Workplace Strategy for Hybrid Working

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The Future Workplace in 2023 


How should culture, technology and the face-to-face workplace fit together in a changed world? Our experts share concise “how to” advice for getting these right for your people and your vision for high performance.

Your future workplace

The pandemic has dramatically disrupted how we work. We may have thought it was temporary disruption, where we make a few adjustments, and all will eventually return to normal. It’s not turned out that way.

How do you create a plan for the new workplace and ways of working? A good plan is more than nominating a number of days in the office.

This is not a good time for playing ‘wait and see’. Simply exhorting staff to ‘come back’ may fall flat if the office experience is a ghost town.

Right now each organisation needs a plan that re-aligns workspace, technology and ways of working with organisational purpose, employee experience & culture.

The plan needs, at least, to work within budget parameters, and perhaps even include cost reductions in the event that property can be consolidated.

Questions organisations should be considering to shape a successful hybrid workplace strategy

  • Should we be downsizing our office now or will people eventually return in force?
  • Are your team members working at home without the workspace provision they need to adequately fulfill their role? And what’s the action plan if they don’t?
  • How do you effectively collaborate over Teams or Zoom, is it even possible?
  • Is your office space busy in some areas and completely empty in others? Do people want to collaborate but find that half the people they want to see aren’t in the office at the same time?
  • What is the best approach for your specific business: remote first, hub and spoke, office-first, or a blended operating model? And how can you figure it out?

How we increased employee experience scores by 20% and saved millions of dollars

These questions aren’t actually new, and prior to COVID we worked through them with over 75 organisations who were already ready to tackle them for reasons other than the disruption caused by the pandemic.

Our recent case study of a $20 million saving over 10 years is not uncommon.

Ultimately the way we achieve this is through a mapping process that:

  • starts with sensitivity to the overall business strategy and purpose
  • uncovers the most powerful ‘moments that matter’ to staff
  • differentiates where needed between the staff ’personas’ – differing roles have differing work styles and needs
  • identifies just the right ‘enablers’ to bring organisational success and individual productivity together.

Introducing Touchline

The research and recommendations model we use, called ‘Touchline’, leaves you with:

Hard data from our analytical tools so you know you’re not guessing, consistent with worldwide research carried out since the pandemic.

A set of ‘signature stories’ demonstrating your future state that staff and leaders can endorse and be inspired by actions for the design of your space, technology, and change management that are ready to go and budgeted within your constraints.

Clearly articulated answers to all the big questions about workplace culture, workplace EVP, talent retention, etc.

Our Workplace Strategy Team

We’re a passionate team who believe that the right workplace direction is one that is personalised to the organisation and its people. Our first instinct is to ‘tune in’ to what is special and distinctive about where you’ve come from and where you’re heading – this is why our solutions are successful. The moment we love most is when a picture of the future come into ‘shared focus’ in such a way that leaders say ‘yes!’.
Steve Collis
HEAD OF WORKPLACE STRATEGY
Steve’s light bulb moment was on Day 1 of being a High School teacher. It struck him how deeply our environments – and the assumptions that come with them - shape how we think, feel and behave. This insight led to a blur of teaching awards, international keynotes, academic publishing and leadership roles. On 2016 he joined the commercial world, focusing on organisational culture and flexibility. An expert in hybrid work set ups, Steve mixes inspiring facilitation, data, and diplomacy to find the right answers to the big questions about the future workplace, ways of working and the human experience.
Lisa Justice
SENIOR WORKPLACE STRATEGIST
Lisa has spent over 15 years researching and strategising around the lived experience of teams and the impact of the built environment on the employee and client experience. Her particular passion is workplace wellbeing, which she sees a foundation for other strategic imperatives such as productivity or the embrace of collaboration. Lisa is as comfortable facilitating C-Suite strategy conversations as she is connecting one on one with staff on the ground. Take the two together and you have Lisa’s perfect recipe: a vision for a workplace that is both transformational and instantly credible at the front lines.

Our Top Resources For Hybrid Working

Hybrid Office 'How To'
Right now, every business is having to chart its own approach to new ways of working and the purpose of an office space.
How Much Office Space Do You Need?
Office space needs have radically shifted. We can show you how to calculate the exact right size office for hybrid working.
Intro to ChatGPT for Workplace Change Leaders
A live demo of Artificial Intelligence Chatbot, ChatGPT to explore its relevance for leaders of workplace change.
How To Make Your Workplace Great Again
3 strategies we use to save millions of dollars in office space and increase employee experience scores by 20%.
Free Office Space Calculator
Use a calculator to get a quick idea of how much office space you need and your potential savings.
'Rethinking The Workplace' Book
Get a free copy of our book Touchline. Our proprietary blueprint for setting the future of your workplace environment.
M&C Saatchi Case Study
Learn how we helped M&C Saatchi save $20 million in property costs.

Workplace experts since 2005

office help pod design

Over the years, the Workplace Strategy team at Amicus has assisted organisations of every size, shape and industry to establish workplace environments that bring out the very best in their people. In many instances, our clients have won awards for projects that we were proud to support with strategic visioning and change advice.

For our team, the issues COVID has brought to the surface are nothing new. For many years prior to the pandemic, we helped our clients successfully deploy high flex ways of working matched with a smaller office footprint and enhanced use of technology. This is simply a great idea whose time has now come.

And our secret sauce? More than anything we know how to build a shared picture of the future that everyone can say yes to. The picture frame consists of well choreographed physical spaces (home, office, other), technologies, and ways of working. And the picture itself… is all about the people!

Exploring Amicus
  • Workplace Design and Construction
    Our in-house Design team create innovative design solutions to solve and meet your challenges. We’ll be your advisor and companion through the delivery of your entire project journey and workspace transformation.
    Learn more
  • Workplace Strategy
    We help our clients determine the optimal work space for hybrid working and attract staff back to the office. We provide a blueprint to create emotionally healthy, mentally resilient and high performing virtual or hybrid teams.
    Learn more
  • Technology and Furniture
    Our mission is to unite your modern physical space with the right, simple-to-use digital technology to create amazing human experiences and transform the way your people connect, collaborate and create.
    Learn more
  • Finance
    We work across a variety of industries and provide complete lifecycle finance solutions for our clients' workspace, their equipment, and tools, including strategy, design, sourcing, equipment, technology, construction and move management.
    Learn more

CLIENTS WE WORK WITH

A very interesting method to help leaders of a business to come together and work on the virtual, physical and culture challenges that impact people's engagement at work.
- Amy Childs, Momentum Energy
Touchline is a great tool to help break down the ‘what if’ out of any change strategy. I found this session to clear any confusion around moving forward with our upcoming projects.
- Lindsay Farquhar, Amway
Our company is going through a big change process. It's daunting, but today's session with Amicus and the practical tools they have presented gives me a lot of confidence and ideas for tackling the next step.
- Derek Sadubin, CAPA
Touchline is a practical and engaging tool to help businesses get to the heart of their challenges and create a proactive and collaborative approach for solving them.
- Leigh Meagher, Hydro Tasmania
THE FUTURE WORKPLACE NEWSLETTER

Short, Practical Guidance for the Changing Workplace