Navigating Hybrid Work When Your Field is all about Place

Hybrid and remote work are now the norm across a wide range of industries, and while the shift was a long time coming, it was clearly accelerated by the pandemic. But what happens when you work in an industry where place is everything? At BWBR, we literally design spaces for people to connect and collaborate. How do we reconcile that with our own work policies? BWBR project manager and architect Jarett Anderson hosted a conversation with senior project manager Mallory Furlong and principal and operations director Stefnee Trzpuc to talk about it.

Hosted by: 
Jarett Anderson - BWBR - Project Manager

Guests:
Stefnee Trzpuc - BWBR - Principal and Operations Director
Mallory Furlong - BWBR - Senior Project Manager

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Siberian Summer by Sunny Fruit
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Transcript

Matthew Gerstner  00:10

This is Side of Design from BWBR, a podcast discussing all aspects of design with knowledge leaders from every part of the industry.

Jarett Anderson  00:19

Hello, everyone. I'm Jarrett Anderson, BWBR project manager and architect and your host for this episode. On this episode, we'll be talking about surviving and most importantly thriving as a hybrid organization, including some practical tips and tricks to make hybrid collaboration as effective and equitable as it can be. Here at BWBR We embrace a flexible hybrid work approach that we call Flex Forward that allows our employees to decide how they best do their work. The three flex options we'll be discussing are resident, hybrid, and distant, and we'll learn about that more in a minute. Joining us today to dive into some of the lessons learned so far in navigating this new normal at BWBR is Senior Project Manager Mallory Furlong, and principal and Operations Director Stefnee trespass. Hi, y'all. 

Mallory Furlong  01:11

Hello. 

Stefnee Trzpuc  01:11

Hello. 

Jarett Anderson  01:13

So Stef, what is Flex Forward?

Stefnee Trzpuc  01:17

Well, Flex Forward is our way of looking at hybrid work. And I think it's a really great question that a lot of organizations are focusing on right now as they look to their future. I would approach this question by first kind of stepping back and saying what is really hybrid? It can mean so many things. And it can mean different things to organizations and to individuals. When we look at that spectrum of full workstyles. There's a fully on site work on one end, and there's also fully remote on the other end. And that hybrid working is really falling in that majority of the middle part of that spectrum. And when we're on either end of that spectrum, it could be argued that it's easier to embrace because everyone is working in the same way. It's that hybrid middle majority that is really challenging because of the work that is redesigned, and toward a flexible, adaptable and fully optimized work culture. It's really how we're supporting our employees, and how we're getting the work done. So as mentioned, we have three flex types that are the majority of our roles can really fall into, we have resident workers, hybrid workers and distant workers, the residents are here, in the office four to five days a week, our distant workers are up to 99% out of the office, and we say 99%, because we know there's going to be times where our teams really need to come together in person. And that third style is hybrid, and it's the largest makeup of our employees, they range from one to four days in the office. Individual work styles are really important to how we design our future normal work. And equally important. And that is the collective approach to how we operate, how we collaborate, how we do our best work. And in addition to offering individual flex types, BWBR is a hybrid organization. Which means we need to understand what it means to thrive as hybrid in our design processes, our operations, our teams, our tools, how we serve our clients, and how we use our physical and virtual space.

Jarett Anderson  03:12

Yeah, and Stef, I think everything you said there is absolutely relevant to where we are today, not only if you're in architecture, but really whatever sector you're in, right? Pre-pandemic, a lot of us were all residents, then we all shifted to all remote, we were all distant, for the most part. Sure you had some of the eseential workers that were out there taking care of business, but you're right, it was either one way or another and it was easier to create rules and facilitate how teams would work together, and maybe diagnose ways and, and figure out solutions for to make things easier for people, right, there was a way that we've always been doing it, and then thrust into that new, we're on Zoom are all little squares on the screen, how are we going to behave as a cohesive team and work together for the client's betterment? And now the pendulum is swinging back to that middle zone, and kind of just like everybody else, like what what do people want? How are they going to work? And most importantly, to us as a business, how are we then serving our clients in that atmosphere as well to still deliver, you know, design solutions that matter to them and move the needle for them? And you know, with that said, what are some of the opportunities in hybrid work? Do you think? 

