What do today's managers think about tomorrow's office?

From our Evolve stand, we took the opportunity to investigate what these forward-looking leaders think about tomorrow's workplace and office.

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Want to read more about OBF and their work? Read Evolve's own Aziz Chaer's thoughts on company and their goals.

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The hybrid working life is here to stay

Flexibility and hybrid working days were the keywords that echoed among the conference's participants. We were inspired and gathered together some relevant research that underpins these trends.

We at the Norwegian Patent Office believe that the hybrid working life is here to stay. In our new offices, we plan for a flexible way of working. - Elisabeth M. Fosse

The trend for a hybrid and flexible working day is spreading like wildfire. We can also find examples of this in Norwegian business. In early 2020, it became clear that Telenor chose to sell its head office in Fornebu. From being the owner of 140,800 m2 with an office to becoming tenants in the same place. This coincided with the entry of the home office, which was a success for the company's employees. In the post-pandemic restrictions, Telenor has chosen to move from cell and open office landscapes to focus on flexible and social zones. 

The thought is that the concentration work can be selected to be carried out in the home office, while the social meeting between colleagues is what should take place in the office.

More home offices also reduce travel, which leads to reduced time consumption and creates a better balance between work and leisure in a more flexible working day. - Anders Krokan to Nettavisen

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Humane management in a hybrid working life

A new type of everyday working life naturally brings with it various challenges. But the hybrid working day is here to stay, and the new everyday life is already here. Nevertheless, many questions remain - how should companies reorganize their everyday lives, what challenges does this poses for managers, and what is needed to make it a success - for both company and employees?

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From the stage during OBF 2022, the question is asked about how to be a high-performing leader in hybrid working life. CEO of Assessit, Kaja Eidet Eikeland, works with management recruitment and organizational and management development throughout Norway. She highlights as particularly inspiring that so many of the speakers at OBF spoke about the importance of leading companies with love and humanity.

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A hybrid working day changes work in time and place. People have gone from working in the same place and at the same time to working in different places at different times. Before the pandemic, few companies offered flexibility around these points, work happened in the office from 9-16. Those who before the pandemic offered some flexibility tended to do so primarily with just one factor. Very few of them offered flexibility around both working hours and location - the model we know today as the hybrid working life: work where and when you want.

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As a result of the pandemic, more and more managers have looked with new eyes at the flexible working life as a way of increasing the company's productivity.

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This is how you succeed with a hybrid working life

To answer the big question about how to succeed in the transition to a hybrid working day, we were inspired by the expertise house ey.com's long articles "How to be a high-performing leader in a hybrid workplace" and "How to Do Hybrid Right” from Harvard Business Review, the business economics journal of Harvard University.

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Very briefly summarized, the research in these two articles concludes that managers must learn to understand how to adapt hybrid everyday lives, act with justice, lead with empathy, facilitate informal social learning, build networks and use hybrid communication effectively.

As a manager, you can do this for your company to succeed in the transition to a hybrid working day:

1. Identify key work and tasks. Define what are the decisive factors driving productivity and results and which support them best. Engage and interview employees in the process, combine user surveys and create personas to be able to make inclusive decisions.

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2. Lead hybrid teams with empathy and concern for employees' individual, and personal preferences, not just the organization's.

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3. Act with flexibility, inclusion, and a sense of justice that does not favor the more "visible" employees over absentees. Research shows that a sense of injustice can damage productivity, increase the chances of burnout and reduce collegial collaboration.

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4. Integrate learning into the workflow by talking to employees about what their goals are, and help them achieve this through participatory role design. Train middle managers in managing hybrid teams and invest in tools that coordinate company goals and schedules.

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5. Share access to resources and ensure that learning, social and communication networks are built with a hybrid model in mind. So that neither teams, individuals nor new hires are left behind from the rest of the organization.

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Thinking offices will be smaller

Inger Bucher from our Finnish furniture supplier Martela believes that the office of the future will be smaller and that people will seek more flexibility in everyday office life. This is also an important reason for their own office furniture rental, WASP (workspace as a service) where office owners can rent the furniture that suits the immediate situation.

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Are you interested in flexible offices?

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We are experiencing significant demand for our flexible office solutions and are now opening several new offices in Oslo. See our offices in Løren, where we are now also expanding with several floors in the environmentally certified signal building, Parallell in Løren.

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And! If you didn't make it to the Oslo Business Forum's conference this year, they have released tickets for next year's event already, which you can secure now!

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We investigate what the forward-looking leaders attending OBF 2022 think about tomorrow's workplace and office.

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