Evolving Workspaces and the New Normal

The Global Covid-19 Pandemic has brought in with it, new protocols, new safety measures, new patterns of behavioural changes and an array of unlearning and rethinking in terms of Design And Planning. Aludecor presents The Post Lockdown Roadmap to Design & Planning, where we delve deeper into the New Normal and its different facets. It is a Four Chapter Insight Series that brings in elevated perspectives of the Industry Leaders and their subjective views on Design & Planning in the Post Lockdown Situation.

Chapter IV “Evolving Workspaces and the New Normal” unfolds with our eminent Panellists Ar. Kshitij Limaye (Executive Director, Sankalpan),  Mr. Dinesh Wadehra (Managing Director, India -Property & Asset Management, Jones Lang LaSalle) & Mr. Ameya Gumaste (Country Manager, India Turner & Townsend).

“What are the underlying principles of workplaces evolving after the lockdown eases?”

Kshitij Limaye: We have come a long way in about the last 100 years when organized office space looked and meant very boring, rigid, paper work-based, working in a silo, with technologies like typewriters to rotating dial phones. From there, technology has evolved to make us how we work today. Offices today is a mind-blowing revolution in terms of workspaces. Whatever people were contemplating on using before have been put to the test for the appetite for the change. I see this COVID scenario as a sort of a portal which has brought in a new transition. The solution will lie somewhere in creating a new balance, and it will be exciting, I feel. Any kind of disaster situation has been the cause of many new innovations, whether the Space Race or the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. We are definitely at the crux of some exciting innovations, and it’s giving us a chance to identify what has not worked.

Read also: New Safety Protocols for the Workspace and the Residence

All this while a lot of organizations were working on a designation form of approach. The amenities and allocations were mainly designation driven. Now I guess the spaces will be allocated more on work profile-based. Amenities will differ from people to people. People under heavy travel or out on the field will not require a dedicated work station. Also, it will depend on team proportions of who all need to attend and who all can work from home. So these kinds of decision making will be largely based on identifying the efficacies of the productiveness by dividing people in terms of work from home as well as work from the office. It’s not going to be one size to fit all kind of solution. The diversity or the culture of each organization will impact the solution.  

“What are the changes you are foreseeing in workspace policies post the lockdown?”

Ameya Gumaste: We have been approached by some clients about drafting some guidelines for them. There will be a bit of partial homeworking. Wellness and hygiene will become an important factor. Social distancing will stay for some more time for sure until the vaccine arrives. Conducting business and meetings will not be ad-hock like before. A little more planning, systemized approach, more discipline and some more protocol will be planned. 

“How will changes being planned at workplace scenario affect the property and asset management business?”

Dinesh Wadehra: No one was prepared for this, and everybody was caught off guard due to this situation, and there were different degrees of impact. The three primary asset segment as in, Commercial, Residential and Retail, Commercial saw a sudden fall in operations when the first lockdown was announced. All the firms activated their BCP with immediate effect. For Retail, the operations came to a grinding halt within hours. There were only 10% to 15% of the services were being operational, which was not much from a BCP perspective also. Residential was 180 degrees opposite. The load on the infrastructure increased overnight as everybody was confined to their homes. So the workforce reduced, and workload increased. So soon, the modes of operations were devised, and services were also streamlined to manage the situation for the last two months.

Read also: Design and Behavioural Changes and the Workplace Comfort

For a long time scenario in property management, more and more owners, landlords and investors came forward to engage professional firms having experience in managing such a crisis. So the service delivery models of the traditional property and asset management will pave the way for technology-enabled leaner models of service delivery. So this kind of business will get a further boost in terms of business in the form of service increase.

“Property management organizations plan for all kind of natural disasters. Should owners and the organizations make plans now for such pandemic contingencies?”

Ameya Gumaste: Right now being still inside the pandemic, I would say whatever people are listening to are a bit reactive because the vaccine has not come out. Forty years back, when the polio vaccine was not out, we all were taken to hospitals for the vaccine dose. Today India doesn’t have a polio case. So drastically things will change back to normal once the vaccine is out. But in the short and mid-term stages, companies will do a lot of wellness planning for their employees. Some investment in essential amenities needs to be planned to make the end-users and tenants to feel safe inside the premises.

“What are the new technologies which are coming up during the situation?”

Kshitij Limaye: The conventional way of collating a program together will definitely be replaced by an analysis that will come out from a big data or the data which is due to the insights of the larger audience or larger end-users which will help us to put this together in an interesting perspective. Manual designs can never be replaced by any artificial intelligence so the pencil will still remain the best friend to the designer. All the software of the tools of the trade which we are using today is available on the Cloud. They are enabled in a way that people can collaborate on real-time from multiple different locations. Software like Revit, parametric tools and similar tools on Auto Cad are helpful. The visualization part, VR is definitely in the play, not only the static VR but also an interactive VR which allows people to choose what they want to see. The promise lies in 3D printing with respect to construction.