Stefnee Trzpuc  04:24

Yeah, I know, one of the opportunities that's really been presented to organizations who are embracing hybrid is this recognition that some of the work can really happen anywhere. This offers some degree of flexibility. It really depends on the core functions and responsibilities of a role. There's also some work that needs to be done on site. And yet there's still other work such as coaching and mentoring and some of those creative activities and interactions that are often enhanced with a degree of in person togetherness. It doesn't mean all the time every day of the workweek, but it's really about finding that flexibility and some cadence of regular in person interaction action that can enhance the creative process. It can enhance team and relationship building. And it can enhance mentoring. For example, it's being intentional to gather the full team for milestone moments throughout a project, maybe in particular, the early phases of a project, like when we're doing ideation, that creative energy that's generated with us being together and getting that real time reaction to insights and ideas, seeing body language and those nonverbal cues. But it's also about building up the relationships that allow a deeper trust and knowledge flow between members of a group. Another opportunity may be viewed by some as a challenge, but it's about how we think about the use of our space as a means of bringing teams together, I read a quote from a recent McKinsey article from a senior leader who has said something to the tone of "I feel like I lost my office through this whole transition, and the past two years, but I've gained an entire floor, and it has more diversity and access to meet more people and use different types of space". And he really tuned in to the signals in the spaces that would best serve individual needs, and also the needs of the team. And I thought that really summed up how a leaders perspective for how office spaces are serving an important role for both individuals and for teams. And we no longer need entire floors of desks. But we still need desks to get some work done. We need to also provide team spaces for groups to co-locate might be for a half a day or for multiple days to really own that space for what they need to accomplish together. These team spaces are providing access to technology, furniture and ideation materials that are really needed to perform as a team. On the flip side of that, we still need to provide individual areas where focused work can happen, or leaning into this future normal have diverse work styles and workspaces. And it's really just going to take some time to adjust and allow more practice and using this wider variety of space types and understanding the value that the use of space can have on supporting the needs of individuals and of our teams.

Jarett Anderson  06:48

Nice. And Mallory to rope you in here, as we have made this transition. I imagine we've had to be really intentional about you know how we set up team meetings, or how teams can come together in this environment. Can you talk a little bit about what you've experienced on some of your projects?

Mallory Furlong  07:05

Yeah, absolutely. Especially as we started coming back together, that was that transition was actually quite a bit harder for myself than going remote. The idea of having everyone together just seemed like it was gonna make sense, we're all going to talk to each other, collaboration was going to happen, the interaction with each other was just going to be there, because that's what we used to do is to sit next to each other, and it used to work out and we used to figure out how to get a project done. That was not my actual real lived experience after we got back to the office. And I wanted to make sure that the days that we are there are more intentional on what we actually talked about. There are certain tasks we really quickly realized or better to do when we were separated, and tasks that were more suited for when we were together and figuring out what those things are that actually require to be next to each other in person made that time more valuable. One thing as a project manager, and for my own personal life, I didn't want to have to be tied to coming in every day. I personally really enjoy hybrid work, I personally really enjoy not having to commute into the office every day. So being able to balance those two things while still providing an excellent project, an excellent service to a client is really what we're trying to strive for throughout this whole process.

Jarett Anderson  08:19

Right. And positive team environment to right, because there's still still a culture to think about. There's still mentoring to think about. And you know, there's still people learning on every single project as well, including ourselves, right as we do that. But I imagine you talking about some of the challenges of sitting with your team and not being pulled in other directions and making things happen?

Mallory Furlong  08:41

As most of the world is in a shortage right now for staffing, so are we at times. And so that means that staff that are on my projects are also on many other projects. And since we're so used to being in the Zoom environment where you jump from meeting to meeting and meeting, you're pulled in many different project directions throughout the day. So if you're going to be in person, how do you make sure that that's actual worthwhile time to drag everyone back into the office/ Some people don't want to be there. Others want to be there all the time. So you need to make sure that that time is actually spent worthwhile. And it's really hard as we're all pulled in many directions. But you need to dedicate that time that you're in person for that project you're there for. So personally, what that means for me is I try not to schedule other meetings on those days or those time periods. I treat that almost as if a travel day. So if I'm stuck in a car for four hours, I can't I can't meet about that, because I might fail to have a phone call here and there but I can't actually do much of anything else. I must do the work that's part of that project I'm there for.

