The future of working will be at home—and at the office

Working "in two places at once is difficult" says Matthew Lock and Simon Pole, founder and global design director of Unispace.

Good morning.

This is Future of the Office week at CEO Daily. After Monday’s conversation with the co-CEOs of Gensler, I talked yesterday with Matthew Lock and Simon Pole, founder and global design director of Unispace. Like the Gensler gang, they are working with companies to reimagine the workplace for the post-COVID world. “There is dramatically increased market activity, rethinking space, rethinking everything,” says Lock. “Anyone who is taking space or looking at a lease expiration is looking at a major redesign.”

Pole says that while work-from-home fatigue is setting in, the “cat is out of the bag on choice and flexibility. It’s going to be demanded.” Unispace predicts the percentage of office workers who want to work from home at least three days a week will settle at around 40% in January of 2022. That’s up from pre-pandemic levels of 21% in Europe, 19% in APAC and 12% in the U.S. And with much of the “focus” work being done at home, the new office will increasingly be a place for “collaboration,” “social,” and “learning.”

One challenge they foresee is creating ways for people at home and office to work together. “There is a lot of trepidation around managing distributed teams,” said Pole. “Managers were happy when everyone was in the office, they were happy when everyone was home. But in two places at once is difficult.” The firm is creating what they call video “wormholes” to better connect workers at the office with those elsewhere.

Meanwhile, since it’s Friday, some feedback:

BW wrote in to ask about the Deloitte survey: “Who are the 2% of CFOs who believe the stock markets are undervalued? I want to make sure I don’t own those stocks.”

JN wrote: “I keep seeing (your) writings about the importance of stakeholder capitalism. But nothing concrete is happening besides loud statements.” He proposes companies commit to giving shares worth 1% of their market value to employees each year.

And RG wrote: “By themselves, America’s largest companies cannot solve the burning issues of today. BUT they can innovate within their ecosystem, they can impact their communities, and they can influence the federal government to move in the best interests of the country and the globe.”

More news below. And kudos to PwC U.S. for its unusual disclosure of diversity statistics to its employees and the public. This should become the norm. What gets measured gets managed.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com