The future of the office is bright… and blended

With so much upheaval to office life and working practices over the past year, one thing has been a constant - the need to remain flexible. 

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, both firms and their staff had no time to think as they hurriedly transitioned to working from home and social distancing within the office. What has become clear is that this massive home working experiment has worked much better than many companies initially expected.

As an end to the pandemic is now hopefully in sight, firms now have more time to reflect and consider planning the future of their office, and how to create the right blend in order to make onsite and remote locations work seamlessly in tandem.

What is now the role of the office? 

Many companies are planning to retain elements of working from home in the future and, as a consequence, the role of the office is changing. Rather than just utilising a singular site for business, working has now gone plural, consisting of a mix of office attendance and remote working.

Accompanying this change, the office now needs to adapt and become more flexible. It has to move from the concept of a site where each employee has their own desk, to become a space where people meet and gather to exchange ideas, launch projects and collaborate in both formal and informal ways. By doing so, firms will be able to increase the happiness and productivity of their teams, and at the same time make the most effective use of the office floorspace that they rent.

For those businesses who are already advanced in their thinking, there are a number of simple and cost-effective solutions to create a blended office approach, which we outlined in our earlier blog 5 Ways to bring back the buzz to your COVID-secure office.

But for many firms, how to take this next step may not be so clear; they need help formulating their plans and the team at Cityspace is currently working with clients to do this.

How Cityspace can help

Creating your new blended office does not begin with moving walls and designing floor plans. It starts with an approach and plan that is tailor made for your organisation to ensure the best outcomes. 

Here is how the Cityspace space team can help:

• Creating evidence based standards for workplace organisational fitness - our workplace and change management expert, Dr Linda Seward, will gladly talk you through our approach, ideas and outcomes based on experiences with other clients.

• Understanding your staff’s issues and concerns - we can show you how your teams really feel by conducting staff surveys, in conjunction with our specialist research partner, Baker Stuart, one of only 10 companies in the world who are accredited for the WELL building standard.  

• Meeting your duty of care as an employer - under the law, companies are responsible for the equipment their staff use, irrespective of where they are using it. We can help you meet your duty of care by conducting home working DSE assessments through our partner DSE Assessments Ltd, which are comprehensive in identifying risk and recommending actions for improvement.

• Bringing you the best homeworking packages suitable for full time work - through our sister company, Homespace, we have assessed and selected from across the entire market the best designs, functionality and value for money homeworking products. Please visit www.homespaceoffice.co.uk.

• Refocusing, reconfiguring or redesigning your existing office space - we believe one size does not fit all, so we work differently to others with a truly consultative approach to deliver the blended office that is right for you.

If you would like any help, advice or further information, please give us a call on 0207 638 4250 or email info@cityspacemanagement.co.uk.

5 ways to bring back the buzz to your COVID-secure office

As autumn begins, more and more businesses have successfully brought limited numbers of staff back into the office. For sure, this has been a major achievement by management teams to complete risk assessments and make their office spaces socially distanced and COVID-19 secure for both employees and staff.

But unfortunately, today as staff and those in charge of businesses look out over the new office environment, many of them will be struck by the feeling that it’s just not the same - the office space is now sparsely populated, with some areas like ghost towns and others sectioned off with tape that resemble crime scenes. COVID-19 has not, as some initially speculated, led to the death of the office but it has certainly been a buzzkill.

To combat this, the team at Cityspace is today sharing 5 simple and cost-effective ways to bring back the buzz into the office environment by moving towards a ‘blended office’ approach, in order to make the mix of onsite and remote locations work seamlessly in tandem with each other.

#1  Refocus your larger meeting rooms

Pre-COVID, the main focus of these spaces was to gather groups of people together in one place to meet and collaborate around a large table.

With social distancing requirements and a majority of staff still working from home, these spaces can be easily adapted to better rebalance smaller numbers of people now being present in the room with much larger numbers working remotely. 

