Flex office makes it easier for employees to return to the office

For several months now, the world of work has been in a state of flux. Companies are facing new challenges, with a greater focus on employee well-being and safety.

Still relatively undeveloped in France before 2020, the home office has clearly become part of our daily lives since the start of the health crisis. Managers have also changed the way they manage, becoming more flexible and more attentive to the needs of their staff. This is also reflected in increased flexibility within the buildings themselves.

In order to optimise the use of workspace and enhance the employee experience, many large companies are turning to a more flexible organisation, known as a flex office. Even if this need was already present before 2020, the crisis has greatly accelerated this change, which is now a priority for many companies.

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What is a flex office?

The flex office is the absence of a dedicated office in the workplace. So, every morning, employees start their working day in the space best suited to their tasks for the day. This could be :

• on company premises
• in a third place such as a coworking space,
• or at home, in a home office.

The flex office is a flexible way of organising work par excellence, with many advantages for managers and employees alike. It is based on one fundamental element: the needs of employees.

Employees may have different needs in terms of workplaces, depending on their missions, their schedules and their personal lives.

The personal aspect is taken into account to a great extent in companies that implement flex office. Employees can enjoy a better balance between their professional and personal lives. This balance is very important in terms of well-being at work. As a result, employees are :

• feel more fulfilled
• more involved
• and more effective in their work.

This is the objective of every manager: to make employees happy at work while maximising their efficiency. To achieve this, the flex office is the ideal organisation.

A hybrid work environment to adapt to employees' needs

As we saw earlier, the flex office offers employees a hybrid working environment that adapts perfectly to their needs. They can work regularly on site, from home, in the home office or in coworking spaces, to achieve the best possible work-life balance.

A more accessible home office

With flexible working arrangements, the home office is easy to set up and is within easy reach of employees. Depending on the terms and conditions defined by management, they can easily choose to work one or more days a week from home.

A home office employee is generally more efficient in his or her work. According to statistics from the Institut Sapiens, widespread teleworking has boosted employee productivity by 22% by 2020. Of course, this requires the creation of a suitable environment, with no potential distractions. With this atmosphere conducive to work, employees will see their productivity increase.

The coworking alternative

The concept of coworking spaces was born out of the need for self-employed workers and entrepreneurs to work together in a stimulating, friendly space, without competition or hierarchy. So working alone is no longer synonymous with loneliness and isolation.

In a flex office organisation, coworking spaces are a great alternative to the home office. This way of working allows you to change your environment, to discover a new one, different from the usual office and which, generally speaking, is conducive to productivity.

Coworking goes hand in hand with a collaborative and social spirit: there are constant exchanges between people of different ages, experience and backgrounds. Working in a coworking space also means increasing your chances of developing your network, getting to know future partners and, who knows, potential customers?

Manage internal flows with flex office

The flex office is a highly effective way of limiting health risks in the office. Today, many techniques exist within flexible organisations. In the long term, implementing these measures to manage incoming flows could mean a quicker and easier return to the office.

Limiting access to the office for a gradual return

There will probably be no miracle: the return to the office will be a gradual process. The first thing to do to manage the flow of people into buildings is to set limits.

In large companies, it may be worth limiting access to certain floors, imposing maximum proportions in order to respect social distance as much as possible. For example, many companies impose a maximum occupancy rate of 40% per floor.

In the case of shared workspaces, it is possible to close one workstation in two and thus maintain a gap to limit contact between employees.

During the initial lockdown, many people felt isolated and not sufficiently supported when teleworking. This flexible organisation makes it possible to deal with this exclusion by helping employees to gradually return to the office and thus maintain a social link.

A global vision of your buildings' occupancy

It's a fact that the flex office optimises the use of workspace. As with any strategic change within a company, it is vital to measure its impact.

As part of precise flow management, it is also essential to set limits in terms of occupancy, which will then need to be analysed. The flex office must therefore be measured, so as to avoid, for example, all employees coming into the office on the same day.

Although this situation seems unlikely, it is possible and must be managed. Global visibility of all home office bookings and declarations is therefore necessary to manage flows easily.

Facilitating team collaboration

Even if many employees are teleworking, it is very important to maintain a social link between everyone.

This can be achieved through :

• being on site one or two days a week,
• or by providing access to coworking spaces and other third places.

In this way, employees can work away from the company's premises in ideal conditions that are both safe and productive.

Employees are the very essence of a company, and ensuring their well-being and fulfilment is of paramount importance, especially in these difficult times.

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How do you set up a flex office?

Setting up a flex office requires a number of prerequisites. For it to be effective, the organisation must be prepared in advance. This applies to both the company's premises and its employees.

Steps to take

The first step is to subtly adapt the premises so that they are perfectly suited to the transition to a flex office. Remember to provide :

• sufficient meeting rooms,
• phone boxes for meetings
• creative spaces,
• or open spaces.

The diversity of your spaces will be the strength of your building!

It's also important to educate your employees. Many of them have their own habits and appreciate having their own personal space. That's why it's important to be kind to these people, by explaining the reasons for the move to a flex office in concrete terms, and above all to take their comments into account.

Finally, the switch to flex office will be more efficient and faster if you use a specific tool. Getting professional support is the best way to make the changeover a success. At MOFFI, we are currently helping more than 40 companies to introduce flex office working in their buildings.

With which tools?

MOFFI is a complete flex office tool. We make it easy for companies to manage and optimise their workspaces.

Using our web and mobile solution, employees can :

• book a place in a shared workspace or a meeting room in their building(s) quickly and easily,
• book a home office day easily.

Companies can easily manage internal workflows and improve the experience of employees on or off site.

Easy to use, our solution can be synchronised with a wide range of tools, for an ever more complete experience. Today, you can link MOFFI to Slack, Google Workspace, Teams, Office 360 and all your other favourite tools. These digital tools have become part of our daily lives, enabling us to communicate easily with all our colleagues. With a view to flexibility, integrating them with MOFFI is an extremely useful way of centralising all your communications.

Work organisations are changing all the time, and there's no end in sight! Companies are faced with new issues in which the very principle of the individual office is being called into question. Is the flex office the future of work? Only time will tell, but at MOFFI... we're convinced.

We set up MOFFI in 2015 with my brother, who is also my partner. Our desire was to make workspaces accessible to all employees, everywhere and above all, all the time. So we created MOFFI, a contraction of Mobile Office, to facilitate access to 4 types of location:

• The company building (office, shared space, meeting room)
• Company branches and subsidiaries
• The home office and absences
• Third-party spaces (coworking, hotels, business centres)