Is 'What's in it for me' the new normal in the workplace?

Companies are adapting to a “New Normal in the Workplace” based on the past two to three years of changing what office and work, in general, look like with more adaptation and change to be expected, according to panelists in a session presented by the St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers (SLC3) at HOK’s downtown location on August 11.

Monica Conners, CEcD, economic development-prosperity-community at Ameren, moderated the panel — the first all-women panel in the history of the SLC3. Speakers included Pat Guichet, senior design & construction project manager, SSM Health; Kay Sargent, senior principal|director of workspace, HOK (Washington, DC, office); Katie Magoon, SPHR and SHRM-CP, owner, People’s Solutions Center; and Angie Earlywine, senior director|total workplace, Cushman & Wakefield.

“The crystal ball was never more cloudy,” Earlywine said of perspectives on the market today and for the future. “It is important to align business goals and company culture.”

Panelists agreed that the pandemic-fueled move to remote and, more recently, hybrid work models are not a new concept and that bringing employees back to the office can be seen as “an opportunity to look at what is available and possible today,” Earlywine said, as well as to restructure both physical office space and how work gets done so employees want to return to the office.

“We’ve never seen this much attention on work, the workplace and the workforce — and it’s long overdue,” Sargent said. “We’re seeing an amazingly empowered workforce.”

Guichet agreed that “leaders want to be in the office and have their people come back, but are struggling because (office space) set up is the same as it was 20 years ago. Employees have to feel as if they belong to a club. The space has to be welcoming.”

Returning to the workplace will be complicated, especially given how younger employees prefer to work and interact, and that 25 to 30 percent of people hired during the pandemic have never been in the office with their co-workers. That can create a lack of a sense of connection or belonging that can make in-office demands more difficult, panelists said. 

“You have to be strategic about why you bring people back in, how people will work together and how office space will support them, or your office will become generationally versus traditionally driven,” Magoon said.

Nowadays, employers have to be prepared for candidates to ask whether and when they have to come to the office, so “we need to lead differently,” Magoon said.

Sargent urged business owners, leaders and managers to think about space design and function as among the drivers that will encourage people to come back to the office, such as access to amenities, training and professional development, mentoring, IT services, and social capital — opportunities to meet and interact in person.

“We have to give people a reason to come to the office, to feel a sense of pride in being there.”

Employers must also address the physical and psychological health, safety and wellbeing of their employees. The human aspect is an important factor is convincing employees not just to return to the office but to stay in their jobs at all.

“The Great Resignation started during the pandemic because it’s easier to leave a job if you don’t feel that you belong — if you aren’t connected socially with colleagues,” Sargent said.

According to Earlywine, “Hybrid is taking hold because there is something good about both remote work and being in the office.”

What doesn’t work, though, is creating a human resource policy requiring employees to return to the office without having a conversation with building and facilities workers, or assessing what employees now need and want from the workplace.

“The lesson is that we have to work together and are better when all groups are included, and we focus on the employee experience,” she said.

“We have to rethink the way to work, and retrain managers to focus on performance rather than presence,” Sargent said. “We’re going to have to be flexible and nimble. We can’t always focus on it being better to work at home — that can be horrible for some people, and might not be safe. We also know that people who work from home produce more, but the question is whether the result is better in terms of quality.”

Another important element of efforts to bring people back to the office and create a new normal is that “current spaces do not support the current nature of work,” Earlywine said. “The office has shifted to central, collaborative activity but spaces are not designed for that. We have to remove every barrier to that approach and get ahead of what employees need.”

In reorganizing, rearranging and redesigning office space, companies have to pay attention to the different ways that employees handle noise in the workplace; some thrive on a high volume of conversation and traffic in the office that occurs with open spaces, while others need almost complete quiet to function at their best.

“We have to be more intelligent about the right level of sound and noise,” Sargent said. “We have to break the norms and take a human-centric approach to office design. The concept now is fusion, such as lifestyle studios. We’re starting to see the anti-corporate design and a move toward the personal — more of a hospitality approach.”

Panelists also noted that even if staff only come to the office two or three days a week, businesses can’t necessarily shed space, because people will need the same amounts of space and amenities — parking, equipment, furnishings, meeting rooms, etc. — when they do go in.

Global companies that were already used to working around time and cultural differences had an advantage during the Zoom-heavy pandemic era, but still experienced issues.

“Every region of the world had different challenges,” Sargent said. In some countries, it’s illegal to work from home. In others, people simply don’t have the space and flexibility to accommodate working at home because of crowded and cramped living conditions. Privacy can be a concern — some countries track every move and contact that people make, which could mean not being allowed into the office on arrival because of being exposed to someone with Covid a little earlier at, for instance, their local coffee shop. 

The crystal ball for the future might be cloudy, but panelists and the audience agreed that the message is clear: Businesses must find ways to make employees want to come back to the office, through new ways to arrange and design spaces, access to desirable or essential amenities, appreciation and support for collegiality and social interaction, closer engagement with company culture and resources, and more. Clearly articulating the “why” for coming back to the office will be the key to the success of such efforts.

“We have to figure out the ‘what’s in it for me’ for employees and how we articulate that clearly to make a compelling case for coming back to the office,” said Magoon.