Dr. Kilian Wawoe shares his fews on working post Corona

1. Whitepaper
Collaboration and the
Office Post COVID-19
Dr. Kilian W. Wawoe,
VU University Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

2. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
Cooperation and
the office after COVID-19
If a herd of elephants dispersed because a virus made the members of the herd a danger to each other, what would happen?
Like other animals, humans have always worked together because it increased our chances of survival. Has the COVID-19
pandemic changed cooperation as we know it? Working remotely could save office and travel costs, and reduce the emission
of CO2. On the other hand, organizations will have to ensure that knowledge transfer takes place and that the ‘weak’ are
protected.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic completely turned office work upside down. The lockdown forced employees around
the world to work from home overnight, and to everyone's surprise, it turned out to be quite possible. With the invention of
the internet the office had already lost its monopoly on information at the turn of the century: knowledge workers no longer
had to come to the office to consult files there. Since the lockdown, another fundamental characteristic also disappeared from
the office: a place where you necessarily had to be to collaborate and meet with colleagues. Knowledge organizations proved
capable of functioning without employees meeting.
However, just because it is possible for all of us to work from home does not mean that it is desirable. Certain groups have suffered
greatly in terms of well-being and/or performance. Moreover, just because it was perfectly possible to work from home for over a year
does not mean that we should continue like this for years to come. Perhaps the lockdown was an exceptional situation and most
employees would prefer to return to the ‘old normal’. Perhaps during the COVID-19 crisis, while employees continued to operate
remotely, their performance declined. There is a lot of conversation around "hybrid working" in which we work partly in the office and
partly remotely, but who says this works?
For my research on the question of what the future holds for remote and office collaboration, I first conducted extensive literature
research. The results form the basis of the first part of this paper. Using interviews and questionnaire research, I asked employees in
different sectors how they experienced working during the lockdown and what they think the function of the office will be after
COVID-19. The survey was conducted among knowledge workers, that is, individuals who use their ‘mental’, analytical knowledge in
their work instead of individuals who engage in manual work . This is not the same as theoretically trained people, it also involves
executive functions such as administrative work.
The purpose of my research was to learn from people’s experiences of working remotely during the lockdown, and the new
forms of collaborative work that they developed. The results of my research can serve as a model for organizations looking for
answers to the question of how work will have to be organized after COVID-19 in general, and what the future of the office
will look like in particular.
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3. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
Working before COVID-19
Since the 1970s, much research has been conducted on what motivates people in the workplace. This has shown that
there are three core elements that motivate employees: growth, autonomy, and relatedness. All three can be traced
back to our origins as herd animals, who needed others to learn and survive.
Growth
Individuals are constantly learning new skills, and we must constantly adapt to changes in our environment. When a group is diverse
in age, experience and skills, group members can complement each other. The group around us helps us in the growth process,
through example behavior, feedback and coaching. Research has shown that "making progress" is the most important motivator at
work, while feeling like you are not making progress is among the most demotivating factors. Developing, evolving, and growing lies
at the core of our existence .
Autonomy
Autonomy refers to an individual’s desire to do as much as possible themselves. This stems from not wanting to be a burden for the others in a
group. A group is a safety net for the individual, not a hammock. Autonomy is essential to growth. Learning happens best when someone sets a
good example that you then work on yourself. Autonomy is therefore not independence, but rather being self-directed or self-reliant. Within a
group, the individual strives to do as much as possible themselves, but if necessary, should be able to fall back on the group.
Relatedness
Support from others appears to be a good predictor of whether we are satisfied with our work, and also provides a buffer against stress and
burnout. Other people are a source of work satisfaction. Even fleeting social interactions, such as chatting with the barista at Starbucks or the
cleaner at work, can give us a sense of belonging. Little contact with others, or worse, a lack of support, can be a source of stress. The best
predictor of happiness in life can be summed up with two words: other people!
Challenges before COVID-19
The scientific evidence found in the last 50 years for the importance of growth, autonomy and relatedness as core elements of
work is overwhelming. It is not a coincidence that exactly these things are taken away when society wants to punish someone.
A prison is a place where you barely learn anything (growth), where you don't decide what your day looks like (autonomy), and
where you barely feel supported or are able to connect with people you want to (relatedness).
What research also reveals is that organizations often fail to offer employees precisely those core elements of work.
Employees often complain about a lack of feedback (growth), too much or too little room to fill in the work as they see fit
(autonomy) and little contact with colleagues who are at the office, but always in meetings or on the phone (relatedness). As
such, it appears that the herd was already not functioning optimally before COVID-19.
