By Stuart Templeton, Head of UK at Slack

Are we back to peak office? The London Tube network reported its busiest morning in 18 months in early September, and across the country more workers than ever are returning to their desks.

Yet while some will argue that this is a sign of things bouncing-back to ‘normal’, it’s time to accept that the office of the past isn’t coming back – and workers know it.

As many as 70% of employees predict that they will never return to the office at the same rate as before, rising to 79% of senior business leaders. Crucially, the majority also recognise this won’t harm the economy or our productivity.

As our trains get busier, what we’re seeing today is a rebalancing of work, rather than a return to 2019. To get this rebalancing right, it’s time for us all to think about what we need from the office.

The pandemic has proven the physical office is no longer the gold standard for productivity, with over two-thirds of UK employees stating remote work increases productivity. Today, our virtual environments have become the most significant factor in how we work. Equally, though, in-person interactions do hold value, particularly when it comes to social and creative activities.

With the International Week of Happiness at Work upon us, here’s how we can rethink our virtual and physical HQs to set ourselves up for business success in 2022 and beyond.

Ask teams what they want, and then ask again

We all had to figure out how to navigate the pandemic together. Let’s stick with that attitude as we work out what comes next. Beyond welcome back lunches and office drinks, what do teams want from their future workplace?

Getting this right requires taking the pulse more often. Leaders and managers should be checking in with direct reports and wider teams frequently to determine what approach to work a business needs. Given the physical office is no longer the default, these check-ins won’t necessarily be face-to-face, but might be messages, calls, all-hands meetings and more.

Automated tools meanwhile can send out surveys or even help connect employees in a serendipitous way to simulate the ‘watercooler’ moments of the past. Or, a tool like Culture Amp, for example, can help businesses understand how everyone is feeling, and enable leaders to make informed decisions, for example, on how much flexibility teams want or the number of days they’d like to spend in the office.

With the wider context rapidly changing, it’s important these check-ins remain an ongoing process – forget five year plans and start thinking about continuous refinement.

Default to digital

Never before has technology, from collaboration platforms to video calls, been more important to how we work. Rather than thinking of these as individual apps, it’s time to start recognising that the virtual office is now the office – and apps are its digital building blocks.

The digital HQ is now a place for work and social interactions. It’s where culture lives, and, if you get it right, it enables a more flexible, scalable, and transparent approach to work.

Take Ocado Technology, for example. After a period of rapid growth across Europe, getting the virtual office right became crucial to make sure their international team was working together seamlessly. But individual apps, like email and video conferencing, weren’t enough. They didn’t allow for the spontaneous conversations, and transparent, global, sharing of knowledge needed for the rapid innovation that fuels company’s success.

By focusing on the virtual office, and shifting collaboration at Ocado Technology to Slack, suddenly everyone could get involved. Email use fell and problem solving grew, as using channel-based messaging meant everyone was kept in the loop, and historic or global learnings from across the organisation were put at everyone’s fingertips, wherever they were.

Not only was Ocado able to keep tapping into great talent across Europe, but by intentionally building a digital office, all those great teammates were able to come together to the benefit of themselves, their teams, and the business as a whole.

From a bank of monitors to a social hub

While the virtual office is becoming the default, physical workspaces remain important. But, with the virtual office providing a transparent, diverse, space for productive collaboration, what role will the office hold?

Rather than acting as another space for workers to sit on their laptops, physical offices are going to undergo a transformation into spaces where togetherness is key. From social activities to shared learning experiences and client catch ups, physical offices will be redesigned around community building and less about driving productivity (at least in its traditional sense).

Over time, we may even see a shift toward smaller, flexible spaces closer to homes rather than the showcase HQs of yesteryear. And with the saved revenue from smaller spaces, company’s will invest more into ensuring their team’s home workspaces are kitted out with ergonomic equipment, high-speed broadband and more.

A more thoughtful approach to workspaces

There’s no need to mourn the end of the office. It’s not gone, but simply evolved. The office will no longer be a space that was OK at everything – from socialising to collaboration – but great at nothing.

Moving forward the virtual office will become the gold-standard for productivity. Meanwhile, our physical workspaces will be better suited to their strengths. The office will become a social, community, and learning space, while for remote workers, the home-office will be professionalised.

In this way our digital and physical spaces, whether we’re using them together or alone, will work to their strengths, and enable all of us to work to ours.