To accommodate mixed location working, meeting rooms can be easily changed to facilitate both office attendees and their remote working colleagues. To do this, we have been helping clients by reviewing the existing screen size, the table's position and the camera angle, in order to bring whole teams together once more by providing the illusion of one single gathering. This can be accomplished regardless of the preferred technology platform being deployed.   

By doing so, the traditional board or conference room can now become a vital new part of the ‘blended office’ concept.

#2  Make sharing desks a better experience

For many people, having your own specific desk and a sense of personal real estate is an important aspect of office life. With offices now having to adopt desk sharing and an end of day clear desk policy for cleaning, this cultural sense of having your own space is now diminished.

A practical and cost-effective way to improve this is to make the experience of desk sharing better for staff. We at Cityspace have been helping clients do this by introducing easy to use software packages that staff can use to book their desired desk each day when required, and installing lockers with containers which staff can use to transport their belongings in order to set up their own personal deskspace on a daily basis.

#3  Bring office-based and remote teams together

With desk seating now arranged in a social-distanced zig-zag pattern, where for instance a bank of 8 desks has now become a space for 4 people, this has had a significant impact on peoples’ sense of being part of a team.

Yes, video conferencing software such as Zoom has been successful at bringing teams together for meetings, but many staff still miss the more informal across desk interaction that took place between teams throughout the day.  

To counter this, we have been installing screens on banks of desks that allow teams to run Zoom continuously during the day, connecting together those working in the office with colleagues at home. By doing so, companies can successfully leverage technology to bring back the more informal interaction, collaboration and conversations that traditionally take between teams working together. 

#4  Repurpose smaller meeting spaces

The close proximity of smaller meeting rooms has made these spaces impractical for social distancing. Even with reduced numbers occupying the room, many staff may be reticent in spending periods of time in such enclosed spaces.

Smaller meeting spaces can be refurnished for use as quiet rooms for concentrated tasks or simply adapted to provide rooms for collaborative working with remote colleagues. By adding in smart screens, software apps such as Zoom or Teams can be deployed with the simple addition of a £60 camera.

#5  Reconfigure social spaces

In recent years, the trend in office design has been to create informal zones within the office as breakout spaces for conversations, sharing ideas and social interaction. Currently, within the office many of these informal areas may not meet social distancing rules.

The changes here do not have to be dramatic - simply reducing seat numbers for social distancing and respacing furniture allows greater widths between furniture clusters enabling these spaces to be used once more.

At Cityspace, we believe that even under COVID-19 the office should still be a critical hub for collaboration and driving teams’ ideas, interactions and productivity. If you would like any help or advice on ways to bring back the buzz to your office, please give us a call on 0207 638 4250 or email info@cityspacemanagement.co.uk.

Could your office aircon be spreading COVID-19?

Simple measures you can take to reduce transmission

The past couple of weeks have seen a flurry of news stories regarding the risk of coronavirus transmission through air conditioning systems.

Firstly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a new scientific brief acknowledging “emerging evidence” of airborne transmission of COVID-19, reversing its earlier stance that the virus could not be spread through aerosols. This change followed an open letter signed by over 200 scientists asking the WHO to reconsider its earlier position.

This news was then followed by reports in the media recommending that places of work that have air conditioning units that recirculate air should also open windows to increase the fresh airflow and reduce the potential spread of the virus.

So what does this mean for office occupiers? Well, the good news is that no matter what type of air conditioning unit you have, there are some simple and practical measures you can take to mitigate the risks of airborne transmission and provide reassurance to both staff and visitors.

Fresh air or recirculated air?

Broadly, there are two types of aircon units commonly found in offices. The first type are those which recirculate the same air, passing it over cooling or heating coils and then pumping it back into the office space.

The second type are those that take in fresh air from the outside, heating or cooling as required, pumping it into the office and then expelling it outside again. Although recent media attention has focused on recirculating air conditioning systems, those which draw in air from the outside may also be recirculating stale air. This is because many landlords have installed heat exchangers on these units to make them more environmentally friendly, cutting down energy bills by mixing some old heated or cooled air with the new.

