Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on October 26, 2021
5 min readLast updated: January 29, 2026
Businesses are adapting to hybrid working, balancing remote flexibility with office culture, and investing in technology for space management.
It’s been close to 18 months since the coronavirus pandemic upended the working world. With countries around the globe continuing to face an unprecedented impact on businesses in almost every sector, we are seeing many governments joining the UK and much of the US in lifting restrictions — with Denmark one of the latest to do so after 71% of its population received both doses of the vaccine. Likewise, Canada and Singapore have also loosened restrictions as they continue on their roads to recovery. Yet while businesses across the hospitality and retail sectors are seeing employees return to the workplace, organizations with office workers have continued to remain cautious. In many cases, the prospect of office use returning to pre-pandemic levels seems remote at best.
The coronavirus pandemic has compelled businesses to embrace remote working in order to keep employees safe, but the long-term effects are more far-reaching. Remote working provides employees with much-needed flexibility but having everyone in the office can foster a unique company culture and collaborative dynamic. Water cooler conversations are often the source of increased creativity, collaboration, and productivity, which are very difficult to replicate in a virtual environment. However, as global vaccination programs gather pace, businesses are starting to examine how they can encourage workers back into the office. At the same time, most are also looking at ways to maintain the agility, positive impact on work-life balance and the levels of efficiency they have learned to achieve since March 2020 – and potentially increase cost savings too.
Some companies, especially in the financial sector, originally planned on having at least some staff returning to the office in early September. However, many financial institutions such as Wells Fargo have delayed the date employees can return to the office to the beginning of November as the virus, and its variants have made it difficult to set a definitive date for return. Most organizations are looking at a much more fluid working situation as they move into a post-COVID era. In fact, for many businesses, the pandemic has merely accelerated a trajectory towards hybrid working, with employees splitting their time between home and the office.
Indeed, a recent worldwide survey by global PropTech firm MRI Software and international real estate professional association CoreNet Global reveals that close to 90% of businesses expect to allow remote working after the pandemic – a third more than before the crisis. What’s more, the shape of the physical office looks set to change for good:
In this brave new world of hybrid working and the flexible office, organizations need to adopt a more strategic approach to their space utilization and management. Technology will play a major role in helping them do that, whether it is to manage hotdesking assignments, book collaborative spaces such as meeting rooms or provide analysis that ties space usage stats into other data to feed into broader strategic planning. The survey shows that 83% of companies plan to adopt new technologies, while 77% intend to expand their current solutions. Indeed, MRI is now seeing roughly nine out of ten new customers using MRI solutions to manage office space now asking for desk booking capabilities, compared to around one in ten before the pandemic – it has emerged as a top priority. But organizations will also need other integrated PropTech solutions to track how their use of space affects teams, departments, and the organization overall – giving them the ability to assess the impact and make informed decisions.
Furthermore, team members want to understand how a building is being operated safely and efficiently, and this has now become essential to attracting talent. Visitor management solutions will play just as critical of a role in creating a more structured and controlled use of the environment by providing the ability to quickly register and check-in visitors, which will give leaders access to the accurate and real-time data needed to ensure the workplace doesn’t become overcrowded. Having the technologies in place to do all this ensures they meet all the required safety standards – not to mention the expectations of their employees.
The rollout of coronavirus vaccines around the globe has meant we’re beginning to see a return to normalcy. There will likely be bumps in the road ahead despite signs of economic recovery in parts of the US, the UK, and some EU markets. It will take some time for the global economy to fully bounce back from the health crisis, which has spotlighted the need for businesses to embrace connected digital solutions. The companies that will be successful in a post-COVID world will be those investing in digital transformation tools – and those with office-driven workforces that include PropTech solutions. Leveraging a range of digital office tools will help businesses foster workplace collaboration while boosting workflow, efficiency, and business agility. By doing so, companies are better positioned to navigate the long-term impact of the health crisis – and will be prepared to meet new challenges not yet on the horizon.
The article discusses how businesses can adapt to hybrid working post-pandemic.
Many are reducing space, introducing hotdesking, and using technology for management.
It offers flexibility and work-life balance while maintaining office culture.
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