Read also: The New Normal – Perspectives of the Retail, the Hospitality and the Residential Spaces

Dinesh Wadehra: To look into the future of buildings, four things are going to play a key role- one is sustainability, second is wellness, third is a human experience, and fourth is technology. Though technology has come up in a big way in the last few years, the adoption of the technology did not really match the anticipation we had. So this crisis will act as a catalyst to hasten the adoption, which was lacking until now. Building functionality perspective, I feel the touchless journey will be a big game-changer.

“The lockdown restrictions are currently a little eased. What kind of feedback are you receiving from occupiers to prepare for the opening of the lockdown?”

Dinesh Wadehra: Being cautious is the behaviour pattern the occupiers and tenants are putting up. Foremost factors in the mind are health and safety. Generating confidence is the key to creating a safe zone for the occupiers to return with confidence. Further how it will be handled by end-users themselves is also important.

Ameya Gumaste: Toolbox talks at the site every morning to labours to motivate them and inform them about the do’s and don’ts as in health and safety are to be followed. Clicking elevator buttons need to give way to touchless experience. Micro steps need to be implemented and adopted.

Kshitij Limaye: The office spaces have somehow been taken for granted by some employees with the confidence that my workplace is always safe. One cannot see the physicality of what entails the effect and threat of Corona, which is largely unseen. You cannot totally trust the colleague sitting beside you now. The intuitive sense of safety has to be instilled in the employees to assure them that they are entering a safe zone.

Ameya Gumaste: There are a lot of practical problems which are currently being thought about. Everything all of a sudden cannot be replaced by technology, and labour cannot just go away. It has to co-exist. Next 6 to 9 months we will face the liquidity issue, with the amount you have with you currently, you would want to get your project done than to invest in some new technology. Let us create a balance and attend issues which are mandatory and at priority.

“Once the lockdown is lifted, all the clients will look at your team for guidance. Have you laid out the plans yet?”

Dinesh Wadehra: We have seen requests in fee and manpower reduction. Am sure it’s not limited to this Industry. The landlords are looking at various components of operating cost, including the management fee of the service provider. Our advice to our clients is that during this time or times like this indeed puts pressure on the costs, but at the same time it’s imperative to avoid temptations to look cost reduction whose contribution of total operative cost is minuscule because the adverse impact of the reduction is disproportionately higher than the saving you achieve. So, on the contrary, this is the time to maintaining the asset. The ramifications in the drop of service delivery, leading to the possibility of an incident put much larger pressure on the quality and credibility of the asset. But yes, we have looked and worked at various alternatives to look at whatever savings possible at this time for our clients.

“Some organizations have started issuing restarting manuals to guide the workers back to the office. How do you think it will impact the Industry?”

Ameya Gumaste: Apart from staggering work timings, the do’s and don’ts of cafeteria mannerisms, apart from that, there will be an impact on project durations. The durations will elongate because you will have to work in double shifts to get the product back to where it was in a single shift. There will also be a cost impact. There are claims today of COVID disruptions for two months, but many contractors are putting a bigger claim of how much they will have to invest in labour colonies for facilities to bring them to work with confidence and ease. So commercial angle, people angle and time angle all are working in it.

“What new kind of building materials will get attention from the Architects?”

Kshitij Limaye: Materials selection will now be based on sustainability, maintenance, safety and related issues, it has to come inherent from a design standpoint, so we as architects have to be empathetic on these criteria. Non-porous materials, which doesn’t allow any sorts of biological changes or damages in terms of withstanding the regular touch of the people, humidity, long non-functional working days, there should not be some kind of fungal growth which people might contract. Usage of laminates will rise, wood or untreated wood usage to go down, steel and aluminium are definitely here to stay.

“How will the Non-availability of labourers impact the Industry?”

Ameya Gumaste: There will be a disruption of construction labour because the migrants have moved away. And then Mumbai is setting into the monsoon season so that will be an additional 3 to 6 months’ delay. There could still be a deficit as some of the migrants who have gone back might have found some alternative employment as local and state government are trying to create local employment. So a construction project worker can shift to a road project or dam construction project. This will be a residual risk that will continue to go on. So henceforth labour welfare and retention plans will have to be worked out from the beginning.

Kshitij Limaye: Labour welfare planning will be important as most of the current emotions going around is of let down by the cities they had migrated to work. The way we treat our labours in terms of facilities, well- being, medical and related amenities need to be looked into.