to share the nursery drop-off with their partner so they can see more of their child while also developing their career.