Working during COVID-19
And then, in the spring of 2020, suddenly everyone was sitting at home, and work had to be organized completely differently. To use
the analogy of a herd of elephants once again, instead of being in a group of strong and weak, young and old, people were now isolated
member. It goes without saying that this life in isolation was not going to be equally successful for all members of the herd.
Growth
Analyzing communication data during the
lockdown of millions of people in North
America, Europe and the Middle East,
both the number of meetings and the
number of attendees per meeting were
found to increase. On the other hand, the
average length of meetings decreased.
From this, it could be inferred that going
online made us more direct or to-the-point
in our communication with each other in
large groups (see Figure 1 on the right).
Number of meetings
20
10
0
-10
-20
Lockdown
-30
-8 -4 0 4 8
Number of participants
20
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-8 -4 0 4 8
Weeks since the first lockdown
Average duration of meetings 20
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-8 -4 0 4 8
The impact of Covid-19 on meetings, in % difference after the start of the first lockdown
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4. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
These findings however, do not apply to creative processes. Learning takes place before and after a meeting, in bilateral
meetings, by listening in on conversations with others, etc. Learning new skills was therefore more difficult during the
lockdown than before. The employees that had still the most to learn, e.g. young and recently hired employees, were the ones
that suffered most.
Autonomy
In terms of autonomy during the workday, the lockdown was positive for those who had a pleasant home situation. But
working a lot at home was especially hard for the group that was not in that happy circumstance. The same is true of the
freedom some people were given in performing their work during the lockdown: autonomy is nice for those who have a good
command of their craft, but can be disastrous for those who do not. Again, new and young employees, are the ones that suffer
from too much autonomy.
Relatedness
As for contact with colleagues, many employees felt increasingly alone during the lockdown as a result of working remotely.
Research shows that employees started communicating more intensively with the people they already knew, but actually made
fewer new contacts during the lockdown (see image below). The feeling of loneliness was especially high among employees who did
not have such a large network before the lockdown, who are somewhat introverted and/or do not have a partner.
Microsoft's research on the power of ties between colleagues during lockdown
Strength
of
ties
between
colleagues
Analysis of 122 billion email interactions
and 2.3 billion meetings in Microsoft
Teams in different sectors across the
entire world.
Feb Mrt Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
2020 2021
Network near Network far away
Close ties within a Relationships with remote people
team with frequent contact and little interaction
Effects of lockdown on productivity
During COVID-19, travel time plummeted. Instead of getting into their cars, employees got straight to their desks. As a result, the working
day became longer. An analysis of the use of business internet traffic during the first COVID-19 wave showed that employees worked two to
three hours longer than before the lockdown. In addition, the line between work and home was blurred, leading to more overtime. While
working from home encouraged people to work more, it is difficult to determine how that translated to the quality of work delivered. Studies
have found that employees believe they are more productive at home, but it is also known that people have an overly positive self-image about
almost everything (30 percent of the population thinks they were immune to COVID-19 without sufficient evidence).
What can be properly analyzed, however, is what employees did during the lockdown. A large-scale study by Microsoft
shows that they were arguably more engaged in sending mail, meeting, chatting, and working on documents. 4

5. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
Thus, it could be that when working from home, employees spend more time on individual tasks. However, this might
not apply to tasks that require collaboration and for colleagues to create something together.
Effects of lockdown on well-being
There were two positive effects of working from home on well-being: the elimination of commuting and, for some, a better work-life
balance, especially for those who had busy lives outside of work. On the other hand, there were several negative consequences of
working from home, such as, anxiety, frustration, boredom, stress, and loneliness. In particular, the lack of contact with others
bothered many people, especially employees who spent 80 to 100 percent of their time at home. As such, working from home a little
could have positive effects, while working from home a lot might not. Moreover, working from home showed that different generations
communicate differently. While young employees prefer to chat, older employees prefer to call. When a senior employee says "feel free
to call me if you have a question," a younger co-worker hears "leave me alone”.
Also, working at home regularly can take a physical toll. People exercised less during the pandemic, where they should be exercising more to strengthen
their immune systems. The mistake many people made is that they compensated for a lot of sitting and inactivity with very active exercise. That's like
not brushing your teeth for a month, and thinking you can compensate for that with an hour of intense brushing.
