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A ‘final balance’? OBJ talks to employers who’ve successfully enticed workers back to office

October 11, 2023

Not everyone is scrambling to return to in-person work, but local employers in the architecture, engineering and construction have found more success than most getting employees out of their homes and back to the office.

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Work-from-home mandates have long since lifted, but it’s no secret that not everyone is scrambling to get back into the office. In April, a report from the Angus Reid Institute found that one-quarter of Canadian workers prefer working at the office all the time. More than half said they’d rather work from home more often than working on-site. But local employers, especially those in the architecture, engineering and construction services sectors, have found more success than most getting employees out of their homes and back to the office. So what’s the secret to a successful return? According to Bryan Weins, a principal at LWG Architectural Interiors, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. “There has to be a reason for people to go in,” he said. “I think part of it is cultural. Do they want to go in, do they want to work together? If I’m sitting at a desk coding all day, there’s not really any reason to go into the office. Why would I need to go in?” Weins’ firm designs workplace interiors in the Ottawa area. He said the pandemic cut their workload nearly in half as companies, including LWG, moved out of their offices and into the off-site, digital realm. But unlike other employers that have struggled to entice workers back to their desks, Weins said LWG’s return-to-office strategy required very little effort. “It was really simple,” he said. “We said, as soon as you’ve been vaccinated, we want you back. There was no discussion. Nobody said they didn’t want to come. Everybody just came back.” Part of the company's success, said Weins, came down to the nature of the work, which necessitates an in-person environment. “Our work goes from intense collaboration to intense heads-down work,” he said. “Doing that over a screen, it was possible but it wasn’t very efficient.” He added that, during the pandemic, “Our staff were efficient and their individual productivity was really good, but our corporate productivity was horrible. What we’re able to produce when we’re back together in the office versus when we were all work-from-home, it’s almost double.” But necessity alone isn’t enough to get employees excited about a return to in-person work. The real key to success, said Weins, was the company culture. According to Weins, the company had established itself as social and collaborative long before the pandemic. When employees were forced into their homes for two years, he said the 25-person team felt the acute loss of those characteristics and were eager to rediscover them. “We missed each other during our time working remotely,” said Weins. “Working from home, everybody was like, ‘I can’t wait to get back to the office.’ It’s the opposite of what we’re hearing a lot of organizations struggling with. They’re having a hard time bringing people back. We didn’t have that issue at all.” Consulting engineering firm Cleland Jardine saw similar enthusiasm during its return-to-office efforts, according to Brian Johnson, vice-president of structural engineering. “I think it’s up to leaders of these individual companies to give their staff a reason to want to be in the office, not just telling them to,” he said. “(It’s about) making them understand the value versus the value of working from home. There’s good and bad associated with both, but I think what really helped us was that we had a built-in corporate culture where we have internal camaraderie, internal social interaction, social functions and social spaces.” Aside from its boardrooms and kitchen, the company has maintained a fairly traditional office setup, with assigned cubicles for employees. After a year working out of improvised home offices, Johnson said the opportunity to get back to a desk has been a welcome change for many employees. “I think the value of that is it gives people a home away from home,” he said. “We have a space for everybody. I think that helps, being able to leave your home office and come to your place of work where you can feel like there’s a space for you.” While the office situation is similar to its pre-pandemic configuration, Johnson said the company has worked in more flexible policies to ensure working in the office doesn’t become more of a hassle than a convenience. “We want people here in the office, but if there’s a reason to work from home, we want to work with that,” he said. “And if you have been on a construction site downtown or had a doctor's appointment in Orléans, don’t drive all the way back to the office. Those kinds of accommodations have helped let people know it’s not just about being here, but about giving you the convenience.” He added, “It’s also about removing the former bias that many employers used to have about the inability for people to work from home. Everything is set up to make sure they can work from home. That’s the direction we’re heading.” Flexibility has also been key to the return-to-office strategy introduced by MARANT Construction, according to business development manager Jennifer Cross. “At MARANT, we are in the business of building workplaces and are committed to being a reflection of the great products we create,” said Cross in a statement. “We know that, as a team, we function at our best when we are together.” According to Cross, the company is back in the office in force four days a week, but with shortened work days and flexible start times. Fridays have also become half-days. The company has put more focus on wellness, introducing team wellness initiatives and increasing benefits packages to include unlimited mental health support for team members. These changes, she said, have paid off. “All these initiatives have been positively received and have contributed to our best year on record,” she said. “We have been very intentional with our team to create a culture of innovation, collaboration and agility. As the world changes around us, our team is connected to a bigger vision and mission fuelled by the desire to make an impact on the future of the office-built environment.” Office design adapting to new needs As in-office work situations shift, some employers are making significant changes, according to Warren Wilkinson, managing director of the brokerage division of real estate firm Colliers’s Ottawa office. “It continues to happen as leases roll over and employers look at how they want to run their operations,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll choose to downsize. Sometimes they stay the same size, but reconfigure how they operate.” Colliers itself moved offices in May 2022 in response to a workplace solutions survey of its team. The new space moved away from the traditional cubicle format, but also didn’t go to the open-office concept that was popular prior to the pandemic. “Now we have a lot more offices, a lot more boardrooms and a lot more call rooms,” he said. The new downtown location provides other added perks. “Not only did we reward our team by changing our office space – more collaboration area, more private areas to work – we also have connectivity, which helps us reduce our footprint and provide access to the LRT and amenities here.” Weins has also noticed that employers are redesigning their workplaces in an effort to adapt to hybrid work models and other changing needs. According to Weins, most employers returning to the offices are trying to strike a balance between open spaces and high-tech meeting rooms ripe for collaboration, and closed-off work stations suited for focused, independent work. “We’re starting to think differently about what we provide to people,” he said. “We’re trying to meet a whole bunch of different needs in the office space. It’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all model.” With that in mind, Weins said that the focus has shifted to creating modular office spaces that can be adapted for different uses. That includes more moveable furniture, up-to-date tech and flexible architectural design. “Obviously, we have a vested interest in designing offices because that’s our livelihood,” said Weins. “We want to create useful spaces for people. I think there is a reason to have an office. It will serve an important function but it hasn’t settled in the middle yet of what that should be. It might take a number of years. But that’s why I say flexibility is so important. We don’t know what the final balance will be.”