According to the latest panel discussion at SCMP’s (South China Morning Post) Melo Summit 2022, Bessie Lee, CEO of JLL in Greater China, was among the CEOs and fellows sharing their insights on the future of work with the students from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She pointed out that the global work mode is changing. 

Work mode will have permanent change   

She believes that hybrid working has become the most popular way of working today due to Covid 19. The reason is hybrid working allows employees to work flexibly, such as employees can decide the work remotely or work at a workplace as they want. Also, most global employees are used to this work pattern. The latest JJL “Workforce Preference Barometer” survey proves her thought is correct.  

More details about how to define the hybrid working model.

Research on employees’ feelings about hybrid working  

Ms. Lee said that JLL has conducted a survey to ask the workers about their feelings on implementing hybrid work. The survey interviewed 4,015 office workers across the world, 55% of the respondents are used to working at different places every week. This reflects that employees like to work flexibly.  

JLL research shows that the emergence of hybrid work mode not only provides employees with the option to work remotely, but also drives employers to address the needs of employees working in the office, such as providing more collaborative space to encourage coworker collaboration and wellness facilities. 

As the Hong Kong government eased lots of restrictions for Covid, 73% of the employees said that they went back office for work at least once a week since March 2022.

The goal is that the employees want to have more communication with other colleagues, it will make them work more closely and will enhance their productivity. Also, the employees need to use special equipment which equipment only be found in the office. 

JLL found that the result of the office implementing the new flexible work arrangement is appreciated by managers (75%), Gen Z (73%), Gen Y (69%), and caregivers (66%). These employees also thought that if employers implement hybrid work arrangements, it will as a sign of a flexible and empathetic employer. 

More details about why employees seek hybrid work. 

The advice from JLL’s experts   

Here are the advices given by JLL experts:

1. The JLL’s experts suggested that the mental well-being of an employee is very important. The reason is if the employees’ mental keeps in good wellbeing, the employee can provide good efficiency in working. 

2. The JLL’s experts found that if the companies require all the employees to go back to the office for work, it would raise significant risks in terms of the work remotely employees’ mental well-being, such as work stress. This will have a bad impact on the work efficiency of the work remotely employees because they cannot take control of their own workflow. 

3. The JLL’s experts thought that flexible work allows the employees mentally keep in good well-being, which they can choose the work location, work time, and workflow by themselves. Thus, flexible work allows the employees can work-life balanced and maintain their mental well-being. 

4. Although the employees who work flexibly are only 20% in the survey, JLL’s experts found that they have most engaged and enthusiastic in their work and suggested that it should have some other strategies to support the staff have high work efficiency when they need to go back to the office for work. A good suggestion is that the employer provides a flexible workspace. 

5. The JLL’s experts found that flexibility becomes a key lever to creating a more attractive workplace. They suggested that if companies want employees back to the offices, encouraging employees back to offices is not only about supporting flexibility, it should have some pragmatic initiatives to attract the employees back to the office for work, for example, free perks, social events, and stress management support…etc.  

6. Last but not least, the JLL’s experts recommended that employers should offer their employees inclusive work practices and amenities that enable a healthy work-life balance, also adopting work agility gradually, supported by dedicated health coaching and access to a relevant range of health and wellbeing amenities. 

Summary of the Survey 

At the end of the survey, JLL found that the responsible employer of the future will be the one that helps their hybrid workers to manage healthy boundaries between their professional and private lives, maintain their social connections and redefine their healthy routines and rituals.

This means JLL thought that the best future work mode should include flexibility, and the best future workspace should consider the mental well-being of employees, such as providing more collaborative spaces to encourage collaboration between colleagues and offering some free perks to encourage the workers to go back to the office for work.  

“When you have the right culture in the organization you don’t need to mandate a certain way of working. People will develop a commitment and accountability to the company – it doesn’t matter where they are, or the hours you set for them, they want to get the job done.” Bessie said. 

She explained that the key factor in how implementing hybrid flexibility is to take care of the feelings or welfare of the employees first, then the employees will do their best to answer your requirement proactively.

Therefore, the key point of Bassey’s meaning is that the best flexible work model in the future should be people-oriented. 

The best office system for your people-oriented workplace  

By using a suitable office management system, you can easily organize meetings and reorganize resources to achieve efficient use of company resources and office space, thereby better controlling operating costs. 

You can reserve the time, location, and frequency of the equipment you need. You can control your own workflow and check the resource reservation schedule at any time, preventing you from competing with others for resources at the same time. 

ONES is one of the famous all-in-one smart office systems that can help you to easily implement hybrid working at ease.  You can easily perform virtual meetings, desk-hoteling, and digital office management with our Room Booking, Desk Booking, and Visitor Management features.   

ONES Software now has a dedicated page to introduce a series of hybrid working measures to help you solve problems. You may wish to go to https://ones.software/hybrid-workspace/ for further reference.  

Contact us: hello@ones.software, or visit ONES Software official website for more information: https://ones.software/. 

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