Jarett Anderson  09:42

Nice. So Stef, can you talk about maybe some of your top tips for hybrid teams then and how do they overcome some of these things?

Stefnee Trzpuc  09:51

Sure. You know, one of the first pro tips that we can share is around team agreements. This is approach that we've been piloting and really learning the benefit So of how to organize a group that's coming together in a hybrid world for a shared goal or a project. And these are really the norms that the group will agree to, for how to communicate how to coordinate, determining kind of when we're going to be available for meetings and impromptu questions, and how often we're going to gather in person, as Mallory was saying, for those work sessions when you know whether or not they're in person or they're virtual. We're very team based in the work that we do. We have small teams, we have large teams, distributed teams, project teams, operations teams. We have to be very intentional to have a conversation about what's going to work best for the team and for the work that needs to get done. Members may need to be open to trying some new things and exploring what's going to be most appropriate to support doing our best work together. This is also a really great opportunity to talk about some of the softer goals like mentoring and coaching. We know that we have some teams that have a real high degree of familiarity, and they could nearly finish each other sentences. They've worked together a lot, while we have other teams that are made up of individuals without that level of experience and familiarity. And they have members who might benefit from observing the behaviors and the interactions of those who have more experience. Team agreements can really be a guide for having those conversations to achieve the softer goals. In addition to getting the work done. Maybe a second pro tip that I can offer up is organizing around a hybrid schedule. And this has both individual and team impact. As much as you're able to try to plan a schedule a few weeks in advance. And this really allows you to coordinate your own personal schedule, and to connect with others on their schedule, and see where those adjustments can be made to create opportunities for in person meetings, or one on ones, or attending different events. Some tips from some folks that have really embraced this hybrid lifestyle is to really start living into your hybrid schedule. If you thought that three days a week in an office is going to be a good balance for you. Then start making a plan to do that and determine is it going to be the same three days a week in the office? Or will it vary for you. Some have reported that it's easier at times to kind of pick a schedule and stick with it. And then plan your work around those days, as Mallory was saying, like having a team day on Tuesdays, and then prioritizing the team activities for that day, and then planning to do other project work or individual focus work on other days. Another suggestion is to plan around those intended days in the office and see what other connections you might be able to do. Like can you grab lunch with someone that you might not normally see? Or can you go for a walk with someone to connect? Maybe pick up your mail, stock up on office supplies, there's a lot that you might do. One of the resources that we've been referencing is a visual exercise to help individuals plan their weeks. It could be as simple as a notebook sketch or browsing your Outlook calendar. And what does your ideal week look like? What's the work that needs to get done? And where is it best to perform that type of work? You might also know the other realities of your weekly schedule so you have a good sense of how to plan in time for things like commuting, walking between meeting rooms, and other types of things that can really add minutes into your day into your week. And if it's really hard to plan out weeks in advance, just start with a day, spend three minutes plan out the day and help you think through the type of work that you have to get done and where you best do that work.

Jarett Anderson  13:09

So what if my ideal week is not not using my camera, and I was gonna make some jokes, but I'm not going to make some jokes. That was a great answer in general Stef, though. 

Mallory Furlong  13:21

Can I add to it 

Jarett Anderson  13:22

Absolutely hop in there.

Mallory Furlong  13:24

To add on Stef's comments, I would recommend that even with a perfectly well planned out, week, month, what you're planning on doing for the day you're in the office or how you want to plan out your work, you also still need to understand that you have to have flexibility and transparency. It is fairly common for myself to have a plan for my day, plan for my week, and with the first five minutes, I sat down on my computer that is completely shot. So understanding that that happens to myself, it's definitely happening to the people working on my teams and trying to understand where people are coming from whether it's other workload has crept up, maybe there's an illness, COVID's still still around, there's childcare issues, emergency vet things that are happening. We just need to understand that we're still all people and even when we have a plan, that those plans can be interrupted all the time and be understanding of people's flexibility. And just opening up that door for conversation with your teams to say, you know, I was planning on being there today, it's really not going to happen. That's fine. It'll happens to all of us. We'll move on, we'll figure out how to work around that. So as people are remote and in person, let's just make sure that we can bring people together as we need to regardless of people's personal situations.

