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An open-floor plan office used to work for Innovative Party Planners. It allowed the creative team at the Baltimore-based company to easily brainstorm and collaborate. But when they returned to the office after the pandemic, they realized something had changed.
“Every client wants to talk to you on Zoom, and we were bleeding into each other’s conversations,” said founder and CEO Heidi Hiller. “We were all on top of each other.”
It may not have helped that the company also expanded its team but employees were given the option to work from home. Still, most preferred to come into the office.
So, about a year ago, the business moved into a larger space, where each employee has a separate office to talk with clients without interruptions. The space also includes a conference room and a lounge with soft seating where the team can gather to brainstorm or host client meetings.
“I walk in in the morning, and everyone is in the lounge talking,” Hiller said. “It’s great. It’s very much an important part of building back the culture after the pandemic.”
Innovative Party Planners isn’t alone in being forced to adapt its workspace to better accommodate employee needs and foster more meaningful exchanges. A 2023 survey by EY found that 65% of corporate leaders were creating or considering creating a work environment that allows for more flexibility and hybrid work.
The question is: Is it worth it? We consulted experts about what works — and what doesn’t.
Rethinking the Traditional Office
Most traditional offices aren’t set up for what most workers need today, which is less structured interpersonal communications and individual time to do concentrative work, said Ryan Anderson, vice president of global research and insights at office design company MillerKnoll.
“Most traditional offices were essentially designed around desktop computing: a sea of desks and traditional conference rooms,” he said. “They straddle the middle of that spectrum in a way that's not always very useful.”
FM:Systems, a workplace management software firm based in Raleigh, NC, recently moved out of a conventional office where everyone had assigned cubicles and higher-ups had offices to create a new space, where the workflow felt more inclusive and team-oriented.
“We wanted something that felt more like where people gather and less like where people work,” said chief strategy officer Brian Haines.
The company’s 250 employees aren’t required to be in the office, so the organization also took the opportunity to downsize from 17,500 square feet to 5,000 — and 102 workspaces to 12. The goal, Haines said, was to foster collaboration and togetherness, and remove the hierarchy by doing away with designated offices.
Now, FM:Systems’ office walls and desks are moveable, and the space features huddle rooms, lockers for employees to reserve and two conference rooms — one outfitted with the latest technology to connect team members, and the other a smaller space for casual meetings.
“It’s much more collaborative than it has been in the past,” Haines said. “If you want to do heads-down, one-on-one personalized work, this is not the place to do it.”
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Office Customization Is Key
The concept of a one-size-fits-all design model no longer exists when dealing with a hybrid workplace, Anderson said. Instead, he says companies seeking to make a change need to focus on their specific needs.
“You have to understand the people who work in that building, the work they do, how they function as a team, and begin to tailor the space for those sorts of activities,” he explained.
That might mean downsizing, swapping out furniture, creating collaborative spaces or doing a complete redesign. Whatever approach is best for the company, leaders must be intentional about all aspects of the workspace and how it can best be used.
At Innovative Party Planners, giving employees their own offices — each with a purple branded wall for a video-conferencing backdrop — has enabled them to communicate intimately with clients, Hiller said. Employees can use the lounge to meet with clients in person or to set up sample events, which has helped the organization attract business.
The lounge is also a collaborative space where employees can bounce ideas off each other, Hiller said. “We’re all independently working on projects at the same time, and we can learn from each other.”
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Not Sure How to Reconfigure the Office? Talk to Your Employees
Sure, you can use broad office design trends as a baseline, but understanding your people’s needs to create a space that works well for everyone ultimately gives you a better chance of success, Anderson said.
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He recommends holding focus groups or surveying employees to learn how they’re working, how that’s changed over the past few years, what’s working well and not-so-well about the current office setup and what they’d like to see changed.
“It gives a much clearer sense of how the facility needs to evolve, but it also takes a lot of risk away,” said Anderson, who also suggested getting employee feedback during the process of reworking the office.
“I've seen companies just look at the latest trend and do that without asking anyone, and they don't get positive results,” added Haines, who conducted community surveys of employees and an average commute time study before deciding on where to relocate. “We wanted to make sure that the locations we were looking at were going to offer an equitable commute for most of the employees.”
Hiller said she, too, consulted employees. She brought them along with her to view different offices and discuss how they would use the space before choosing the new location. She also created vision boards and talked through ideas about what everyone needed.
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Assess, Tweak, Repeat
Once a newly designed office is up and running, Haines says it's important to keep paying attention to how employees are naturally using it. FM:Systems, for instance, collects data on occupancy, security system check-ins, wi-fi triangulation and indoor air quality, which is displayed on a screen for everyone to see.
He said the company uses the data internally to understand how the new office is working for employees and what may need to be tweaked. The data is also shared with clients.
“We want to measure our ideas and our hypotheses because a lot of our clients are going through this transformation themselves,” he said.
To ensure the space continues to meet the needs of your workforce, continuously check in with employees about the space and recognize that you might need to continuously make adjustments, Haines said. “Don’t be afraid to change.”
