Employees see tech as a way to create better, seamless workplace experiences. And they’re ready to embrace new tech in their offices. They just don’t want to compromise their privacy for it.

This rings true according to 1,000+ employees surveyed for our 2022 Employee Insights on Hybrid Work Report. 

Findings from our survey shed light on how employees are beginning to define their idea of the workplace now that offices are coming back online. 

Employees understand that adopting new technologies is necessary to make hybrid work. From the conventional (like Zoom) to the borderline surreal (the metaverse), technology has made it possible to work from anywhere — yet stay connected. These same technologies (and more) can also help workplace leaders overcome the challenges of an era where the office is essentially optional.

But which technologies you choose matters. Privacy was ranked by employees as the number one feature of the smarter workplace. 

Nearly 60% of all respondents also said they’d feel uncomfortable in the workplace if employers used camera-based technology to monitor utilization. 

This poses a challenge for workplace leaders looking to make sense of the new workplace. With hybrid work comes this constant flow of confusion around when employees come to the office, how often, and for what reason. 

Technology that measures how people use your workplace can bring valuable clarity to your decision making. But the wrong technology can push employees away. 

It’s the challenge of every workplace leader in 2022 to find a non-intrusive way to measure how space is used. 

“Really, the question that every company should ask themselves is this — ‘What do I need this data for?’” asks Twilio Sr. Manager of Global Workplace Operations. “‘And does the identity of the individuals weigh into the data that will inform impactful change to what we do, how we do it, and why we do it?'”

Fortunately, technology does exist that provides objective data on how people use space – without compromising privacy. 

Below is a GIF of the Density San Francisco office during our product team’s full-day offsite last fall.

The above is one of the core features of Density — Heatmaps. Heatmaps unearth the story behind our space — how we vote with our feet and where we linger, collide, wander, and focus. 

And it’s all done without capturing any personal identifiable information. Simply put, Density sensors are not cameras. We use a millimeter-wave radar sensor because it can return accurate results without the capability of facial recognition or other analysis techniques that invade privacy. 

Technology like ours is making it possible for workplace leaders to create seamless employee experiences. 

This is exactly what employees want. Unfortunately, our research reveals that many companies aren’t responding to employees’ demands as quickly as they need to. 

According to your survey, only one-third of companies offer flexibility, while 59% of employees prioritize it. It’s up to employers to respond to how the future of work looks or risk losing their employees to companies that better meet their needs.

See what else employees see as the benefits and challenges of hybrid work in our 2022 Employee Insights on Hybrid Work Report.

Companies benefit when employees feel psychologically safe to come to work. Studies show productivity increases, morale is boosted, and turnover is reduced.

The differences between psychologically safe and unsafe workplaces are stark, and much of it hinges on the type and quality of managers, based on research conducted by the Predictive Index.

• A good manager makes their direct reports feel 96% more confident approaching them with challenging issues or problems, while a bad manager only inspires such forthrightness from their direct reports 43% of the time
• Good managers frustrate their direct reports only 10% of the time, compared to 80% for managers who don’t inspire psychological safety.

Such subtle sabotage from the top can lead to disaffected, unproductive, and marginalized team members — many of whom will actively plan to leave for greener pastures. 

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic aggravated these challenges. The rise of remote working, employment uncertainty, unclear promotion paths, tumbling revenue, and social justice movements around race and gender have all made it harder for employees to feel safe at work, learn new skills, and be maximally productive.

There has never been a greater need to restore balance to the workplace. Below are three ways to make your workplace feel psychologically safe for your employees.

Democratize

In an environment where many of the usual rules around office visibility and ‘presence’ no longer apply, leading by example is crucial to fostering an environment where employees feel safe to do their best work from wherever they choose.

Easier said than done, we realize. But tech can help (if your budget allows). High-fidelity webcams, HD monitors, mechanical keyboards, and ergonomic office chairs can demonstrate how your company believes that the home is an extension of the office.

“Our homes are now part of our workplaces.” — Devorah Rosner, Senior Manager of Global Workforce Operations at Twilio.

One company that does this well is PostHog, which has published a detailed company spending policy with equipment recommendations for all its employees.

Paying for coworking spaces can also help. Home isn’t the ideal setting for many people. They come to the office to focus.

But what about those who can’t come to the office or those who want an alternative option? A $200 monthly allowance for coworking space can go a long way toward helping people get their best work done away from noisy settings and persistent Wi-Fi issues.

You can improve FOMO (fear of missing out) with regular team check-ins. Ensure everyone joins (whether they’re working from home, a coworking space, or the office).

These sessions can (and at times should) be non-work-related, giving employees a chance to catch up with each other and share their current life events. Thirty-minute coffee chats every Friday evening can go a long way toward building camaraderie and reducing stress levels after grueling workweeks. Paying for meals through services like UberEats helps democratize the experience for your office and remote employees.

