Friday, September 16, 2022

From office to hub: How Audible redesigned its physical spaces to reflect hybrid work

Even the Next Recession Won't Send Employees Back to the Office

Surviving a recession: Flexible work could be the answer

News

Without a Covid surge to blame for the lack of a surge in office occupancy after Labor Day, half-full offices could be the norm going forward. Despite scattered anecdotes to the contrary, two major data sources for worker occupancy in offices found that in the days immediately following Labor Day, the percentage of employees working from the office was essentially unchanged from the previous week.
By the beginning of 2021, live and leisure activities like sporting events and concerts were going back to normal — but office attendance still lagged. And that begs the question: will office usage ever return to normal?

“The big movement toward working from home was started by the pandemic, but at this point, it would be hard to argue the people are still it doing because of health risks,” says Marcus & Millichap’s John Chang. And while most companies would like their folks back in the office, “even the most adamant business leaders have had to back off their hard line positions,” he says.

The Workplace

With growing pressure to return to the office, some employees are struggling to hide the fact that they now live abroad. “It’s quite hard to keep up the facade all the time,” one person said.
By implementing a flexible work model now, both workers and employers can move through the recession with dexterity and find their way toward a more profitable and stable future.
In the era of the Great Resignation, remote work, and “quiet quitting,” general disillusionment with white-collar striving has gone mainstream. The managerial set has yet to be CC’d.
The Office of Good Intentions. Human(s) Work explores how design and technology have transformed how and where we work.
Some are nostalgic for the silence they had at home, especially since in-office perks, aimed at luring people back, can make it harder to concentrate.
If there’s one thing you can rely on in business, it will get rough.
No amount of evidence can bury this bad idea.
 
For decades, research has found that open plan offices are bad for companies, bad for workers, bad for health and bad for morale. And yet they just won’t die. Human beings, if they are to thrive, need a bit of privacy — walls and a door. And yet employers, decade after decade, neglect to give workers what they need, refuse to do what’s in their own self-interest.

Design

Audible redesigned its 13 workplaces to reflect the collaboration that happens when employees work in-person. They’re now known as hubs instead of offices.
About 90% of space planning professionals are struggling with managing work and learning spaces in more fluid, hybrid-use environments coming out of the pandemic, according to a survey of 255 professionals by Armored Things, a provider of AI software for space planning.

Richard Scannell, CEO, Armored Things, said in a prepared statement that getting a handle on the best use of physical space is more difficult in the current hybrid environment because a lot of the spatial intelligence available is point-in-time data that doesn’t provide space planners with the analytics and insights they need to make the best decisions about facilities.

PLASTARC’s Melissa Marsh says strategic office design that fosters workplace attachment can boost employee engagement, initiative & loyalty.

Trends

How can organizations prepare for future disruption and thrive?
 
Organizations around the world are putting aside their continuous readjustments to the return to the office and are shifting towards a long-term transformation to the new future of work. Evidence demonstrates that systemic and robust organizational resilience will be fundamental to sustain this new working structure, and without it puts the long–term survival of businesses at risk.

Real Estate

JLL’s enterprise-grade flexible space solution, Flex by JLL, has entered into an agreement with Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust (MUST) to open a 15,407-square-foot flex office and co-working space in Secaucus, NJ.

The partnership marks Flex by JLL’s first official ground-up project to come to market in the US.

People are returning – slowly but surely – to physical offices, and that’s causing leasing activity to pick up for the sector despite increasing headwinds for the industry and the overall economy.

“We certainly have seen a bit slower, people coming back to the office than we expected,” Spencer Levy, Global Client Strategist and Senior Economic Advisor at CBRE, **told CNBC this week**. And that means “people are trying to anticipate not only when people will come back but when will greater leasing activity come back,” he said. ”I would say the good news is we have actually seen a significant pickup in leasing activity versus the somewhat disappointing amount of people physically coming back to the office.”

Workplace Tech

With 25 customers in the U.S., Valve expects to increase that fivefold with the seed money.

Makers

Virco Posts 40% Increase in Revenue for Latest Quarter

Virco Mfg. Corporation posted net sales of $82.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2023, an increase of $23.8 million or 40.3% from $59.0 million for the same period of the prior fiscal year.

Net income was $9.7 million, or $0.60 per diluted share for the second quarter of fiscal 2023, an increase of $5.9 million or 157% from net income of $3.8 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the same period of the prior fiscal year.

The company delivered approximately $21 million more in the months of June and July compared to the same period in the prior year. Subsequent to July 31, 2022, the company delivered nearly $17 million more in August 2022 compared to the prior year, continuing its ability to service the traditional summer delivery cycle despite the current year supply chain challenges.

Products

Designer Sebastian Herkner was inspired by circus elephants and named this collection after one of these gentle giants.

Projects

Hybrid work may be here to stay, but newly designed Chicago offices for Cisco and Accenture show how some big employers are hoping to earn the commute in the post-pandemic landscape.
SOM’s New York office at 7 World Trade Center serves as a laboratory for its goals regarding wellness, sustainability, and flexibility.
Toi Toi Toi Creative Studio have created a finely balanced fit-out that preserves the creative start-up energy Contentful was built on while setting it up as a progressive workplace for the future. Making the move from

Last Word(s)

Night after night, we log off, clock out, then relax by watching other people at work. WorkLife interviewed several media psychologists to ask why we are glued to work shows right now.
Quiet quitting has nearly everyone abuzz about what it means to set boundaries between work and life. But a new trend is coming to take the crown: FatFIRE.

No, it’s not a Texas barbecue grill. FatFIRE refers to the abundance (“fat”) bundle of money someone needs to gain Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE).

The Seattle Mariners hosted a “Work from the Ballpark” promotion that invited remote workers to enjoy a baseball game while on the clock.
Working out for 30 minutes every day “might not be enough” to counter the health issues created by prolonged sitting, said the study author.
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