Offer Them a Workplace They Can't Refuse

Featuring the AIRPAD chair by interstuhl.

Since the initial Covid-19 pandemic lockdown of 2020, much of our American labor pool has been working from home. Other companies adopted a hybrid model, keeping a part of the team onsite and virtually connecting with the rest. This dynamic continued through the changing stages of our health mandates, even with vaccination cycles and the scary Delta variant. 

In time, some companies realized that the performance levels of at-home employees soared, proving that for them, the social distancing approach was a great success.
Other employers, however, noticed that productivity suffered when employees were off site.
But what remains true for many corporations is that they need their people back: The return to the office is crucial for business.

When employers summoned their members to come back, they found themselves challenged with a great deal of resistance, refusals and resignations.

Now, a new pitch is needed. Business owners need to come up with rightful ways to entice their teams to give up the comfort and advantages of working from home and join a more attractive office environment.
These 3 tips explain some of the ways industry leaders can turn their workplace into a proposition of value no one in their right mind would turn down.

featuring the Country collection by bralco.

1. Offer them a SAFE workplace.
In Covid times, distancing, cleanliness and caution are imperative. Your employees will feel more comfortable with an in-person work scenario if the space they occupy feels healthy, well-maintained and protected.
Enforce a proper mask mandate for indoor spaces. Allow ample space between working stations and block off chairs for group meetings. Make sure the necessary dividers and shields are in place, and keep areas impeccable, with constant sanitation protocols. Vaccine requirements are also strongly recommended to make everyone feel more at ease and be able to perform their duties without the added stress of a lethal virus flying around. 

Featuring the vintage chair by interstuhl

2. Offer them a BENEFICIAL workplace.
At home work is a money-saving alternative for many employees. It’s also very convenient for those who care for children or family members.
Consider how much workers spend on a daily basis, just by traveling to their jobs: transportation, tolls, parking, coffee, snacks, lunch, clothes, even makeup, etc.

If companies reimburse team members for some of these unavoidable costs or contribute additional incentives, then the idea of returning to the office would be more tempting.
Your staff will feel appreciated and taken care of. That way, not many will want to miss out on a well-paid position that also offers free parking, gourmet coffee, food treats, a laid-back dress code, flexible hours and for some, even child-care options. 

3. Offer them a MAGNIFICENT workplace.
After everything else is taken care of there is still one very important element to consider: the quality of the office space itself. 
If you want your employees to truly choose the office setting and maximize their time there, you must create a workspace that is not only comfortable, functional and high-quality but actually beautiful and motivating.

No one wants to commute for hours through rush-hour traffic every day to arrive at their dated, uncomfortable, and dreadful workplace. Professionals want and need a space that enhances their performance. 
With all the time your staff members sit at their desks, holding meetings and collaborating, the most supportive thing you can do is to ensure their wellbeing by investing in an office that is equipped with the appropriate tools. Comfort, efficiency, and ease of movement will be fundamental for the level of performance you expect of them.

Let your employees know you respect and value their time, talent and presence, by arming them with a modern and functional workspace. Spark their creativity and awaken their love for the task by designing a mindful work experience within an environment that is pleasant, productive and thoughtful.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: If your team is bored and uncomfortable, your company will suffer. If your team is engaged and empowered, your company will thrive. So if you want your workforce back and excited about it, the best way to lure them in is to give them a workplace they can truly be proud of. 

Written by Kika Pérez for UOF Editorial

Working from Home: Pros & Cons

The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has forced companies and employees worldwide to turn to a new work model: partial or total telecommuting.

At the beginning of the March quarantine and shelter in place mandates, when most of us had to move our workspaces to our homes, we adapted quickly and without much trouble at all. We did so well in fact, that many tech companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook announced they would consider remote work models indefinitely.

At first glance, telework seemed like the ideal scenario, didn’t it? But, as the months go by and the numbers go up amidst the Coronavirus crisis, which only seems to be getting worse, we can’t help but wonder: Is working from home all that it’s cracked up to be? In the long run, is it really better than going to the office?

Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of doing our work from our own living room.