For both types of units, the risk of airborne transmission of COVID-19 can be mitigated through testing, cleaning and the replacement of existing filters with High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters.

Help with HEPA

At Cityspace, we have long experience with both office air conditioning units and filtration systems to create cleanroom environments. 

We can bring in our specialists and work with your landlord to conduct swab testing of aircon units for COVID-19, carry out thorough cleaning of ducts and vents, and install appropriate HEPA filters which are an efficient and cost-effective way to capture airborne coronaviruses. 

The virus that causes COVID-19 is approximately 125 nanometers wide - to put this in perspective, there are 1 million nanometers in a millimetre. The HEPA filters we are installing for clients have a particulate-size range smaller than that of the virus, making them very effective at capturing any airborne coronavirus that enters the air conditioning system.

There are many different types of HEPA filters available and, just like face masks, some are more effective than others. At Cityspace, we carefully match the filters to the flow rates of your air conditioning unit to ensure the filters do not restrict the cooling capacity and fresh air available.   

If you have any questions or need any advice on making your office COVID-19 secure, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Cityspace team by calling us on 0207 638 4250 or emailing info@cityspacemanagement.co.uk.

COVID-19 - How will your office adjust to the ‘new normal’?

5 practical changes you can implement now

As countries consider ways to ease their lockdown restrictions and gradually reopen their economies, businesses are now having to consider and plan exactly how a return to the office will work.

While the future impacts of the pandemic remain uncertain, one thing is clear - social distancing will remain a feature of society for the foreseeable future and office working practices will have to rapidly adjust to this new normal.

At Cityspace, we are working with clients and their human resources teams to put in place solutions that can be implemented quickly in order to create a productive and effective office environment, whilst protecting the safety of both staff and visitors. Based on this work, we have outlined below 5 practical changes that businesses can put in place to incorporate social distancing and hygiene practices into the office environment.

1. Rethinking how people move through the office

Keeping staff a safe distance apart requires a rethink of the routes that people take through the office - unfortunately, the shortest route may no longer be the safest. Adopting practices implemented by hospitals during the pandemic, we have been helping clients redesign office traffic flows to avoid group gatherings and congestion points.

This begins with the reception area where floor tiles can be replaced to demarcate safe distancing and sofas exchanged for single seating in two seat clusters. 

Looking at the floorplan, we have been creating one-way traffic flows through the office to make it easier for staff to keep their distance from workspaces and avoid areas of congestion. Markings on floor tiles and signage provide guidance enabling these measures to be quickly and easily adopted.

For high congestion points such as toilets or waiting areas for lifts, floor tiles or decals can be used to manage queuing that takes account of social distancing.

2. Reassigning workspaces

One of the biggest changes required for incorporating social distancing into the office environment will be around individual desks and workstations. In order to increase the space between workers, one of the quickest and easiest ways is to create an “every other” seat arrangement where staff are staggered diagonally rather than directly across from each other. Installation of clear shields between workstations is an additional solution and we have been recommending to clients a range of existing products which are suitable for this.

While using every other desk will naturally cut your headcount capacity in half or more, reassigning break out spaces and small meeting rooms can create supplementary workspaces, as these areas would have become dormant anyway as a result of the need to maintain physical distance.

3. Reconfiguring meeting rooms

Even though the rules of social interaction have changed, collaboration will remain an important aspect of office life even under new restrictions.

To enable this, we are helping clients to reconfigure larger meeting room spaces and, by changing seating plans and specifying access and exit routes, meetings can still take place while keeping 6 feet of space between participants.

 4. Reducing the spread of COVID-19 on surfaces 

To minimise any cross-infection of coronavirus from office surfaces, we are advising clients on processes and regimes to increase office cleanliness.

Measures include reviewing (where possible under fire or security regulations) the opportunity to take doors off hinges or prop them open so employees and visitors can avoid touching door handles in high traffic areas. Hand sanitizers can be introduced across the office and, in toilet areas, hand dryers should be replaced by disposable paper towels to reduce transmission of the virus.

