Finding Common Ground in the Return to the Office
The debate about how and where we work as we learn to live with COVID seems to rumble on.
Personally, I’ve enjoyed coming back into the office as much as possible. I started coming in at least 2-3 days a week from the start of summer last year. Far from seeing the commute as dead time, I’ve found it helpful as a means of carving out time for reading and writing. Getting back out onto public transport and into the places and spaces where our client’s brands actually meet their audience was refreshing after 12 months of relative isolation.
The consensus seems to be that offices will become a space for collaboration and communication, whilst home working will create the space for deep, focussed work.
During lockdown, the agency moved offices. We left behind Fitzrovia, saying goodbye to a charming Victorian Telephone exchange with a low-level vermin infestation and said hello to a modern, serviced office block situated between Southwark and London Bridge Tube stations.
Initially, I was incredibly sad to relocate away from Fitzrovia. I have spent the better part of my career in and around this area and feel like I know it’s nooks and crannies particularly well. The streets, shops, pubs, restaurants and the routes between them are indelibly printed in my brain.
As I have explored the area around the new office, I have been reminded of just how reliant I have always been on collaborative spaces in close proximity to the office, rather than in the office itself. In every job I’ve done, I have lent heavily on spaces near the office when working on projects individually or in collaboration with others - these places have broadly been characterised by a consistent set of traits:
Within a 5-10 minute walk of the office
Not expensive to either enter or buy from
Ideally serve food as well as drink
Provide tables or spaces for small groups (1-3 people) to work together or discuss things
High traffic/high footfall, with mixed and varied clientele, not just media and advertising folk - has ‘people watching’ potential
Wi-fi not neccessary.
I’ve used these spaces variously: when Ive had to crack a challenging brief, when I’ve wanted to kick the tyres on work in development, when I’ve wanted to gossip with colleagues, when I’ve needed cheering up, when I’ve had to have difficult conversations, when I’ve needed inspiration…. These places have provided an alternative, productive environment to the spaces that my actual office can provide. They are freely available when inevitably the meeting rooms are fully booked.
Sociologist Ray Oldenberg called these types of environments ‘Third Places’. Places which are detached from home '(the first place) and work (the second place). His view is that these are places are central to building effective, productive communities. They help foster broader, more creatively fertile conversations between members of a specific community, providing groups with an anchor to their environment. He attributed eight different characteristics to these places - characteristics not altogether dissimilar from those listed above.
Some of the places I’ve relied on as ‘third places’ during my career are depicted below.
In our new office, I have taken to leaning heavily on the Tate Modern. It offers a wide range of different spaces across it’s two buildings. There is a cafe. There are various seating areas. There is a really good shop that sells a wide range of books, magazines and pamphlets. There is the Turbine Hall, which this week has been home to a live installation. And then there is the galleries themselves, which are organised in a series of loops. I have managed to identify a journey from my desk to the Tate and back which takes about 35 minutes - the perfect duration for a walking meeting with a colleague and one which offers far more inspiration than a standard chat in a meeting room. I feel very fortunate to have building so close.
Debate and discussion about working practices post-lockdown seems to be limited to a brutal, binary comparison . Like many other topics, we seem to have been able to find ways of steamrolling the nuance and shades of grey out of the discussion, preferring instead to pit perceived benefits of “the office” against the benefits of “WFH”.
As with so many topics of discussion in our industry, the answer invariably is an “and”, rather than an “or”.
Third Places represent a powerful option for agency and team leaders as they begin to structure return to work policies - a classification of spaces which are conceived of as a bridge between the warmth and security of the home and the ‘productive, professional’ environment of the office. The best agencies and businesses I have worked for have operated not just as effective commercial operations but like communities; layers and layers of different networks of people, organised primarily around a common goal but also free to explore secondary and tertiary goals too. These spaces, should the research be believed, help people behave and act more creatively - they represent neutral territory where people can ask different questions of themselves and their colleagues. Where people might think and speak differently. I have certainly always found them beneficial myself. Leaders of agencies and teams alike should be thinking how these potent environments can be incorporated into working practices as we ask people to begin their return. What facilities do you have near by? What kind of tasks might they particularly well suited to?
Being back at the office shouldnt mean people are chained to their desks. The office can offer value by virtue of it’s proximity to other cool, inspirational stuff: I certainly don’t have the good fortune to live a stones throw from a major international Art Centre, for instance. How might we think about using access to these resources as part of a broader plan to make office working a desirable alternative to the perceived 'advantages’ of remote, home working?
The first few months of a more hybrid approach to work represent a unique opportunity to instil new and desirable habits - habits which could last a generation. COVID, for all the trouble it caused, has provided us with an opportunity to question everything - including how we consider ‘third places’ as part of our corporate environment. The opportunity is to start with the desired outcome (a happier, more productive workforce) and work from there, not just sleep walk back into the ‘old way’.
The Regency Cafe in Pimlico. Formica tables, Boxing paraphanalia, Pint bottles of Orange Juice and a Baritone voice behind the counter…. Patronised by a mix of Civil Servants, Builders and TV execs.
Somerset House on The Strand. Coffee, The Courthauld, rotating exhibitions and events.
Icco on the corner of Goodge Street and Charlotte Street. Cheap Pizza - which is basically the best planning food, as we all know. Buzzers. Tourists, Students and Deliveroo Drivers. The home of The Planning Pizza, mainly with Matt.