PRO: Flexibility
Telework allows us to have our own schedule and manage our time. Off-site jobs also give us the possibility to take on other projects, which helps us diversify our income sources and therefore have more professional freedom and autonomy. Online gigs are also a life-saving option for caretakers who have responsibilities at home and couldn’t otherwise make a living. Product Hunt shared a poll that suggested “most people would take a pay cut if it gave them the ability to work remotely.” Other benefits like vacation time, free snacks and 401k packages didn’t seem as crucial as the option to work outside of the office when they needed to.

CON: Communication
One of the downsides of at home work is how more complex it becomes to communicate efficiently. Technical glitches on your Zoom meeting? Wifi weaker than your lower back? Unintended howling performances by your restless beagle?

Seems like a recipe for extra-strength frustration. Not to mention, all of the spontaneous interactions that we miss by only talking to our colleagues on the phone or through a screen when we have a scheduled call. No one actually sets a meeting for small talk. And forget about casual coffee chats on the hallways or lunches that lead to new ideas and successful breakthroughs.
Our 2020 State of Business Communication Report states that “face-to-face communication is the most preferred communication method by employees.”
“It’s important to have people in a room and see body language and read signals that don’t come through a screen,” says OpenExchange’s CEO, Mark Loehr.

PRO: No Commuting
This pro is probably everyone’s favorite. No need to get jolted out of bed at 5 AM by an evil alarm,  shower in a rush to run out the door with our hair wet and our breakfast in our hand, cause we’re already late and horrible rush hour traffic is always on time.

Instead, when working remotely, we wake up, drink our slowly brewed coffee and bam!: We’re ready to work, simply by sitting in front of our laptops. All it requires is for us to look semi professional, from the waist up (pajama bottoms always a must).

No one likes to be stuck on the road for hours every single day or have to take several trains back and forth just to get to their jobs. Working from home not only saves you precious time and money, but also allows you to relax and enjoy your daily rituals and hobbies without the constant torment of a ticking clock.

CON: It Can Get Lonely
The new Covid-19 reality and the scary amount of illness and death it carries with it has shed light on just how important is it for us to stay connected and support each other.

Going to the office every day can be vital to the emotional health of many. Although some enjoy their peace and quiet, thriving within a private environment, there are those who actually need constant human exchange and can feel dangerously down when forced to spend long periods of time in isolation. For them, sharing with their peers and co-workers is the only socializing they get to do.

It is not the same to be locked up in a house with your family than it is to be all by yourself.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll warns that “Nearly half of Americans report the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health,” and more than “1,000 percent increase in calls and texts” was reported by an emergency hotline for people in emotional distress at The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

PRO: Productivity
Through a study, the University of California, Irvine discovered that inside an office, a typical employee is interrupted every 11 minutes, and that it takes around 25 minutes for them to focus back on the task. That is certainly an alarming statistic in terms of just how scattered our office work can be.

When working remotely, we aren’t really exposed to that level of disruption or noise pollution. 
Our home office environment is far more controlled than that of our corporate spaces, which leads to a significant increase in productivity for the individual team member.

One good thing about the lack of social meetings that happen around the office is that at home, we don’t really experience those energy drains as we are usually working by ourselves and can better concentrate on completing our tasks.

CON: Performance
Productivity may be higher when telecommuting but actual performance may suffer. This is true especially for workers who started their job off site and didn’t have a chance to experience the face to face dynamics of the company. Young professionals depend on being able to watch their mentors perform to learn the tricks of the trade.  

“I am concerned that we would somehow believe that we can basically take kids from college, put them in front of Zoom, and think that three years from now, they’ll be every bit as productive as they would have had they had the personal interaction,” says Ronald Kruszewski, CEO at Stifle Financial Corp.

Training new employees is also challenging when all you have is a camera and a screen. Working alongside your colleagues allows you to make choices together and help each other grow. In other words, team work can be less powerful and more time consuming when members are far and away. 

PRO: Work/ Life Balance
The most intuitive perk of working outside of the office is the opportunity to better juggle our personal and professional selves. Our demanding jobs, as rewarding as they may be, also keep us away from our friends and families for longer than we would want. How many birthdays, anniversaries, school recitals and even everyday dinners have we missed because we got stuck in some meeting (that should have been an email) or prepping for a presentation?

