Art, science and effective hybrid workplaces

Hybrid work is a standard today, with 84% of organisations in Asia Pacific adopting it. This is remarkable considering that employees in Asia Pacific spend the most time in the office compared to other regions globally, with 22% working five days onsite.

The big question – why are employees in this region spending the most time in the office when they are offered more embedded hybrid work structures?

In our experience, flexibility has forced the hand of change. Hybrid working introduces complexity with fluctuating weekly occupancy patterns. Organisations must redefine operations to effectively balance office utilisation, hybrid programmes, and employee experience.

“Flexibility has forced the hand of change. Hybrid working introduces complexity with fluctuating weekly occupancy patterns. Organisations must redefine operations to effectively balance office utilisation, hybrid programmes, and employee experience” – Susheel Koul, CEO, Work Dynamics, Asia Pacific, JLL

Being able to balance between these needs is both an art and a science. Harnessing data allows organisations to quantify the utilisation of offices and adjust their office spaces to reduce cost inefficiencies, enabling them to focus their resources on enhancing the office experience. However, this also needs to go hand in hand with understanding employees’ workstyles and designing the optimal environment for productive work.

Measuring office utilisation is the bedrock of any successful hybrid working programme

Data is key to optimising the hybrid workplace, and utilisation rate – which is the percentage of time that an individual seats or spaces are occupied over a specific period – is emerging as the most effective metric to measure office occupancy. Asia Pacific currently leads the way in effective office space utilisation, with the lowest discrepancy among all regions between target utilisation rate (73%) and average utilisation rate (55%).

However, there remains a gap which is partly due to the more agile and varied nature of hybrid working programmes. Visual observations are no longer sufficient to form a good picture of the dynamic hybrid workplace of today, and technology will be key to closing this gap.

Technological investments key for organisations to effectively measure utilisation

Data is essential for organisations, but technology is needed to make sense of the growing volume and to understand space usage. With fluctuating demand and erratic working patterns, organisations are adopting reservation systems to track space utilisation.

Organisations recognise the importance of investing in technology and are already beginning on this journey. JLL’s research found that 44% of organisations have already invested in IT modifications for shared spaces to support hybrid programmes. 85% of organisations surveyed plan to increase technology budgets in the next three years, with 91% willing to pay more for tech-enabled spaces.

Mastering the art of understanding employee workstyles
Using data to understand the different workstyles will help to share the office design. While hybrid working has created a new flexibility for employees, the office is still used for focused discussion and collaboration. Recent JLL research shows that individual working is the most common activity in the office, with an average of 51% of time spent on this.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Work styles are unique to the organisation and can vary depending on several factors like culture and job functions. To design the optimal office experience, keeping the workpoint – any space that has power supply, a work surface, and a place to sit – in mind will be key. Optimising for the number of workpoints can help provide versatility for seats to serve as individual workstations or collaborative spaces. From our surveys, 18 – 32% of organisations are adding alternative workstation seating including benches, touchdown seating and open team tables.

We cannot underestimate the importance of office design in keeping employees engaged and productive. It is estimated that employee disengagement costs a median-sized S&P 500 company between US$80 to US$90 million a year in lost productivity. As we settle into the groove of hybrid working, mastering the art and science of effective hybrid work design will enable organisations to balance practicalities like effective office utilisation with employee experience and productivity, ultimately powering business growth.

About the author: Susheel Koul is CEO, Work Dynamics, Asia Pacific at JLL.