Cleaning regimes should be frequent and visible during the day, rather than just the traditional night service, to help employees feel more comfortable about the cleanliness of their office environment.

Hot desking, where desks are typically claimed on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis should also be reconsidered in favour of assigned desks to individuals, in order to reduce transmission of the virus caused by sharing workspaces.

5. Maintaining working from home 

One realisation by companies as a result of the lockdown is that in many instances, working from home does work.

As companies transition back into their offices, there is therefore the opportunity to remain multi-site, opening the main office for a reduced number of employees under a social distancing regime, and keep other workers working from home and connected to the mother ship through technology.

As we help clients develop their return to office plans and reassign and reconfigure the office environment, it creates a clear sense of the numbers who will be able to work productively, effectively and safely from within the office, and those who will work from home either on a more permanent or rotational basis.

For many of us, adjusting to the ‘new normal’ of living and working in the time of coronavirus is certainly anything but business as usual. If you would like any help and assistance in adapting your office to this new environment, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Cityspace team at info@cityspacemanagement.co.uk or telephone us on 0207 638 4250.

Do open plan offices really encourage collaboration?

For decades the trend among workplaces has been to move employees out of individual offices and cubicles and into open plan spaces. A significant driver behind this has been ever-increasing rents which have put pressure on companies to make the most effective use of every square metre of floor space. 

Another key reason for tearing down walls and removing partitions is to physically bring individuals and teams together in order to foster greater collaboration. The idea was that with easier access to their colleagues, office workers would potentially interact more and thus become more efficient.

But have open plan offices really been successful at encouraging collaboration? According to a study by Harvard University School in 2018 which tracked face-to-face and digital interactions at the headquarters of two Fortune 500 firms, both before and after the companies transitioned to open plan, this was found not to be the case.

The researchers discovered that workers’ reaction to the new open plan environment led them to begin ignoring each other, with face-to-face interactions dropping by roughly 70% and internal electronic interactions increasing to compensate. So rather than prompt vibrant, face-to-face collaboration, this study found that open plan appeared to encourage a human response to socially withdraw from officemates and instead interact on email and instant messaging.

But what’s the real cause of these findings? Irrespective of the study methodology, was it a problem inherent in open plan, or the design of these particular offices, or was open plan just a bad fit for the culture of these companies?

At Cityspace, we design and build offices for a wide range of companies, big and small, in different sectors, with different cultures. One thing we always stress to clients at the outset is that an office is not just a physical structure, but a community, a place where people gather and work together. Offices are all about people.

So, to make an open plan office work for people, it must be designed and built in a way that not only encourages collaboration and communication, but also makes sure you are using your workspace in the most productive and cost-effective way.

Making open plan work for you

The first step in making sure that open plan will work for your company is to consider the nature of your business, the way your people work, your culture and your brand. It’s important to evaluate how you’re using your existing office space and understand what’s working and what’s not, and whether you have the right configuration of workspace areas, formal and informal meeting spaces, and quiet zones. Getting the right mix of these spaces is key to bringing people together.

Having clearly defined your occupational brief, the next step is to consider designs which deliver this brief, either for your existing office space or for new premises you may be considering. 

We recommend to clients at this early stage that we evaluate several different ways to occupy a space, producing test fit space plans to illustrate these ideas. This process allows your board or steering group to consider the many different designs and layouts possible. Through this consultative approach, your management team can then select the best occupational route which fits your culture and delivers the highest  level of employee efficiency, motivation and retention.

Moving office is the perfect time to consider how you can modernise your workspace to bring people together and enhance work activity, and create an environment that not only enables individuals to focus on their tasks, but also encourages face-to-face collaboration and the sharing of ideas.

Open plan does work, but you must create the right expression of open plan that suits your business. To find out more about how Cityspace can help you develop a productive, collaborative and cost effective workspace, please contact our team at info@cityspacemanagement.co.uk.