Working from home during COVID-19 did not affect everyone's well-being equally. Men found working at home more enjoyable than
women. One likely reason is that, even when both sexes are at home, women take on most of the care of the children. Families with
children under twelve found the increase in household and care responsibilities to be a particularly significant drawback. Another
group that found working at home difficult were young people born after 1995. During the lockdown, they were three times as likely to
seek professional help due to stress, burnout or other mental health problems. They found it especially difficult that personal
communication was replaced by virtual contact.
Challenges during COVID-19
Has the effect of working from home a lot been positive or negative? The answer to this question depends on which yardstick you use. In
particular, individual tasks could be done well remotely. For instance, a call center worker often calls from home, and scientists could also do
some of their work well while sometimes not meeting for weeks or months. However, for "team performance," or working together on a
common task that requires regular coordination, working remotely is not positive.
In addition, the perception of remote working is person-dependent. Young employees in particular, with little specialist
knowledge and a small professional network, who live in small homes and do not have partners, found it difficult.
Experienced employees with a pleasant home working situation experienced remote working more often as positive.
This could help answer the question posed at the beginning. If a herd of elephants decided to work at home, the adult
elephants would have more time for themselves, and would also be more productive, because they would not have to wait for
the very young, slow, or very old animals. But while the older and stronger elephants enjoy their autonomy, the vulnerable
and especially the young elephants would suffer.
The most important lesson to be learned from compulsory working from home is that the vulnerable, in this case especially
younger employees, can suffer from working from home. Hundreds of interviews were conducted for this study, and the term
"vulnerable" met with much resistance from "nonvulnerable" individuals. Executives were overrepresented in the group that
derived benefits from mandatory home working. The challenge for collaboration in general and for the office of the future in
particular, is to design work in such a way that employees with different characteristics can come into their own. However, the
empathy of the group that had the benefits of working from home seems to be limited.
Working together after COVID-19
During the lockdown, many organizations began to conduct surveys about filling out work and setting up the office after COVID-19.
The question in these surveys was, ‘how many days a week would you like to work from home after COVID-19?’. Based on the
literature review that preceded this study and that is summarized above, I believe this question is wrong for three reasons.
•It's not about "you," it's about "we”. Knowledge work is a team sport. Every product that employees deliver comes
from some form of collaboration.
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6. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
• It's not about "how many days" we go to the office, it's about what we do there. Whether you go to the office for five days or three days, if
employees don't facilitate each other’s growth and relatedness, then there can be no good cooperation.
•It's not about "wanting", it's about what's right. Just because someone is comfortable with their work, that does not
mean that person is functioning well, let alone the group.
Therefore, the question I wanted to answer was, “what individual and collective activities need to be organized
remotely and in the office in order to achieve good collaboration among knowledge workers?”
Research Method
For this qualitative study, people were interviewed as well as administered questionnaires. Together with a colleague, I
conducted 376 interviews. During these interviews, individuals were asked what they thought the function of their office is. A
categorization was made based on their responses. The initial classification of office functions was then tested with about 70
people, asking if they recognized the categories created.
In addition, 7864 workers in the Netherlands, Belgium, the U.S., Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia completed a questionnaire in
which they wrote about, in up to 100 words, their experience (both positive and negative) with working from home, and how
they planned to continue working after the COVID-19 crisis.
The functions of office after COVID-19: the six Cs
My survey focused on the functions to be filled in the office before and after COVID-19. Below are the results of the answers given
by the respondents. Since all the functions begin with a C, I further refer to them as the six Cs.
Collective functions
1. Creativity, collaboration and coaching
Employees indicated that they like to interact professionally with each other to learn from each other. This is consistent
with the need for growth that I identified earlier in this paper. The responses showed that the dividing line between
coaching and working together is not always clear. Taking a moment to ask each other a question, to consult, to catch
something in an ongoing conversation, can be crucial in developing new ideas or in learning. Planned learning moments
also take place in the office in the form of bilateral meetings, coaching conversations, etc.
According to the respondents, these activities preferably take place in settings where several desks are located
together. It should be noted that in this case the noise produced by colleagues can be a source of irritation for some,
but also a source of knowledge for others. Although all respondents feel the need to 'sit together' on a regular basis,
this need varies from one individual to another.
2. Contact with colleagues without an agenda
As a rule, you collaborate with people you know. However, a process of getting to know them must have taken place. As noted earlier,
employees need to feel connected. Many people indicated that during the lockdown their circle of colleagues became smaller and
smaller. The young and/or new employees had a hard time in this regard because they did not yet have a circle. With a few exceptions,
everyone missed their existing contacts in the office. What certainly didn't work during COVID-19 was the 'Zoom drink', an online
gathering of people who talk informally with each other. This is because meeting each other, especially for people who are new to the
organization, is often a physical affair. Employees indicated that there should be more space in the office after COVID-19 for
maintaining and making contacts. They need events where they meet others (unexpectedly).
