The times, they are a changin’ and the needs of employees are constantly evolving with them. Today’s modern employee has far different expectations for their workplace environment than the employees of yesteryear, therefore your office space should be flexible enough to rise to meet their continuously changing needs.

Today’s employee is innovative, tech-savvy and— due to COVID-19— more concerned about maintaining a safe social distance from their coworkers than ever before. And with 80% of current employees expecting to be able to work from home at least 3x a week in a post-COVID-19 world, the modern employee is more flexible than ever before, too. To keep your workspace up to date with your ever-changing employees, take these steps to retrofit your office to meet their needs.

Creative Ways to Reinvent Existing Office Spaces

With so many companies extending their work from home and remote work policies as COVID-19 continues to impact the health and safety of workers all around the world, many organizations are taking this time to reinvent their existing office spaces in an effort to be more prepared for the workplace realities of a post-pandemic workplace strategies.

But never fear, the office as you know it isn’t going to disappear overnight. Instead, with the right systems in place it will continue to evolve alongside your employees. Here are our suggestions for how to set your workspace up for future success in a continuously advancing world. 

Transform offices into video conferencing rooms

Even when your work from home employees transfer back into the office when your organization has deemed it safe they will still be utilizing virtual communication and collaboration tools to stay connected with one another. To aid in this transition, transform private offices into the more flexible alternative: bookable video conferencing rooms.

These rooms can be used by hybrid teams to hold video conferencing meetings with their remote teammates. No matter the degree to which these hybrid teams are remote, the on-site team members can use these remodeled video conferencing rooms to connect virtually with their teammates in a private room, replicating the familiar atmosphere of fully in-person meetings of the past. For many, a quiet space away from home will be essential, and for others, home is the quiet place they need.

Turn shared eating spaces into individual booths

One area of the office that may seem difficult to reinvent is shared eating spaces such as cafeterias, lunch rooms, and break rooms. In a pre-COVID-19 world these were places for face to face socialization and casual workplace gatherings. To keep the integrity of these spaces intact, while transforming them into safe places for employees to enjoy their lunch and breaks, turn shared eating spaces into individual booths. With individual booths in place of open seating in break rooms, employees can still step away from their desks to enjoy their lunchtime without feeling unsafe doing so.

Create individual exercise rooms or meditation rooms

One of the most popular amenities to emerge in workplaces over the past decade is that of in-house gyms, exercise rooms, and meditation rooms. The connection between workplace success and employee wellness has long been an accepted truth, and the stress of COVID-19 has only added to the urgency of promoting employee health and wellness. To keep this onsite amenity available to your employees at a time where they need it the most, create individual exercise and meditation rooms. Using a room-booking system will keep your individual rooms organized, and supplying the rooms with the appropriate disinfecting supplies and signage will ensure that the rooms remain a safe place for employees to exercise and meditate.

Transition conference rooms into huddle pods

Gone are the days of large conference room meetings. Until a post-COVID-19 world is safe enough for large groups to meet indoors, conference room spaces are better utilized as small team huddle pods. Huddle pods and call booths are rooms specifically for on-site workers to have one-on-one conversations with their remote teammates and coworkers. Through the use of these reimagined conference rooms, hybrid teams can better stay connected to one another from a safe distance, without sacrificing any communication or collaboration opportunities.

Repurpose desks into flexible workspaces

Depending on how flexible the schedules of your employees were pre-COVID-19, your office may already be set up to accommodate flexible workspaces and flex-desking. For organizations with a large amount of employees with hybrid and flexible schedules, flex-desking is the ideal way to utilize the entirety of your office space while accommodating the range of needs of your hybrid employees. With flexible workspaces, employees can use a room booking service to reserve a desk to work at only on days when they will be working on-site. 

With the help of a high-functioning desk booking system, an employee can reserve a desk for themselves in the morning, fully sanitize the area when they are done, and another employee can use the desk in the afternoon without any face-to-face overlap. This way, all desks are only occupied by employees who need them, leading to a maximization of resources due to a decrease in unused workspaces.

Downsize Your HQ and Create Satellite Locations

If all of this transforming, transitioning, and repurposing of workspaces seems like a larger hassle than your organization requires, consider downsizing your headquarters and creating smaller satellite locations. COVID-19 forced millions of employees around the world to adapt to remote work, many for the first time. And with so many of these employees finding success with their new Work From Anywhere #WFA lifestyles, a lot of them are hesitant to return to the office and “business as usual.” With 77% of full-time remote employees saying that being able to continue working from home after COVID-19 would make them happier, organizations must rise to meet their needs by creating more flexible work systems in order to retain their top talent.

If you find yourself with more and more of your employees desiring extended remote work or flexible work policies, you may want to begin the process of downsizing your headquarters and re-allocating your budget to support your hybrid employees. This reallocation can look like a few things. It can either mean creating a string of smaller shared workspaces for your employees in neighborhoods and areas where there is a large population of employees, or it can mean using the budget to purchase remote work software and home office supplies for your fully-remote team members. Either way, when you think of the downsizing of your HQ as less of a downsizing and more of a reorganization of materials to better support the new age of flexible employees you will set yourself and your teams up for success.

When it comes to retrofitting your office for today’s employees, there is no one-size fits all solution. Instead, the solution will look and sound differently for every organization depending on size, employee collaboration, and previous experience with remote work. If you are new to managing remote employees download our free Remote Management Guide for all of our tips and tricks to succeeding as a manager from a safe distance.