Language

No matter how well-intentioned you are, it’s highly likely you still use gendered language, like when referring to how much manpower a project will need, how many man-hours it’ll take, and who will man the company booth at the upcoming trade show.

These words may seem innocuous. But they can impact how women and non-binary individuals feel in the workplace.

Consider the following:

• 20% of non-binary employees believe they’ve lost a job because of their identity
• There tend to be fewer women in the workforce in geographical regions where people speak gendered languages

But how can you create more inclusive spaces through language?

One way is by revamping job descriptions across the board. The use of words like ‘ambitious,’ ‘leader,’ ‘challenging,’ and ‘aggressive’ could put off some highly qualified candidates.

Instead, use neutral words such as ‘understanding,’ ‘co-operative,’ ‘honest,’ and ‘dependable’ to improve the diversity of your talent pool.

Be consistent with proper pronouns. Female-identifying individuals might go by ‘she/her,’ for example. In contrast, male-identifying individuals might go by ‘he/him’ and non-binary individuals by ‘they/them.’

Your HR team can play a significant role by adding pronoun fields to internal forms and online job applications.

Lastly, be mindful of the language used in internal comms channels like email and Slack. Change greetings from ‘Hey guys’ to ‘Hello everyone’ to make space for people who identify differently. Announcements can also eschew ‘Ladies and gentlemen’ in favor of ‘Good evening, folks.’

As with most initiatives, these changes must start from the top, with C-suite leaders modeling the kind of inclusive behavior they’d like to see.

Physical space

Better structural planning can lead to more inclusive spaces. One example is renting out office space as an intermittent meeting place for employees.

These workspaces can have a mix of open spaces and closed rooms to enable both collaboration and deep work, including meeting rooms, work nooks, and individual offices.

Build gender-neutral bathrooms as well. Beyond just accommodating (and thereby reducing discrimination against) trans and non-binary individuals in the workplace, gender-neutral bathrooms have been proven to reduce wait times across the board and cut overhead costs (7). 

An increasing number of states and cities in the US and UK have either embraced gender-neutral bathrooms legislatively or are planning to enshrine laws for trans and non-binary people regarding bathrooms.

Adapt

An important part of any widespread change is the monitoring and evaluation of these changes. That way, you can identify what’s working and correct what’s not.

Data is at the core of this.

Quantitative data (from occupancy sensors, for example) can be incredibly powerful. But it’s equally important to augment this data with qualitative data, such as staff polling and surveys. Find out, firsthand, what employees prioritize when it comes to the workplace—and why. Then A-B test, iterate and adapt based on your findings.

Workplace design should always be a two-way conversation, and a dual approach to data collection ensures a continuously evolving workplace.

Contributed by PropTech marketer Viveka Krishnaswamy.

As hybrid work becomes the standard among modern companies, each element of your office will need to be re-evaluated to ensure that it provides concrete value to your employees.

The ability to connect with colleagues will be paramount. We’ve learned that people can get work done from home, but that this comes at the expense of innovation, connectedness, and collaboration. One workplace survey found that only 40% of leaders would call their companies highly innovative in 2020, compared with 56% in 2019.

That said, there are a number of other areas of optimization that will also need to be addressed. Here’s what you’ll need to optimize for with a hybrid team, and how you can redesign your office to meet the needs of a distributed workforce.

Connectivity between distributed teams

Having a distributed workforce can lead to information silos, poor communication, and other organizational issues.

Unless you take the proper steps to create a seamless, integrated experience between on-site and remote employees. A RingCentral survey found that 41% of distributed workers cited collaborative work as the most challenging part of working during the pandemic.

Thoughtful restructuring of key zones in your office, combined with some technological investments and integrations, can help ensure that work can get done without a hitch.

Meena Krenek, an interior design director at Perkins&Will, notes the emergence of “Zoom rooms,” or conference rooms optimized for video conferencing.

You can replicate the feeling of an in-person meeting and create an equitable experience for all participants — no matter where they choose to work.

These meeting spaces incorporate 360-degree webcams, high-quality microphones, multiple screens, and even voice-tracking technology to ensure that, in any given meeting, remote workers don’t feel disconnected from their on-site counterparts. By implementing video conferencing technology and designating “Zoom rooms” in your office, you can replicate the feeling of an in-person meeting and create an equitable experience for all participants — no matter where they choose to work.

Flexibility

COVID-19 has rendered organizational rigidity largely obsolete as businesses are pressured to shift to more flexible ways of operating. The pandemic has highlighted a universal need for agility, especially related to the evolving world of work. We’ve now come to accept that organizational priorities evolve, work styles shift, and office occupancy ebbs and flows, and that such changes need to be anticipated to the extent possible.

