Re-define your workplace strategy in 5 steps

For many of us the way we now work is a marked difference from just a couple of years ago. Hybrid working now means workplace strategy is now about how we work at home as well as how and when we come together in person in the office. One thing is for sure the purpose of the office has changed and shifted toward primiraily facilitating collaboration and culture.

Experts expect that 25% of all jobs in North America will be fully remote by the end of 2022, while 74% of U.S. companies are looking to implement a permanent hybrid work model. With such a substantial cultural shift towards hybrid working, the workplace strategies that we’re used to no longer apply.

This presents businesses with a question, “What should we do if the usual workplace strategies no longer work?”

What is a workplace strategy?

Workplace strategy helps align your company’s processes and working environment to facilitate higher productivity levels and achieve the business’s goals.

Creating a workplace strategy is about understanding your employee’s needs. In this new working landscape, this means flexibility and transparency. Your strategy should address your workers’ needs while minimizing costs and optimizing the additional office space that in-office workers would normally fill.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. To create a great workplace strategy, you need to tailor it specifically to your company and its goals.

Benefits of a clear and solid workplace strategy

Creating a clear workplace strategy is crucial. It ensures that the office is a strategic asset rather than a costly productivity drain. With a solid strategy, the entire organization can identify how they plan and perform work that contributes toward business goals.

A great workplace strategy can offer a wide range of benefits besides higher productivity and alignment, you can:

• Improve output and performance
• Improve collaboration and teamwork
• Increase employee engagement
• Reduce absenteeism and presenteeism
• Increase creativity and innovation
• Attract and retain the best talent
• Increase the value of your consumer-facing and employer brand
• Reduce costs
• Reduce environmental impact and improve sustainability

It’s essential to reevaluate and re-define your strategy as the hybrid work revolution continues. Even from a purely financial standpoint, creating a new strategy is critical.

One of the big topics in workplace strategy is real-estate portfolio rationalization, or in simple terms what space do we need (capacity) vs demand? Leasing or renting office space is one of the biggest expenses a business can have, so if half of your staff is working from home, you need to make sure the office doesn’t turn into a black hole for cash and productivity.

How to re-define your workplace strategy in 5 steps

The way we work is in a constant state of flux. The huge overhaul of the working practices we’re seeing in the wake of the pandemic won’t be the last time we have to reassess how our offices function, so learning how to re-define your workplace strategy is crucial.

Here are 5 steps to re-defining your workplace strategy for hybrid working:

1. Consider the wider goals and priorities of the business

Changing anything can have knock-on effects for a business. So, when it comes to overhauling your entire strategy, you need to consider everything and leave no stone unturned.

Think about the larger goals of the business. Are you looking to increase revenue, reduce costs, or improve employee retention? You will need to connect workplace strategy to these, and clearly measure, for success.

Then think about the current priorities for the business, and how you expect them to evolve over the next few years. For example, you could be looking to optimize space usage within the office or streamline operations to save time and resources.

No matter what goals the business hopes to achieve, your new workplace strategy should be aligned to them. This way, the entire organization is in sync with the business’s goals, which will increase the chance of success.

2. Listen to your employees and ask for feedback

There’s little point in overhauling working practices if you don’t consider the thoughts and feelings of those doing the work.

Before triggering a workplace strategy overhaul, talk to your employees and/or run a survey. Find out what current issues they have and try to include fixes for those issues in the new strategy.

There will likely be detractors who prefer to work the old way, and while they will have to adapt, you shouldn’t ignore their concerns. By collecting feedback from your employees, you can help address these concerns and shape your workplace strategy in a way that allows them to adjust.

This process should continue well after the introduction of the new workplace strategy. Not everyone will get to grips with it immediately, but with regular check-ins and coaching, your employees will start to feel the benefits. These sessions can help boost confidence and identify ways to improve. Think of it as a one-to-one session to assess the employee’s needs and a way to figure out if the new strategy is working.

3. Set SMART goals

The SMART goal-setting tool is a simple framework that anyone can perform and apply to any aspect of business or even life outside of work.

As the acronym suggests, the SMART framework helps shape goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-Bound

Using SMART goals to implement your new workplace strategy, you can aid employees who may be struggling with the changes and accurately track how the office performs under the new workplace strategy.

4. Get feedback from key stakeholders

For a new workplace strategy to work, you need the entire office to come together as a team. That includes your stakeholders. As you introduce the new strategy to the office, make sure to loop in stakeholders and any other important parties that may not work in your office.

Stakeholders will be quick to point out potential flaws in your plan, so working alongside stakeholders will result in a plan that truly considers all the options.

5. Do an office audit

Before changing how an office works, you need to understand how it currently works.

What practices are you currently using? A workplace strategy overhaul doesn’t need to include every single aspect of the business. Some practices are likely already suited to the new strategy and can help achieve the business’s goals.

Other key metrics that you should collect include operational costs, employee satisfaction, security, compliance, and energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is especially crucial for hybrid and digital workplace strategies. If your office is working with half in-office and half at home, but your energy bills are still the same, there’s something you’re doing wrong.

How are you using your office spaces? With more businesses using remote and hybrid work schedules, we’re all using office space differently than before. By using desk booking software and modern workplace scheduling solutions (like Smartway2), you can gather accurate data on how the office actually works. You can then use these insights to help shape your new hybrid workplace strategy.

Smartway2 can help you adapt your workplace for hybrid working

With Smartway2, you can modernize your workplace strategy and your office, by enabling a great experience for employees and collecting the key data points you need to create a successful workplace strategy.

Get in touch today to see how easy it can be!