Page 174 - WHERE WE WORK - Schlegelmilch

General discussion
In addition, I have also witnessed a shift in perspective: from the office as the default workplace towards working at home as the default workplace. Therefore, I urge organizations to purposefully rethink why you want your company to embrace a certain way of working. That being said, to make any way of working a success, it is important to make a number of decisions: necessary infrastructure (physical and digital) and supportive regulations.
Second, infrastructure refers to the technological and physical aspect of a workplace. For example, a setup with broadband internet, a screen and a laptop at home, or a noise cancelling headphone to shut out outside sounds. Also, the features offered by a software can make a significant difference: sharing screens, chatting, break out rooms during virtual meetings are just some examples. Related to this point is also the consideration about the skills that your employees need to be able to work remotely, such as pitching an idea remotely. If you have not already done so, I suggest asking your employees and collect learnings from COVID period: What worked, what did not work? How can we address the shortcomings to make remote work work in the long run?
Third, it is important to adjust your regulations to match how you set up your way of working. Exemplary question to think about are: How can we enable our employees to work anywhere (if they want to)? Do we pay our employees to have enough square meters to have and equip a home office? What about childcare for parents who work from home? Some of these regulations are meant to create equal environments for workers outside of an office to achieve productivity and satisfaction. The point here is that the office provides people, generally speaking, with an equal environment to work in but when the home becomes the workplaces, this can create inequality and potentially form hindrances to productivity. For example, a graduate living in Amsterdam is likely to have house mates and have a limited amount of square footage in the house given the prices. Similarly, parents who work from home will need childcare. Thus, there is little use to simply use more of less of the office, thereby also deciding whether to allow remote work. Rather, make conscious choices about which rules and regulations match your way of working.
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