One way to maximize workplace flexibility is by installing modular furniture. When workers transitioned back to the office in the latter half of 2020, it became clear that many office elements were impractical, at least for the time being. For example, the communal lunch table became temporarily defunct, while the need for “socially distant” meeting spaces increased.

Modular furniture can help you adapt your workplace to meet your needs at a given time; it’s lightweight, multi-functional, and easy to disassemble, making space reconfiguration simple. Modular workstations, for example, are made up of movable panels that you can lower to create a larger meeting space or keep up for more privacy.

As Amy Loomis, Research Director for IDC, puts it: “The future office space will be purpose-built to enable reconfigurable work arrangements that balance collaboration and privacy, group engagement and personal safety… The point will be to create adaptive and adaptable workspaces that are designed to accommodate a future of work that we don’t recognize yet”.

Dig deeper: Hear how Twilio’s Devorah Rosner is using dynamic spaces to make Twilio’s workspaces more agile. Watch the webinar.

It’s important not only to prepare for potential future crises but also to empower employee flexibility. Within a hybrid model, employees should be able to work how they work best. For collaborative sessions, this may be in an open office setting; for more heads-down tasks, this could be at home or in a designated quiet zone.

Rich Benoit, Senior Consultant at furniture company Steelcase, explains: “Just because I come into the office two days a week, doesn’t mean I only need a touchdown space because I’m there “part-time.” I still need access to privacy, the ability to find my colleagues and to be able to work in my rhythm”.

When restructuring your office, avoid creating one-size-fits-all layouts. Clusters upon clusters of desks without any private space, for example, won’t serve your employees. Instead, opt for multi-functional zones that you can adapt to a wide range of purposes. Alternatively, you can go for an activity-based model, in which each zone of your office is suited to a specific need.

Employee well-being

The pandemic has significantly heightened standards for employee well-being.

In a survey conducted by Stratus Building Solutions, 93% of workers surveyed expressed that, even after being vaccinated, they would need to feel confident about proper workplace sanitization practices before returning to work.

Even after being vaccinated, 93% of workers need to feel confident about proper workplace sanitization practices before returning to work.

Because they’re able to curate their home office environments to meet their health and wellness needs, employees will expect their office space to be similarly well-maintained and optimized for health and safety.

When structuring your office to meet the needs and expectations of a hybrid workforce, prioritize making your office healthy. Keep windows open when possible for additional ventilation and, if your return-to-work budget allows, invest in commercial-grade air purification systems. Make sure to invest in frequent cleaning and disinfecting (especially for any shared or common spaces).

Returning employees will also be conscious of frequently touched surfaces. When redesigning your workspace, see where you can implement touchless technology to reduce the spread of bacteria. This could apply to entryways, sink taps, light switches, and thermostats.

Additionally, you may wish to include implementing “safe” desk pods with plexiglass barriers for workers who prefer to remain socially distant.

Outside of physical health-focused measures, consider how to make your space work for your employees mentally. As we quash the idea of the office being the only place where work gets done, the office should evolve into a resource for employees. This means creating an inclusive, engagement-focused work environment that draws employees in.

When redesigning your space to meet your hybrid team’s needs, ask employees what they require in order to do their best work. Your goal should be to make the office a welcoming, comfortable place that fosters productivity and satisfaction.

A good place to start is by considering what employees can get in the office that they can’t get by working from home. For example, if you’re based in a dense metropolis like New York City, your local employees may not have enough space at home for a dedicated, quiet office area. Having fully-equipped, private workstations in your NYC office can help on-site employees better zone into their work.

Survey your employees to learn what would make the space ideal for their in-office days and implement suggestions to the extent feasible.

Generally, a few ways to support mental health with office design are:

• Incorporating biophilic elements, which are proven to boost mood
• Accommodating diverse work modes and preferences — for example, providing height-adjustable desks that allow employees to sit or stand
• Creating lounge areas dedicated to relaxation and stress reduction
• Fostering relationships by designating communal zones for socialization during breaks

By considering what your organization needs from the office environment moving forward, you can create an optimal experience for both on-site and remote employees.

In recent years, an agile workplace has become even more beneficial, as COVID-19 has forced companies to evolve their thinking.

The agile working philosophy is that work is an activity, not a location or method.

It’s configuring people, technology, connectivity, innovation, time, and geography in the most effective way to complete a task. It’s removing the boundaries. Declaring how and where tasks are done is immaterial as long as tasks are completed. 

Output is prioritized over process, working hours, or locale. 

Agile working creates a team unhindered by geography, approach, or fixed processes. As a result, performance and productivity improve, employee and customer satisfaction soar, and your company becomes more attractive to top talent.

Agile working takes flexibility to a whole new level. While the location of workers defines remote working and hybrid teams, the agile way of working applies flexibility to everything.

