Uses of Time

>> The Harvard Business Review article highlights the need to rethink how office spaces are used after the pandemic and the emerging new ways of working

One of the latest articles published by the Harvard Business Review and co-authored by Anne-Laure Fayard, John Weeks and Mahwesh Khan, focuses on the new hybrid ways of working and the impact it has had on workplaces .

According to the authors, since the Covid-19 pandemic it has been shown that many of the jobs that until then we did face-to-face can be done from home. This fact has meant a change in the paradigm of work models, noticeably increasing hybrid work models: working some days from home and some days from the office. In fact, there are a considerable number of companies that have full-time telecommuting employees.

Despite this trend, the authors believe that companies should not abandon offices as a space for social exchange and team building. This is the key idea they defend: that offices become a space for social interaction and community work, emphasizing the importance of “human moments” with female colleagues.

Three key characteristics are proposed that the “offices of the future” must incorporate:

1. Designed for social interactions to take place
2. Adapted to current technologies
3. Managed to promote connections with working people

In this way it is understood that, although there is part of our work that can be done individually and, therefore, from home or another space other than the office, it is advisable to find spaces for build bonds and have interactions with the people on your team.

From the NUST Network we defend changes around hybrid work models that adapt to the needs of working people, but also understanding the importance of social interactions.

“Redesign, technology and management practices can be used to make the offices of the future more effective as social, learning and innovation spaces.”