SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - When the pandemic hit, companies had to adapt quickly to workplace disruptions. The majority of businesses that could do so shifted to remote working. The practice, adopted by the workforce globally, brought on a slew of changes at the workplace.

See also: Future workforce likely to adopt hybrid work arrangements, CBRE survey shows

With physical attendance no longer compulsory, companies are now more likely to evaluate productivity based on a worker’s output, highlights IWG in a report. In the future, employers would have to use measures of productivity that are best suited to the hybrid working revolution, moving away from presenteeism.

Citing the use of cloud-based workforce tools like Quixy, Hive and Nintex, IWG says “it will become much easier to monitor, track and assess who is doing what and whether or not deadlines are being met”. It adds: “Reams of real-time data will soon give rise to new productivity metrics that will be used to build highly efficient organisations.”

As workforce practices have changed, so too have the demands of employees. While working from home was possible only for a select few before the pandemic hit — and mostly in the tech industries — the practice has now become widespread among most businesses. “Pre-pandemic, some forward-looking companies were beginning to embrace flexible working but, in 2022 and beyond, hyper flexibility will be an expectation,” says IWG.

If companies do not allow for such an arrangement, people will look elsewhere for other jobs. An IWG survey conducted last year revealed that almost half of all office workers would quit if asked to go back to the office five days a week, while nearly three quarters said they would prefer the option of hybrid working to a 10% pay rise, if offered the choice.

Businesses are recognising the need to be flexible with their working arrangements. The proportion of job advertisements offering flexible working has almost doubled to 26% since the beginning of the pandemic, according to findings from flexible working consultancy Timewise.

“Whereas before the pandemic employers were the ones setting the agenda, during the ‘Great Rehiring’, it will be employees who determine what work looks like and how it should be balanced with their personal lives,” highlights IWG.

The benefits of remote working arrangements also extend to employers. With workers being able to work from anywhere, companies can now hire talent from a global pool of candidates, rather than being restricted to the local talent pool.

“At the same time, it will open up even greater possibilities for employees who, before the hybrid working boom, would have needed to commute long distances or move to the city to perform their role in a central office,” adds IWG. This would allow businesses to hire from more remote locations “than would previously have been possible”, it says. In the hybrid world, employees can simply check in via Zoom from a co-working site.

This is also a way of injecting diversity into organisations, adds the report. “Current and future employees can come from and live in completely different situations every day. By not restricting the location of work to expensive cities, you open up to people from less privileged backgrounds,” comments Tamas Varkonyi, people and operations manager at equity management platform Ledgy.

The practice of teleworking then brings on two effects. First, the flexibility grants workers the choice to move out of cities to more rural and coastal areas where they can enjoy a better work-life balance, which will then give way to a hub-and-spoke model. This happens when companies run out of more than one main location, with minor office hubs located in more remote locations.

“Having a network of suburban flexspace hubs that act as convenient ‘satellites’ around a city-centre HQ can allow companies to adopt the hub-and-spoke model, whereby employees have access to workspace closer to where they live,” says IWG.

Second, this will change the role of physical offices. Where work can now be accomplished remotely, the function of offices is set to change from one that goes beyond a place where work is carried out. To that end,  IWG expects cubicle office layouts to be a design of the past, and workspace providers to instead be delivering workspaces that are designed as social hubs.

This will include features such as video-conferencing suites, recording studios, hotdesking sections that can be booked over an app, and al fresco spaces for team gatherings. The design could also extend to wellness spaces, expansive communal tables and residential-style lounges, IWG notes. “Although hybrid workers will only be going into an office or co-working space part-time, they will have a highly motivating experience when they do,” says IWG.

As workers will not be going to the office as frequently as before, firms will be able to save on office rents. This overhead expenditure is considered one of an organisation’s biggest costs, and the most expensive rents in premium office markets worldwide in cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, New York and London could fetch up to US$313 ($422) psf in 2020, according to real estate consultancy JLL.

“When it comes to expanding either domestically or internationally, providing employees with access to satellite flexspace allows businesses to contract or expand directly in line with how many employees they have, rather than taking out long, rigid office leases that can end up being cripplingly expensive,” notes IWG.

With so many changes surrounding the future workplace, businesses will have to adapt nimbly to changes and challenge outdated mindsets to attract and retain the best workers.