By Janet Morra, AIA, LEED AP
(Editor’s notes: This is the first of a series of articles on design trends by leading experts from Boston’s largest architectural firms. This article focuses on hybrid office by Janet Mora of Margulies Perruzzi.)
BOSTON–The shape of future office environments will be largely determined by three factors: the ability of company leaders to direct and manage change; the subsequent development of organization-wide policies concerning remote work, safety, and occupancy; and the financial implications of those policies on facility decisions.
A successful transition from the peak pandemic work-from-home scenario to a return-to-office scenario will require a spectrum of expertise and depend heavily on corporate agility and flexibility.
Margulies Perruzzi’s report, Volume 4: Post-COVID Workplace (link) presents four workplace models that corporate leaders can adapt to their own company’s unique blueprint. They are traditional, flexible, balanced, and lean, and range in 25% increments from 100% of the workforce returning to the office in the traditional model, to 25% in the lean model. Each model comes with its own financial and logistical considerations, especially if more space is needed to accommodate social distancing.
Long a staple in certain high-tech industries and made possible through advancements in digital technology, COVID-19 has pushed the hybrid work environment model to the mainstream. Now, as the world grapples with the omicron variant and new facts about its transmissibility to and by the vaccinated, Margulies Perruzzi’s Volume 5 Workplace Strategy Report: Embracing the Hybrid Workspace (link) affirms the logic of transitioning from a traditional to hybrid model. A survey of 8,600 people across multiple business sectors revealed that 44% of workers plan on being in the office three days a week, and 25% plan on two days. Only 9% responded that they would return to a pre-pandemic office presence.
Corporate leaders are becoming more receptive to the idea that work environments must embrace change as a constant and evolve in response. Catalysts include an increase in workplace utilization rates and safety protocols; restoration of employee engagement and culture; continuation of remote work and subsequent management of a reduced in-person population; and an increased need for collaboration technology and training.
(Janet Morra, AIA, LEED AP is a Principal and Partner at Margulies Perruzzi, a leading architectural firm in Boston specialized in Healthcare, Science, Workplace and Real Estate projects.)
