BLUF

COVID-19 has changed attitudes towards working at home; the preferred option now is a hybrid work structure where people can split their work time between the office and home.

Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global re-think about how we approach work. Japan, with its traditional, loyal corporate culture, is an example of revolutionary change. Citing figures from Fujitsu, Lynda Gratton Harvard Business Review highlighted that the overwhelming majority of pre-pandemic workers considered the office the best workplace; post-pandemic, the majority advocated for work and home hybrid arrangement. They essentially found the hours commuting could be redirected towards making their lives more purposeful. Gratton designed a Hybrid approach where employers can design work from four perspectives:

  • Jobs and tasks.
  • Employee preferences.
  • Projects and workflows.
  • Inclusion and fairness.

While redesigning workplaces with these perspectives can make the workplace more purposeful, productive, agile and flexible, there will always be situations where time and space are not flexible. The redesign will help identify better practices by breaking the flow of doing it the way it always has been.

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