February 2022: What’s Next for the Workplace

By Eileen Kenna

In pre-pandemic days, many of us had no choice regarding the cubicle or office we inhabited eight hours a day, five days a week. We’d go in, place a few family photos and that favorite coffee mug on the desk and get to work, often after a long, aggravating commute.

But if our program last week - “Now What For the Workplace?” - is any indication, those days of assigned, cramped work spaces and rigid schedules may be gone for good, at least for a majority of white-collar workers.

Instead, it’s more likely that conversation and collaboration between bosses and workers will lead to workplaces that will look different and accommodate employees with fluid, hybrid schedules.

Cisco, the international business software company, began looking to the future of work one month into the pandemic, according to Ray Milora, head of workplace experience at Cisco. Milora, demonstrating the changing nature of work, does much of his from the comfort of his home in Media.

“We’ve really been keeping that conversation alive,” Milora said during a Sunday Breakfast Club Zoom forum that attracted an audience of 52 people.

Opinions on the future of workplaces are pretty consistent worldwide.

 “Eighty percent globally are thinking [they want] two or less days a week in the office,” Milora said. “Most actually are saying one day a week but they want to come in for connected experiences … But if that just means going in and flipping open a laptop to stare at a screen, that’s not a compelling reason.”
   
The four panelists all agreed that “singular work” - writing reports or working on spreadsheets, for example - can be done from anywhere. The challenge as we move (hopefully) out of the pandemic is what to do about the other components of work, including making accommodations for valuable “human connection,” as Milora said.

Debra Breslow, a principal with Meyer Design Inc., said she’s been heartened in recent months by how employers, large and small, actually are listening to their employees. But it’s not always an easy conversation.

“It’s not one size fits all,” she said. Among the challenges: supporting those who have no choice but to come in, such as IT and plant maintenance workers, or others who don’t need to come in but prefer to do so because their home setting is not conducive and maybe even not “safe” for work.

Breslow mentioned a large organization whose CEO, when the pandemic first hit, was adamant that people still had to come into the office. Over time it became clear that employees were leaving that company to go to organizations that “supported a hybrid situation.”  The CEO had to adjust.

“It’s a really unique time that touches on the power of employees having more of a voice because we’re in a situation where I can leave and get a job somewhere else,” Breslow said.

She said she advises top management that it’s crucial they take the time for conversations with employees on the future of their workplace in order to make sound decisions as to how that workplace will look and operate.

“And to ask, what do we want our culture to be?” Breslow said.  “The key is to engage employees; it’s almost like a Trivial Pursuit game, with multiple categories. It’s all aspects - gauging your HR, your technology facilities people and management people in the conversation.”

So what does the newer office space actually look like?

All panelists noted there’s more attention paid to “collaborative spaces” as opposed to the now outdated “cube farm.” Other components might be new, such as gender neutral rest rooms or private spaces for nursing mothers or quiet contemplation rooms for meditation or prayer.

“We’re also seeing a lot more money spent on acoustics, optimum technology and furniture solutions that make sense when … a cube farm goes away,” Breslow said.

All the speakers noted that some office workers - such as IT workers and scientists doing bench research - almost always need to be on site and each business needs to factor in those complexities as well. There also have been unanticipated light bulb moments in the past two years, especially for smaller non-profits, for example.

“The smaller non-profits realized they now can reach people on a national level through their round tables and can then improve their financials,” Breslow said.

State Sen. Nikil Saval, another panelist, cares about this issue for many reasons, not the least of which is that his district includes Center City Philadelphia and part of South Philly. And he’s a journalist who covered work culture for the New Yorker magazine and wrote a book, “Cubed: A Secret History the Workplace” that was first published in 2013. Things actually change rather quickly in the story of the workplace, Saval said.

Beginning in the 1970s and into the 2000s, the question was whether the trend toward telecommuting meant the end of the office as we know it and the end of lively city centers due to the loss of office workers going to lunches and happy hours.  But by 2015, when he looked again, many downtowns were thriving.
 
“And now, I don’t know anymore,” he said. “It’s very odd the ways things can be proven true and not true and then true again.

Saval, like many others, does worry about the future of Center City, especially first-floor retail establishments like restaurants that have struggled mightily in the pandemic.

“I’m very concerned,” Saval said. “My parents owned a pizza restaurant when I was growing up so I feel passionate about that… Much [of the urban retail sector] is centered on a certain model of work and that model is not intact.”

He added that, overall, we should support the creation of a “democratic workplace” where workers’ opinions mater.

“Talk about ways for people to express their views, especially on health and the trauma of the last two years,” he said.

Panel moderator Chris Satullo referenced a recent 60 Minutes piece which noted that “the pandemic is re-writing the labor management contract and for the first time, the workers hold the pen.”

Panelist Malcolm Ingram, a labor attorney for Greenberg Traurig LLP, said he wouldn’t go that far but he’s feeling pretty optimistic that a new balance will be set.

“It really depends on the industry,” he said. “Employers are going to want to engage in conversations with their employees.”

He added that, in the legal industry, attorneys unhappy with their job expectations are “jumping” to other firms they feel better match their preferred lifestyle.

He advises employers to take a “deep dive” into their workers’ job descriptions before requiring them to change the way they work or to require them, for example, to get vaccines.  If the justification for those requirements is not embedded in job descriptions, he said, employers weaken their hand.

Echoing the others on the panel and in the chat, Ingram said the answer to the question “Now What for the Workplace?” is going to be multi-faceted and, yes, complicated.

“Speak to your employees and be courageous,” Ingram advised. “Things will work out.”