3. Coordination and communication
Employees during COVID-19 particularly missed those meetings in the office that required thinking together, or that had an
emotional charge. A meeting with a clear purpose and clear agreements can prevent dozens of emails and hundreds of direct
messages. This means that teams need to think about which communication medium works best for which messages. Also, teams
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7. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
must answer the question of whether hybrid meetings (where some people sit in one room and others dial in) are
desirable. The experiences with this are very mixed. As a rule, people who are not physically at the meeting feel left
out. Also, people's attention span online is much shorter than offline. It seems that meetings where information is
simply exchanged can take place more effectively online.
Individual functions
The next three C's are activities that an employee can perform without necessarily having to collaborate with colleagues.
4. Concentration
A knowledge worker needs to be able to work in isolation from time to time. During the lockdown we all worked at home and some employees
were much better able to concentrate at home than in the office. It was striking that employees who lived in a small room or apartment or who
for some other reason, could not create a pleasant workplace at home, did not associate working at home with better concentration. For some
employees, the office is a place where they can work in peace and quiet, while others would prefer to do so at home after COVID-19.
Isolating yourself has a direct connection to the three collective activities mentioned earlier. First, working in isolation does not mean
being left alone. An enemy of concentration at work (and at home) is not physical noise, but distraction. Phones and e-mails demand
attention, and people who send messages expect immediate responses. You can limit that flood of information by ensuring good
coordination and communication. Second, when someone isolates themselves while another person needs growth and relatedness,
conflict can arise.
5. Contact with outside visitors
An office has a representative function. This means that you meet clients, vendors, etc. The office is also a business card to potential
employees. The way the office is designed and decorated will give an image to the visitor. On the other hand, working during COVID-19 has
shown that part of the primary process can also take place online. Some lessons in education can be done through Microsoft Teams or Zoom,
some clients can be served remotely, etc.
6. Cardio
One insight people gained during the lockdown was that they were sitting way too much at home. They missed the movement on
their way to and from the office. They argued that more could and should be done after COVID-19 on exercise policy. For the
individual brain, exercise is positive because oxygen-rich blood is pumped to the brain with an increased heart-rate. That is why
this function is called 'cardio'. This involves moderate-intensity exercise, and therefore does not involve exhausting yourself.
Employers cannot force employees to change their lifestyle, but they can encourage them to at least adopt a healthy work-
style. For example, they can discourage employees from taking the elevator, organize mini exercise bikes for under the desk,
treadmills that employees can walk on while talking on the phone, etc. Additionally, they can support walking talks, built-in
mini breaks in schedules, and training and coaching on healthy lifestyles.
The office after COVID-19
The main finding of this study is that there is a tension between the need for relatedness and growth for some employees,
versus a need for autonomy for the others. Of course, it is preferable for groups with different preferences to come together
within an organization and listen to each other. But what if someone wants to work from home full-time, while the other
person is eager to learn and connect?
Based on the basic needs explained at the beginning of this paper, the answer is that collective functions take precedence over
individual functions. The popular term "hybrid working" cannot be an excuse for not fulfilling your training obligation. It is not
about home versus the office, but about doing the right things in the office. It is better to be in the office less often and take
care of each other, than to be in the office often and ignore each other. An employee may work in isolation, but it should not
come at the expense of that person's role in educating, coaching and connecting with others.
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8. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
This means that there must be times in the work week when employees are there for each other. 'Creativity, collaboration and
coaching' and 'contact with colleagues without an agenda' are activities that cannot take place online. For these, everyone should
come to the office. For all other activities, they can take place both online and in the office.
COLLECTIVE INDIVIDUAL
creativity contact coordination concentration external contact cardio
cooperate peers communication
coaching without agenda
Office
Remote
Implications for office collaboration after COVID-19
Cut costs and/or increase revenue
Based on the above, it can be concluded that it is not that less office space is needed, but that it needs to be arranged differently. Moreover,
an office space should go hand in hand with the right behavior in that space. Organizations must ensure that making professional contact
together (shown in red in the diagram) is properly fulfilled.
This debunks the myth that the office should be a meeting place after COVID-19. It is much more than that, namely
a place where you facilitate creativity, collaboration and coaching.
Can't we manage with much less square footage after COVID-19? That would make a big difference to our costs! For many companies,
cutting back on office costs is on the to-do list. Let's put those office costs into perspective.