Remote work can allow us to spend more time with our loved ones. Still, balancing our careers and our relationships, especially the one we have with ourselves, is perhaps the hardest part of success.   

CON: Unplugging
And after a long, tedious telework shift, all we have to do is close our laptops, crawl to the couch (which is literally a few feet away) and call it a day. But do we, really?

When we work from home, it can actually be harder to stick to a regular schedule that when we’re in the office. There is no 5 PM school bell ringing inside our houses to remind us that we’re done for today and shall continue tomorrow, and we can’t see all of our co-workers packing up for the night and running to the closest Happy Hour bar.
Instead, we apparently get sucked into a Las Vegas-type situation where we forget to check what time it is or if the sun is still out, because it is easier to just keep going from right there were we’re sitting.
This behavior may end up being more harmful than we think as it counteracts so many of the benefits of working remotely.

So the question remains: To home, or not to home?

We have learned there is no easy answer.  All we know is we haven’t found a one-work-fits-all solution that suits every company and employee across the board. Some may determine that “home is where the work is” and others will emphatically prefer an in-person scenario. Many may even adhere to a hybrid version, conveniently alternating between home and office as needed.

Like most matters, it will be up to each individual and organization to decide what works best for them and more so, if they want to stay afloat during this challenging time. What we can all agree on is that, regardless of where we are, our top priority is and always will be to protect each other’s health and integrity, through the present health emergency and beyond.  

Written by Kika Pérez for UOF Editorial 
Sources: Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Nextiva Blog 

La Creatividad es la Cura

Diseño: Marco Trezza

Por: Marco Trezza
Edición: Kika Pérez

Una de las actividades más afectadas a nivel mundial por la pandemia del Covid-19 ha sido el trabajo en las oficinas.  Luego de tres meses de confinamiento en todo el planeta y los consecuentes cambios en las actividades laborales, hemos quedado un poco desorientados en cuánto a cómo lucirá nuestro futuro profesional.

¿Seguirá reinando el concepto del tele-trabajo? ¿Qué pasará con las oficinas y sus dinámicas? ¿Cómo evolucionará la vida profesional mientras tengamos que seguir tomando medidas extremas de higiene y salud? Los nuevos paradigmas para ejecutivos se establecerán en el tiempo, pero sin duda, las soluciones serán las que logren combinar seguridad y comodidad. 

En los últimos años, hemos visto una tendencia a alejarnos de las normas de etiqueta y protocolo que solíamos seguir. Ahora, nos guiamos más por lo intuitivo porque entendimos que la comodidad está directamente relacionada al rendimiento. En términos generales, nos hemos vuelto mucho más flexibles y menos complicados.

Para ir al trabajo, ya no hace falta vestirnos de traje ni saludar al jefe con terror. En muchos campos ha desaparecido la ansiedad de mantener el teatro del ejecutivo riguroso e intachable. Ese tipo hoy ya es un acartonado con quien no nos sentimos muy a gusto.  Un escenario más casual ha ayudado a redefinir el concepto del joven emprendedor y a establecer una estética fresca y amable en las compañías. El tipo de los jeans y la camiseta punk-rock es ahora el CEO de la empresa y el de corbata es seguramente el empleado que atiende el front desk. 

Otra de las innovaciones que llegaron para quedarse es la fluidez en los espacios, no sólo para trabajo desde casa sino también en la movilidad dentro de las oficinas mismas. Estaciones itinerantes y escritorios compartidos es otra forma de mantenernos en movimiento constante, acoplándonos al orgánico crecimiento de las relaciones interpersonales.

El actual distanciamiento social, como medida de prevención, ha reforzado la necesidad de actuar con prudencia. Navegaremos los cambios y estaremos parcialmente aislados por un tiempo, pero me niego a creer que sea el final contundente de las oficinas en general. Tampoco creo que vayamos a trabajar todos en piyama y en frente del computador por el resto de nuestras vidas.

