Workplace Debate: Challenging Productivity and Atmosphere Perceptions in Hybrid Work Environments
In the wake of the pandemic, many businesses are reconsidering the role of physical offices in their operations. The traditional office, often uninspiring, underused, and poorly suited to how people actually work, is being reimagined to better support modern working practices.
Dominic Dugan of Oktra, a design and build company, proposes key solutions for this office transformation. The focus is on creating choice and flexibility, seamless technology integration, and purposeful zoning.
One of the key solutions is to reduce underused desk banks and replace them with collaboration hubs, flexible meeting rooms, and quiet focus areas. This supports efficient space use and helps employees prioritize activities that are hardest to replicate remotely, such as relationship-building, workshops, and complex problem-solving.
Creating visual separation between zones and using furniture to signal the intended purpose of each space encourages purposeful use. This layered zoning makes offices feel dynamic and responsive to daily needs.
Providing choice is essential, but the office must also encourage employees to use those spaces meaningfully. The degree of choice within social, collaborative, and focus areas matters, not merely offering the categories themselves.
Technology should enable employees invisibly, blending naturally into the office design rather than dominating it. Tools like AV systems, occupancy sensors, and environmental controls should empower productivity without adding visual clutter or friction.
The office design should prioritize functionality and performance over aesthetics alone. A space that supports people’s workflows and provides the right environments for different tasks enhances collaboration, employee engagement, and culture.
Involving users in the design process is crucial to ensure spaces are well utilized and that people feel connected and confident in how to use them. This approach leads to smarter decisions, better utilization, and spaces people feel connected to and confident in.
Before mandating strict office policies, it's important to test if the space can support the way people work today. Forcing staff into unsuitable environments can lead to disengagement, conflict, and quiet exits.
Many offices still retain fundamental issues like inadequate meeting spaces, clunky technology, cramped environments, and designs that don't support how people work. Instead of creating beautiful but dysfunctional spaces, the focus should be on creating environments that genuinely support different types of work.
The goal isn't to fill desks or enforce attendance, but to create environments where people can do their best work, collaborate effectively, and feel genuinely engaged with their workplace. This approach can lead to improved staff retention, better client experiences, and the resolution of productivity problems.
Major firms like Morrisons and Dell are mandating five days in the office for staff, but this shift should be approached with caution. Many employees were not truly present in the office before, with signs of life like bags on chairs or coffee cups on desks indicating they were working elsewhere.
Smart business leaders will use this opportunity to build something better, not just prettier versions of a system that hadn't functioned effectively for decades. The return to the office can be a turning point, creating flexible, functional spaces that genuinely support people in doing their best work, regardless of their work location.
[1] Oktra, (2021). Oktra's Approach to Office Redesign
[2] Oktra, (2021). The Future of the Office
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