Anyone who has read The Goal by by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, will get the punch line of this blog, anyone who hasn’t I’m sure will be able to relate to it .. let’s see.

One of the bot topic of conversations last year must have been, where and how will we all work in 2021?

Will we stay working from home?

Will we be back in the office?

What does flexible mean?

How will “days in the office” work?

Everyone I talk to believes it’s going to be different. It’s not going to be the same. We are going to have to adopt a new way of working.

Having spent decades in the world of being office based we all understood

* home was home and work was work

* unless we wanted focus time or were out on client sites we were in the office 5 days a week.

* we brainstormed around white boards, post it notes were everywhere, coffee stations hummed with conversation and corridor banter could be heard

* we had open plan offices where we could all see and often hear one another picking up on the mood of the team and could see how busy people looked

*’the offices had become more colloborative over the years with hot desking and comfy chairs recognising that people benefited from some form of variety in how and where they worked in the office

We have now spent nearly a year working from home. Some love it, some hate it, some remain unsure. And we have learned to adapt to the

* life without the commute

* being remote but being connected by being “in the room” or at least “on camera”

* juggling our day with home life distractions

We have adapted and in many cases are continually praised for how we have adapted and changed (temporarily how we have worked)

Having experienced (probably) the most unplanned Big Bang implementation of our working life’s, we are about to go through a phased return to the office.

However this will again be a new way of working – it will not be the same – it will be different – having spent decades with incremental changes to our ways of working we will in effect be going through another shift in the way that we work as we return to the office.

How much will the next wave involve

* addressing personal preferences in the way that we work

* learning how to use the technology to bring the “remote” and “in office” workers online to continue to work together.

* finding new ways to build relationships as the spontaneous moments at the coffee cooler, having lunch together and bumping into people the car park are over.

It’s going to be a whole new era of work. Organisations are

* publicising their flexible working policies

* investing in collaborative tech

* reconfiguring the office

How many organisations are looking to going “back to the new office” as discovery sprints, testing the prototype and scaling with insight?

How many organisations have designed every inch of the new office with “assumptive” requirements of what people will want and how they will work ?

How many organisations are investing in supporting the “back to the office” with floor walkers, virtual facilitators and engaging comms?

There are significant benefits both personal and organisational that will come from getting this right – investing in the people side of “going back” not just the “tech” and “facilities side” will be key.

Yes there will be those in your business who will adapt as early adopters there will be others traditionally known as laggards that will need more support.

Being inclusive means helping the early adopters fly and the laggards walk in the direction of the new normal.

You won’t regret investing in the human discovery, test and tweak phase – my money is on you will regret not investing in it.

Where do you sit with your current plans