Search About Us Our Brands Our People Loved By News WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT POST COVID? 10/09/2020 During the enforced lockdown period, just like everyone else, Colart had to adjust working practices and things that would have seemed impossible before, have become common practice. As businesses start to go back to the office, we’ve been looking at what can be kept from this experience and bring in to the ‘normal’ ways of working. The start point was to ask the people. We surveyed the business and conducted focus groups to get a deeper understanding of what was working well and what was not. This helped to identify common needs to build a new normal that combined the benefits of the lockdown with the benefits of the old normal. What was common, and has been well documented in other views, was that no-one wanted to go back to 5 days per week in the office. Everyone is looking for a better mix, all for different reasons. Groups The research uncovered three distinct groups of people: People with Young children (Y6 School Children and under), those Living Alone and Couples living together or with older children (Y7 and up). Each group was coping differently with enforced home working and evidently had very different experiences. There were also some similarities with the main influence being that personal life and working life are shaping each other more than in the past with the ‘Office Clock’ disappearing. Other similarities include: They all like the extra time at home and want to keep this, to an extent. They all missed human interaction in the workplace so want to be in the office 1/2 days per week, albeit for different reasons. They all felt they had a good connection with their immediate team but missed the wider company family feeling gained by the spontaneous ‘Water Cooler’ moments. So what next? It’s become obvious that it’s more important than ever to connect people to keep the company culture alive. At Colart, we have worked hard to do this through open and regular communication and introducing new tools. This needs to be thought through a virtual lens and can be as simple as running clubs and cycling clubs that have no geographical boundaries but are connected via an app and exercise distance/time measurement (or even exercising at the same time to the same music). As the three different groups work in different ways, there is a need for more line managers tools to manage people remotely with collaboration, communication and connectivity featuring strongly and because people are having different experiences, mental health at the forefront of thinking. The office space is set to become a more collaborative workplace with the space outside of the office, such as homeworking becoming the space for concentration or quiet reflection. This agile and flexible working should improve not only productivity but also everyone’s work/life balance and satisfaction. POST NAVIGATION ← PREVIOUS LEAVE A REPLY Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment Name * Email * Website ARCHIVES September 2020 July 2020 June 2020 April 2020 February 2020 December 2019 October 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 Colart International Holdings Ltd. The Studio Building, 21 Evesham Street, London, W11 4AJ Our Story Our Brands News Careers