Understanding the Future Workplace

Abstract

During the worldwide pandemic between 2020 and 2022, lockdowns were instigated. Working from home became the norm for almost two years. This has caused the needs and preferences of employees and employers regarding work and the workplace to change for good.

As a result, the common preference for implementing more remote work in the post-pandemic era grew. This combination of remote work and in-office work is named a hybrid strategy. Many services and public sector managers plan to create a hybrid workplace to support these preferences. However, the research toward this post-pandemic office is in its starting blocks. Furthermore, creating a workplace is complex, and no one-size-fits-all solution exists. Managers must find a future workplace that aligns with their organisational beliefs, values, strategy, and assets. How these characteristics are used to transition toward a hybrid workplace remains unclear.

This research aims to understand how organisational characteristics are used to transition to a hybrid workplace. This knowledge can serve as a map for managers planning to initiate a similar transition and as a backbone for further research towards future workplaces.

A literature study first identifies the organisational characteristics by introducing a corporate real estate asset management model. Then, case studies are performed on implemented hybrid workplaces to collect data on how characteristics are used in a transition. Cases are collected from the client pool of the graduation organisation Dev_ real estate, a real estate advisor with experience with hybrid workplaces. Three cases are selected based on various selection criteria. The workplace can be seen as a complex issue. Therefore, a qualitative approach is used to analyse the various perspectives and data sources in-depth. Data is collected from semistructured interviews, exploring the views and experiences of the participants open-endedly. The
participants are the architect, the project manager, the organisational manager, and the employee. Other sources are internal reports and floor plans. The data is collected, reduced, and coded based on the model introduced in the literature. A within-case and cross-case analysis are performed to identify the similarities and differences between the cases and literature.

The analysis identifies a common sequencing of organisation characteristics used in all cases. The research also concludes that the neglect or ignorance of certain characteristics causes the hybrid workplace to remain unaligned with organisational values after completion. Furthermore, the management model used during this research is critically and improved for future post-Covid research.