Greg is Knight Frank Town Planning’s Town Planner having recently completed his post-graduate qualification in urban and regional planning and is a qualified teacher. He has been involved in a wide variety of statutory and strategic projects, undertaking background research, preparing submissions, reviewing strategic documents, preparing development applications and presenting geographic information. Greg has a strong interest in strategic planning, sustainability and place making.

Workforce and workplace dynamics have been consistently changing and trends have adapted to new technologies and office strategies since the turn of the century. As millennials have entered the workforce, employers have needed to adapt to the new generation shifting their thinking regarding where, when and how employees work.

“These shifts are growing not only due to technological advances, but also due to the growing understanding that in order for employees to be more productive, they need to be happier and more satisfied” (Kropp, 2019). The aim of this post is to better understand how these trends have influenced the workforce and workplace and determine how planning for future developments can accommodate these changing work patterns.

COVID-19 has undoubtedly been one of the most significant global events to occur in the 21st Century and has caused the largest shift in work practices in recent history, forcing companies to be nimble and agile, creating efficient work from anywhere systems. A Gartner survey analysis reveals that post-pandemic, 41 percent of employees are likely to work remotely at least some of the time (HR Asia, 2020). How such a large portion of the working population continues to work from home is the next question.

IWG country head Damien Sheehan states “a hybrid model that incorporates elements of the head office plus multiple smaller private, flexible offices across decentralised suburban locations” are a more agile option for companies moving forward. The creation of smaller, accessible and localised working spaces will provide the workforce with those features of a working office environment and could further boost community wellbeing and sustainability.

This could also provide benefits for innovation and cross-pollination of ideas between sectors that usually would not mix in a traditional office environment. Providing new solutions to cater for changing workforce dynamics and provide local space for people to utilise will allow employers and employees the opportunity to create a virtual or physical environment and network that works best for their personalised situations.

The Greater Sydney Commission as part of the Metropolis of Three Cities Strategy is aiming to create 30-minute cities with multiple nodes within the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area. Hub and Spoke models of businesses with smaller offices located closer to where people live in these ‘spokes’ in smaller strategic centres and local centres will be a viable way forward in the future. Locating the right locations close to where employees live will be an important step in achieving a 30-minute city within Sydney.

Living within walking distance to a workplace whether it be a formalised spoke space or a shared co-worker space close to home will be an important feature for employees wishing to maintain the flexibility they had during the time working from home in 2020, as well as providing many lifestyle and health benefits.

Possible Futures

There is no doubt that the future of the workplace has forever been changed by the pandemic. Creating new, different and safe workplaces for the workforce is still yet to be determined but a variety of ‘possibilities’ have been found to be the most likely. As mentioned previously, flexibility depending on specific employee and employer needs and benefits will continue into the future including specific responses to individual needs.

Deloitte’s March 2020 paper Future of Work: Ways of Working in Uncertain Times concluded that the workplace beyond 2020 will:

• Blend the physical and virtual environments and will deliver a consistent employer identity to all types of employees, contractors and other stakeholders.

• Provide personalized experiences that will empower people to be their best, balanced selves.

• Utilise collaboration tools and platforms that will support dynamic work locations and collaboration.

The offer of flexible work arrangements by employers represents more than just a response to the pandemic, but also represents a broader acceptance of flexible arrangements as the preferred method of working in the future. One possible solution for this is for new developments to incorporate a co-working space within a residential neighbourhood in new projects incorporating such a feature at the design stage underpinned by strata plans.

“Offering coworking spaces as an added feature in residential or mixed-use developments is definitely a timely notion. Many people are finding it difficult to work purely from home due to distractions and space/ infrastructure constraints” (The Daily Guardian, October 2020).

Integrating co-working spaces in residential developments represents a significant opportunity for developers to re-think the amenity mix, improve its relevance to purchaser’s post-pandemic and contribute to neighbourhood building and activation during for longer periods during the day and night. This goes hand-in-hand with allowing the workforce to choose where they would like to work in the future, allowing businesses and companies to seek flexible spaces and options as a means of future-proofing their business strategy and adapting to the changing needs of employees (Property Council of Australia, 2020). Keeping people within a precinct provides benefits and synergies to more sectors, including the commercial and retail footprints within such neighbourhoods.

There is also justification for the replacement of other amenity in high rise projects such as gyms and pools accounting for better use as worker or co-working space. “A 260 square metre space originally earmarked for a gym could accommodate up to 132 people per week if repurposed for apartment co-working. This is equivalent of about one full-time worker or three part-time workers per five square metres. It is worth questioning whether the gym—or any other amenity—would have the same rate of utilisation and engagement” (Huynh, Matkovic and Du, October 2020).

Workplace and workforce dynamics were considerably affected and changed in 2020 and will have a significant long lasting effect on the future. Changes have been seen in how employees approach work itself, productivity levels, a reimagined workplace and accessibility. The Work from Anywhere future of the workforce for a majority of businesses will cause a major reconfiguration of business strategy to create agility to cope with rapid change.