TWEP - Episode 20 - Workplace Fitouts - Post Pandemic

The Workplace Experience

The pandemic has certainly changed the way organisations are looking at there office accommodation fitouts. The office now needs to compete with other places to work.
The days of not being spatially aware are over. The importance on space being functional for quiet work, considered working, project work, meeting spaces for leader meetings or collaborative meetings are all as important as each other depending on the team and its functions.
Just being focused on having collaboration space is not the answer.
It might at a high level be the solution for today by ill informed leaders believe that is all they need, but they are and will be sadly mistaken.
The mix of the work settings in the office location is key to allow easy sharing of thoughts, knowledge and information by the use of technology no matter if your working independently, in a small group or in a blended project environment where people are attend in person and virtually.
Fitouts need to consider the easy of cleaning, surfaces that prevent to spread of viral infection or "bugs" or other types of infestation.
The days of finance finding cost savings by cutting the cleaning scope and subsequent costs are also over. If anything this spend will only increase as peoples expectations are now higher and they will not tolerate these reduction in services for health reasons, many people take this position not just to protect themselves but also others around them.
The fitouts are now more spatially aware-1800 long workstations, to comply with tried and tested physical distancing requirements 1 persons per 4 square metres during period of high viral transmission . new fitots are using more physical space - larger meeting rooms so that if physical distancing restrictions have to be reintroduced at anytime the change is not significant and things basically go alone like usual.
If things go along - same old same old during periods of high viral infection then the change impact on the employees is minimised.
The scoping of the requirements of the business groups using the discovery findings from workplace strategy is still essential to provide the basis of the design brief and what people need from the workplace.
Many people predicated that post the pandemic the days of desk sharing were over. This certainly has not been the case across the majority of enterprises.
Many organisations are providing community facilities zones for cleaning and antiseptic consumables to allow employees to self clean desks and shared spaces should they wish. These facilities best work when the coupled of support day cleaning regimes.
One of the reasons why desk sharing remains acceptable is because of the theory of the team "neighbourhood" which became embedded in the way agile working best worked prior to the pandemic.
The neighbourhood is a place of belonging, the place were people know they can gravitate to, where there will be a familiar face or the people that someone needs to meet with in their team or project.
Don't under-estimate the power of the neighbourhood or the home zone. This also drives the need for workplace
design to be like a lego block" design.
This allows furniture choices to be swapped out as different business units that have different needs of their space. For example some business groups well require more casual collaboration space, while others will have a higher requirement of project spaces. This modular design principle provides great flexibility for the workplace to change as the business requirements morph.
Lets not forget the design will morph, the days of set and forget are over. The changes on workplace design and office functionality is now almost continually ongoing as technology solutions are moving so fast and often drives the associated change.
The new post pandemic office fit