CONNECT
Issue 16
What works for blended working? Guy Osmond , Managing Director of Osmond Group Limited , explains how to take a holistic approach when designing at-home and office spaces that work for employers and employees.
Guy Osmond has been in workplace ergonomics for over 20
In the workplace… Here, the considerations are more complex. Again, a holistic approach is needed to take account of what employees have learned and what they now expect. The first question to ask is the same one homeworkers will put to you: “Why?” If you can’t answer “Why do you want us back in the office?” comprehensively and with conviction, you won’t know how to design your magnetic office and they won’t be convinced. Your reasons might include: • Communications – are mistakes being made, things being missed or overlooked? Errors that never happened in the past, perhaps. • Culture – do you feel the essence of the business is being diluted? Compare your post-2020 recruits with longer-term personnel. Do they have the same ‘buy-in’ to the organization? • Well-being – are some of your staff suffering from isolation through home working? Perhaps younger or lower-paid personnel has accommodation that simply doesn’t support an office or work area. There will be other explanations specific to your organization, but the one justification which will never hold up is, “Everyone was happy when we used to do it this way.” With the ‘why?’ clearly defined, your next consideration is what activities need to be supported. Likely, you will never again have so many people in the office at the same time, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you need less office space. It’s more likely that you need to remove some desks and provide a variety of breakout and soft areas. It may be pods, booths or ‘telephone boxes’, virtual forests or beach huts. Your workplace may soon look more like a hotel lobby than an office, but exactly what you need and how it will be used must evolve from conversations with your staff. You must identify their needs as well as those of the organization. Once you have this nailed down, act on your findings and then start the process again. Redesigning a workplace that works and continues to work for both employer and staff is an iterative process that will probably continue for many years to come.
years. His company, Osmond Ergonomics, is “the UK’s most knowledgeable supplier of innovative products and services to improve workplace well-being and productivity.” Guy’s team have a range of specialist skills not generally found among mainstream office furniture suppliers, and he prides himself on sourcing outstanding products from all over the world. Guy’s specialties include ergonomics, reducing workplace absenteeism and
Longer-term thinking After the initial euphoria, it became clear that while widespread home working was a successful concept, there was much more to think about. • Early project completion and the sense of productivity-related particularly to focused work where concentration is key. • There was a reported loss of creativity as collaboration opportunities were fewer and serendipitous conversations ceased. • Elements of face-to-face interaction could not be replicated virtually. • Mental health issues increased. • Homeworking is hated by some due to a lack of space/privacy at home and individual personality types. In the first half of 2020, some organizations made bold statements about the need for all personnel to return to the office as soon as possible, while others were planning to dispose of all their real estate and operate a fully virtual business. For almost all employers, it soon became apparent that their solution would fall between these two opposites – less extreme, far more nuanced, and much more complicated to identify and create. The hybrid solution - designing ‘home’ and ‘workplace’ environments Although I don’t pretend to have all the answers, I can offer some ideas about the best approach to the two design elements of any hybrid solution - ‘home’and ‘workplace’. In doing so, I’m presuming that elements such as outcome and workload management, communications, IT infrastructure, and well- being programs are already in place or being developed concurrently.
In the home… Addressing homeworker needs is, in many ways, the simpler of the two elements for employers. You have no control over the space, location, or décor so your brief is simply to ensure the work area stimulates productivity and enhances well-being. Throughout the pandemic, there’s been a widely publicized and powerful focus on mental health. This is proper, but I (and many others) worry that physical health has been neglected or ignored. To address this imbalance, I strongly recommend starting with an ergonomics or DSE assessment of all home worker setups . There has been much debate about the validity of regulations originally formulated 30 years ago, but such an assessment provides the basis for a holistic approach to the needs of home workers. It’s both informative and meets the statutory requirement to carry out a risk assessment. I believe that millions of home workers are currently suffering musculoskeletal issues caused by inadequate equipment, lack of space, and poor or non-existent training. While many employers have supplied chairs or the funds to buy them, that is a waste of money unless the whole setup is reviewed. There are a host of obvious home working errors including: • Far too many people are using laptops without a separate keyboard, mouse, and screen raiser with resultant neck and back pain. • Far too many people are still using the kitchen or dining table causing hunched shoulders and upper back problems. • Far too many people are using dressing tables and ‘desks’ with drawers underneath that prevent any reasonable posture from being achieved regardless of how good the chair is. All these issues and more will come to light in a properly managed assessment process.
We‘ve all learned a lot in the last two years, but one of the most significant post-Covid discoveries about the workplace is that nothing is simple anymore! As a new landscape of blended working patterns emerges, look at working environments for those who used to be primarily office-based. Agile working - then and now Agile working was already well-established before 2020, but the motivation was ultimately about what was best for the employer – the deployment of personnel to optimize real estate and resources. In the post-Covid world of hybrid or blended working, staff are now very much in control of the narrative. When the pandemic brought the first lockdown, we learned very quickly that home working was possible for almost all knowledge workers. There were a few ‘not- for-us’ diehards; but, for most organizations, managers and workers alike – the transition proved much easier than expected and the outcomes satisfyingly positive. Within a few months, we also learned that home working generally worked! Increased productivity was widely reported, projects were completed ahead of schedule, and managers wondered why they had not committed to this way of working sooner. In September 2020, Leesman reported preliminary results of their survey of nearly 127,000 employees in over 80 countries, with 82.2% of respondents answering positively to the statement “my home environment enables me to work productively”.
presenteeism, improving productivity, addressing
musculoskeletal problems and disabilities in the workplace. He blogs and speaks regularly on topics including flexible working and the changing office environment.
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