Si bien seguiremos obrando desde la cautela, no será sano dejar ir del todo el contacto con los demás. Ese compartir humano es fuente fundamental para nuestro desarrollo y prosperidad como civilización. Y también es esencial en la ejecución de muchos tipos de proyectos especializados, donde se vuelve imperativo contar con la contribución presencial de los miembros. No podremos dejar de reunirnos para el trabajo y tampoco podremos dejar de hacerlo en lo particular.

No dejarán de existir los encuentros entre familiares, amigos o colegas. No morirán los restaurantes, los cines, los teatros, ni los momentos para tomarse un café y conversar en persona. Todas estas son plataformas de vida que nutren nuestra supervivencia. 

Lo virtual no va a eliminar por completo lo real, como tampoco podremos comprar absolutamente todo online, ni celebrar cada cumpleaños que nos falta con fiestas en Zoom. Siendo objetivos y escuchando nuestra razón, sabremos discernir e ir construyendo un panorama híbrido, donde logremos reconectarnos con todo pero sin descuidar la seguridad de nuestras comunidades. Así iremos avanzando, distinguiendo lo útil y práctico, sin aceptar afirmaciones absolutas que nos condenen a la decadencia ni creer cada predicción ansiosa que leemos o escuchamos por ahí. 

Los ambientes de oficina se consolidarán entre una amalgama de espacios comerciales y residenciales, al que se conoce como “resimercial.” Inicialmente, se trataba de armar un ambiente hogareño y amable dentro de las oficinas, pero ahora es también una oportunidad para organizar un despacho especializado dentro de nuestros hogares, con mobiliarios atractivos, inteligentes y de calidad.

La idea es procurar que los lugares donde desarrollemos tareas sigan siendo eficientes pero también acogedores y que de igual forma, cumplan con las pautas recomendadas para cualquier actividad comercial. En mi experiencia como diseñador de espacios de trabajo, veo que lo más importante es tener una buena iluminación, sillas ergonómicas, muebles de grado profesional y cuando sea necesario, un control auditivo idóneo por medio de páneles acústicos. 

En tiempos de Covid-19, hay que pensar también en la integridad de nuestro entorno. La limpieza del aire y las superficies, y con ello la protección de cada miembro del equipo y visitante, se ha convertido en prioridad. Debemos entonces mantener los estándares de diseño pero también de seguridad, para construir estructuras que nos permitan seguir avanzando, juntos pero no revueltos, y sobre todo, con salud. 

Glider collection with Kubick Flexi glass. Designed by Bralco.

No creo que esto nos lleve de regreso al ya anticuado esquema de los cubículos. Lo que se sugiere es lograr separaciones seguras pero que sean sutiles o incluso, transparentes, para preservar la unión visual y la sensación de libertad que brindan los puestos despejados. El encierro está descartado y con él, la incomodidad de nuestros compañeros.
 
También es recomendable amoblar las zonas con piezas de alta durabilidad, que aguanten los constantes procesos de desinfección y limpieza a los que nos vemos obligados y que le inspiren confianza a sus usuarios. Así, lograremos superar la ansiedad colectiva en la que vivimos hoy en día y alcanzar un exitoso desempeño, con optimismo y vigor. 

Esta receta de protección y prosperidad se puede resumir en una sola intención: responsabilidad. Al comprometernos con el bienestar general, entendemos que sólo haciéndonos responsables de nuestros actos y sus efectos, podremos en realidad tomar las riendas, tanto a nivel gremial como individual.

Somos parte de un grandioso enlace simbiótico con todos y con todo a nuestro alrededor. Si los negocios siguen ese camino, el de la sensatez y el amor, entonces no habrá final fatal ni conclusión dramática, sino una luz al final de túnel, que alumbre el esfuerzo arduo de quienes no planean rendirse jamás.

Einstein solía decir que “la imaginación es más importante que el conocimiento.”  Y creo que se refería al optimismo que vive dentro de quienes se enfocan en solucionar los problemas, porque básicamente, de eso se trata la vida: contestar las preguntas y superar los obstáculos. Por eso, siempre volvemos al tablero de dibujo y desciframos, una vez más, cómo rayos vencer cada nuevo reto. La creatividad es y siempre será la cura a todos los males. 

Credit: pixelstalk.net

*Marco Trezza es Director de Arte y Diseño de UOF | USA Office Furniture.