In general, when determining office costs, the 1-10-100 rule applies: the costs of energy, housing and personnel are in this proportion.
Before COVID-19, the cost of a workplace per person was between 6,000 and 11,000 euros on an annual basis. An average employee
costs an employer between 60,000 and 110,000 euros on an annual basis. The idea that there is a lot of money to be made in reducing
the number of square meters may therefore be penny wise, pound foolish.
On the other hand, there is some evidence that a pleasant office can lead to increased productivity. If an office is unpleasant, employees become
less productive and more often sick. But the effect has a limit. A bad team does not become a top team by moving to a super office, any more than
a soccer team ever got much better by remodeling its training complex.
If organizations want to take a step forward after COVID-19, the greatest return is to ensure that teams work well together. A top
team exists by the grace of competent group members who continuously complement, challenge and reinforce each other. The office of
the future is therefore not only about space, but also about what happens in that space. A project about the future of work must
therefore be a collaboration between people who deal with space and people who think about the behavior that is desirable in that
space. The six Cs are a good yardstick for the latter.
If we travel less, employees may be tempted to have part of the travel budget paid out. In the case of young employees, for
whom extra income could make a big difference, they might be faced with a dilemma: choosing more relatedness or more
money. This kind of incentive should be avoided, that is, travel budgets should not be made flexible. This will prevent
employees from being pushed into making the wrong decisions.
In many organizations, a discussion arose about offering a budget for remote working. During the lockdown, employees had to
incur additional costs to work from home (toilet paper, tea, coffee, etc). Based on the findings in the underlying study, this is
not advisable. First, you can also save money by working from home (the coffee in the strain station is more expensive that the
coffee at home) not going to the office. Second, such a budget can be an incentive to work from home, and that signal should be
avoided.
A home office is of great importance to the employee and the employer. If an employee wants to work remotely, the facilities
must be as good as in the office. Good internet, a good computer, a chair and desk with the highest ergonomic standards are
mandatory. Employers must pay for these costs, not by offering a budget, but by reimbursing the actual costs or by leasing
the employee a home office.
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9. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
Working from home becomes working remotely
A home is a physical place where people live. A home is a feeling. It is a place where people feel safe, accepted and relaxed, among people for
whom they feel affection. Working from home is therefore an unfortunate term. Those who work should be primarily focused on work. 'Working
remotely' is therefore a better term. In addition, 'not working in an office' also does not necessarily mean that a person should work from home.
The other option is to work from a third place. This can be a remote office, a hotel, and so on.
Work also entails assuming a social role. Just as a doctor or a lawyer has a different image when he or she wears formal work
clothes, employees must do their utmost to assume their work role while at a distance. Choice of clothing is important in this
regard. It is better to wear clothes that you would also wear to the office. The same goes for the physical environment. If there
is the space for it, it is wise to create a "remote office" (not a home office) that could remind you that you are at work. And
working from bed? That should be avoided altogether!
Multitasking at home should be kept to a minimum. Washing up while working is possible to some extent, but caring
for other people, especially young children, should be discouraged. A 'work holiday', where employees work remotely,
can become a source of problems. Why is one person allowed to have a ‘work holiday’ and the other is not? What if
someone has booked a 'work holiday' to the beach and then unexpectedly is needed in the office anyway?).
Working permanently from abroad is generally not wise. With the knowledge gained during COVID-19, organizations might
be tempted to hire employees abroad. First of all, this could lead to potential legal and tax problems. Suppose you hire
someone in India on a Dutch or Belgian contract, where do you pay tax? Under which labor law does this person fall? This
even appears to apply to someone working in Belgium on a Dutch contract. Secondly, it is not about the well-being of the
individual, but about the contribution of an employee to the group. At a distance, that role cannot be fulfilled as well.
What should organizations do now?
A year of mandatory home working has provided a wealth of information that can be used not so much to reduce costs as to increase revenue.
In addition, it is possible to achieve a better work-life balance, although the individual is always secondary to the team. To take advantage of
the lessons of lockdown, organizations can go through the following steps:
1 Vision of work: primarily individual or collective?
Before employees get to talking about what they want, the organization itself must develop a vision about working from home and
working remotely. In some organizations little interaction is needed (call center employees don't need each other much), in some
organizations there is intense contact but not often (such as at a university), but in many knowledge organizations it is expected that
someone is often available to others. If it turns out that in a department people want to work from home four days a week, they
might be better off being told to become self-employed.
