The problem home offices cannot solve

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for organisations to rethink their office space. As individuals, we scrambled to face a spectrum of conditions in our work and workplace in a short time, and companies across the globe have been mobilised to respond to these conditions.

This collective effort has resulted in establishing ‘the new normal’, leaving a big mark on the corporate real estate industry. However, despite the creative problem statements and inspiring initiatives, the circulation of thoughts around ‘the new normal’ has not been able to effectively theorise the dependency of work on the workplace.

An overemphasis on acknowledging the needs of work from home (WFH) and work from anywhere (WFA) has led to the creation of a divide between how homes and offices are defined. We have also accelerated the adoption of technology, which has enabled less dependency on the physical workplace. A common conclusion: office space is not a necessity.

This presumption has helped many companies and individuals start correcting some of their past mistakes of establishing rigid and inefficient work arrangements. However, sufficient serviceable insights for future planning remain wanting. The truth is: the home will not be a replacement for the workplace. The office will not go away.

I’d like to see both homes and offices as inter-relating components of one ecosystem that share more than divide. One crucial step is to liberate our thoughts from strictly defining ‘home’ versus ‘office’; instead, the focus should be on how they can both grow in harmony to support the transformation of an all-encompassing work environment.

The new normal is less about where work is done, as it is about how. And the journey of transformation is set up through a fresh fitout and a new workplace culture that realises the true opportunities for flexible working.