That flexibility is the key to defining an agile workplace because there are no rules. Each organization reaches its own definition, but there are four areas that the agile approach makes flexible for employees:

• Time – the hours they work
• Location – the place of work
• Role – their contribution to the work
• Source – the tasks and teams they work with

It’s about crafting flexible workspaces to maximize productivity. Within the office, that means giving your team members the flexibility and freedom to work in the area that best suits the task at hand, rather than confining them to a set desk, specific room, or even a particular time of day.

An agile workplace creates a highly dynamic working environment.

It hinges on an office design that offers maximum flexibility and minimum constraints; how agile teams work depends entirely on the needs of the moment.

How agile teams work depends entirely on the needs of the moment.

Everything is connected through your people, processes, and technology to ensure the maximum flow of information, ideas, and activities.

What is the difference between Agile Working and Flexible Working?

The terms agile and flexible working are often interchangeable, and in the end, each workplace defines its strategy to suit its needs. But to many:

• Flexible working focuses on the when and where people work.
• Agile working incorporates the when and where, but also factors in the ‘how’.

That may mean time and place but can easily mean space, activity, people, technology, or approach. While flexible working gives your team the chance to change their hours or the location of their desk, agile working means never having to use a desk.

Not if you don’t want to.

Assigned seating is replaced with hot desking. Team meetings can take place on a collection of bean bags instead of around a conference room table.

What are the benefits of agile working?

The agile methodology takes the lessons learned from remote and hybrid working and fully realizes the potential of flexibility to empower employees.

Workers are keen to see companies prioritizing their health, individual choice, and wellbeing. With mental and physical health a core concern of agile workspaces, now is the perfect time to create more agility within your organization.

Increase workplace utilization

Under-utilized real estate is a significant drain on resources. Switching to an agile working model allows you to create more cost-effective workspaces by freeing up space otherwise dedicated for workstations (that may not be needed as much in the hybrid era).

Quality talent attraction and retention

Major brands like Google have created stellar agile workspaces that have earned them a reputation as quality employers, prompting top talent to apply eagerly. In addition, they create stimulating working environments that attract the best and ensure their talent retention rates are high.

The result is a highly-skilled, high-performing team of loyal, motivated individuals who stay with the company long-term.

Boost productivity and efficiency

Motivation is hard to come by and easily undermined. A liberated workplace that allows freedom of choice and creativity will energize your team, empowering them, boosting morale, and enhancing productivity.

Sparking innovation

The agile approach revolves around crafting your workplace environment to the needs of your employees and creating a layout that facilitates different ways of working and thinking. This boosts employee engagement and innovation by putting people in different situations and combinations.

In an agile working environment, workers who wouldn’t usually interact are suddenly in the same space. Teams who don’t generally collaborate suddenly converge. 

Sometimes, giving people physically different working practices is enough to change their thinking and spark new initiatives. 

Examples of agile work environments

The agile office is designed with purpose and tailored to the needs of the modern workforce. They’re created to be adaptable, to accommodate flex-time and hybrid teams. They feature moveable furniture that can be reconfigured on a whim. They incorporate the best and latest technology to facilitate collaboration and connectivity. And above all else, they prioritize the well-being and empowerment of your team.

Crafting a space that enables the free flow of people, tasks, and physical setup may sound like a challenge, but it’s easier with a few critical components than you might think. For example, an agile office will likely include:

• An open-plan layout
• Meeting areas with flexible configurations
• Furniture designed for comfort and flow. Think low-level furniture
• Informal meeting areas (i.e., clusters of bean bags or a snack bar surrounded by stools)
• Standing desks and treadmills or cycling ‘fit desks’
• Breakout areas comprised of comfy chairs or sofas

The agile office shouldn’t be confused with hot-desking. While hot desking can be a part of your agile working environment, it’s far more than a single, functional area that anyone can use. Instead, look at creating multiple areas with different functions and feels.

Workers should feel free to flow from one to another throughout the day, as needed. They may need time to brainstorm with team members, followed by focused time alone, followed by the chance for some exercise while they work. These short sprints in different office areas allow everyone to rapidly adapt to the changing needs of their bodies, tasks, mood, and the day.

Agile workplaces require agile thinking

Transforming your business into an agile working environment is a great way to empower your workforce, improve your productivity and process, elevate your brand, and increase your bottom line. Just remember, attitude is everything when it comes to agility. It’s about rapid adaptability, which doesn’t just apply to your employees.

To cultivate a genuinely agile workplace, company leaders need to adapt swiftly to the changing needs of their teams.

By caring for and accommodating their evolving views and desires of your people, you keep your business healthy and happy.

What works now may not in six months. Iteration is key.

When you’re agile, change is no longer a thing to fear but simply how you play the game.