2 The six Cs
By means of questionnaire research or interviews, employees can be asked how the six C's should be filled in. In the first instance,
it is not about the number of hours that should be spent on an activity, but rather about the agreements that should be made. In
the second instance, you can then ask how much time employees think they will spend on the six Cs - and what times and days of
the week they would like to come to the office.
3 The voice of the vulnerable
As indicated in this paper, there are large individual differences when it comes to the satisfaction with working remotely. Some
people want to go to the office for two days, others for five. The problem is that the people who want to go five days a week, go there
in order to meet the other group, gain knowledge and want to connect. While , unfortunately for them, the senior and
knowledgeable are working from home. Organizations should therefore not just rely on the average, but rather look at the spread
and the extremes, just like a herd is organized around the most vulnerable animals. The vulnerable group of employees must be
actively involved in these choices.
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10. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
4 Quantity and Quality
Vision, the opinion of employees in general and the voice of the group most in need of professional contact must together
result in a policy for working after COVID-19. This means making agreements about behavior as well as for when colleagues
can be there for each other during the week and when, on the contrary, they can work in silence. It also means that
employees can indicate how, by combining work from home and from the office, they can achieve a better work-life balance
and avoid traffic jams and rush-hour traffic, for example, by starting with online activities on busy days and only coming to
the office afterwards.
5 The office of the future
The agreements made by activity can be translated to the physical space. If employees want to sit together for 4 hours a
week, then there needs to be a physical space where that is possible. If informal contact is important, then there should be a
space that encourages that (e.g., with standing tables instead of seating). If many employees in the office want a place to
video call or want to work in complete isolation, then the office must provide that. The same goes for "cardio": the office could
encourage employees to exercise more.
Examples of working together after COVID-19
Example 1: Academic staff at a university.
Scientists sometimes work on papers for months in relative isolation. The need for relatedness is great, but the need to work together on a daily
basis is low. After several sessions, this group of scientists agreed to meet in the building only on Mondays. But then they want to really be
there – much more so than before COVID-19 – for each other. They agreed to meet in the office on those Mondays, where everyone is physically
present, to have lunch. In the afternoon there is room for peer review, commenting on each other's ideas, and coaching. The
rest of the week each employee may fill in as he or she sees fit.
Example 2: A consulting firm
Before COVID-19, employees of this consulting firm spent a lot of time with clients and very little time in the office. They now have an
agreement not to come into the office more often, but they agreed to have more ‘quality time’. On Mondays, there is an online meeting
every other week followed by a physical meeting (never hybrid). On the Mondays that meetings are held, the team is in one room and
everyone is available to answer questions. Monday afternoons are devoted to coaching and peer review. On Wednesday afternoons and
Friday mornings there are 'quiet moments' when no (phone) appointments are scheduled and no emails are sent. On the busy days
they
avoided rush hour traffic by scheduling all online sessions precisely at that time. Every other week there is a get-together
on Friday afternoon where everyone is present and where an activity is organized. Everyone can fill in the empty blocks
as they see fit – some are with customers, others in a quiet place in the office, others work remotely.
Example 3: A law firm and notary's office
In the time before COVID-19, this organization worked together very intensively, often under high pressure. Partners of the
firm received a lot of work and promptly a junior and the support team had to get to work to solve the client's question.
They agreed to work mainly in the office after COVID-19 in order to enable optimal collaboration. However, it was agreed to
avoid rush hours by organizing all meetings to be online. Furthermore, one silence block is planned, on Wednesdays where
employees can work wherever they want.
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11. COLLABORATION AND THE OFFICE POST COVID-19
In conclusion
Collaboration and the office after COVID-19 is a discussion not about individual time, but about collective activity. With this as a
starting point, the first project teams started in 2021 to shape a new way of working with the knowledge gained during COVID-19.
Employees from facility management (who deal with buildings), human resources (who deal with people), the management, the works
council and representatives of employees who have had a hard time working from home, all used the model explained in this paper.
It is difficult to find a common denominator for these projects, which are all very different, or to make a statement
about results when the evaluations have not yet taken place. Still, there are recommendations to be made based on all
the theory, interviews, questionnaire surveys, focus groups, conversations with professionals and the first projects. I
think this approach can contribute to:
- Improved employee performance
- Better functioning teams
- Increased inclusion of young and vulnerable employees
- More job satisfaction
- Better health
- Less stress and burnout
- Less pressure on the environment
- Never sitting in a crowded train or bus again
- and never, no never, being stuck in a traffic jam again
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