How your hybrid working policy attracts new recruits

When not having a dedicated desk becomes an attractive proposition

Essential started promoting the benefits of desk sharing almost 15 years ago.  At this time the prospect of not having one’s own dedicated desk, complete with family photos and pot plant, was anathema to most people, even though the benefits to the business were clear.

Having experienced the many benefits of hybrid working (as it is now called), and, most likely having already lost their desk as part of social distancing measures, office workers are now more receptive to that fact that having an ‘exclusive relationship’ with a particular desk is a thing of the past.

Going into the office nowadays is less about sitting alone in silos (you can do that at home) and more about meeting up with team members.

For many organisations this has meant replacing banks of dedicated desks with imaginative new team spaces, video conferencing pods and collaboration zones.

Even if you are visiting the office to work alone, the prospect of having your usual ‘old desk’ may be more than compensated with the appeal of test-driving a fancy riser desk or bagging that desk that overlooks the best view.

Where roles allow it, the ability to work from home for at least portion of the week is now expected by job hunters.

“Having proved we were able to work very effectively remotely during the pandemic, we took the opportunity to re-think the way we work and have adopted a hybrid working strategy. We feel that the flexibility to work from home and visit the office as needed is what the modern workforce now expects as part of their employment terms. This strategy, together with our newly re-worked office facilities and workspace booking system, puts us in good stead to offer a very attractive hybrid working environment to both existing and prospective employees.”

According to Tilly McHugh, Operations Manager at Haysmacintyre LLP (who works with the Smartway2 solution supplied by Essential),

Easy yet equitable access is essential

The ability to throttle how many people can come in at once, make it easy for individuals and teams to access the workspaces and facilities they need, and making it easy to book a seat next to their co-workers, have become critical components of any workspace booking system.

“The companies we work with are also keen to bake in policies that give everyone a fair share of the available facilities.”

Jim Fussell, head of workspace management at Essential

Where organisations are stipulating that employees must come in for part of the week, a clear trend has been the desire to avoid Mondays and Fridays like the plague (bad analogy?), with most people visiting the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.  Continued Fussell,

“Whilst it would be true to say that many offices have enough capacity to accommodate this reality for now, it’s vital to keep your finger on the pulse of occupancy trends and be in a position to adapt.  Having tumbleweed blow around a virtually empty office at either end of the week is simply not sustainable in this day and age.”

Essential is helping facilities and HR managers implement policies that throttle the number of people that can come in on any given day, or that encourage large team meetings to take place on a Monday or Friday.  It’s also possible to stipulate anchor desks for those people that need to be in a specific area or be sited next to specific resources.”

In short, the ability to compete in the new hybrid working age, coupled with the cost savings and efficiencies enterprises can make by (just) provisioning the right kinds of workspaces is a good place to be in.