Jarett Anderson  14:37

Right. And that practice of basically empathy too is something that we obviously want to be cognizant of with our clients as well, right? They're under the same sort of, they're in the same environment with the same sort of interruptions. Everybody has their own stuff going on, right? And they likely have their own ideal day as well. And you know, we need to match our ideal days into their ideal days and serve them the way that they want to be served to, right. We're curious about them. We're empathetic with their needs, as well as we are with our, our teams. And I think that speaks back to some of our values. And I think we are cognizant of our values. While we're going through this process and learning how a hybrid organization truly functions. Do any of you want to speak to how is this equitable? How is this equitable from a space perspective, or from a medium perspective, either one of those things?

Mallory Furlong  15:31

Yeah, say from a meeting perspective, we want to make sure that however, people are working, everyone has the voice still in the conversation. I know, on a couple of my projects, right now I have people working on it from all three of our offices. So on the days when the Minnesota team is in the office, we obviously can see each other, we can talk to each other over our little desks and have a conversation pretty easily.

Jarett Anderson  15:53

Right. 

Mallory Furlong  15:53

And it's important to understand that if someone from our Madison office is working on that item that we're talking about, we either pull them onto the screen right in the open workspace, if there's a lot of people around, that's probably not a great idea so go into a conference room, want to make sure that whoever is working on it is still involved in the conversation, regardless of their location. Maybe they're even in Minnesota, and they just couldn't come in that day, we just want to make sure that from an equity standpoint, people are still involved, even if they're not able to be there next to us in person.

Jarett Anderson  16:22

Right. So it's not just the one square that's remote is sitting out there staring at the room that's having a great time. That is the absolute naught situation that we want to have happening regularly. We want individual squares on the screen then and in a lot of ways as much as possible to make that happen. Right?

Mallory Furlong  16:39

Yeah, it gets a little goofy when you're sitting in the sitting at your desk, and you have three people sitting next to you on the same call. But it's entertaining for a little while, and you kind of get over it because you realize you need to do that for that fifth person that's not in the room.

Jarett Anderson  16:52

Right? You know, I think that matters. That's a little bit of effort that I think goes a long way in that sense. And there's nothing that stops us from meeting one on one in person too if we need to later on or that kind of thing. One on one via zoom or one on one in a conference room. I think hybrid work is well, you know, it's still work trying not to forget our culture and how we mentor one another how we have access to leadership, access to mentorship, that kind of thing as well. And I think that's something that we'll explore likely as we go forward, just like many other folks out there. Stef, what am I missing? What's ... about hybrid work? What's something else that you think is really important that we're we're discussing to date? You know, I know we've gone through some challenges of our own in creating a hybrid work environment and how we specially configured our office and things like that. What are some things in that arena that we've overcome to date?

Stefnee Trzpuc  17:49

I think one of the areas that we really need to put even more attention on is tying this back into our our culture, and really figuring out how to embed this so that it becomes part of our secret sauce. When we really wanted to engage around this work, we thought a lot about our culture, we thought about the elements that are unique to all organizations. And we thought about what was unique to our organization and kept coming back to our vision of transforming lives through exceptional environments. And we feel that the work we do really matters, and it matters to our clients and who they serve and the communities in which our projects are in. I think we all connect on that purpose driven work. And so when we examine those cultural aspects, we realize that it's through our ways of collaboration that really pulled us together to do that work. And we have a strong history of, of this collaboration, even though as we have grown even before 2020, there were some challenges, and it was putting some tensions on the ways in which we practiced and collaborated. And we were already becoming more distributed. And thinking about collaboration equalled in person only, and it really wasn't supporting us doing our best work, there was also an inequity to it. Our goal now is to develop this path forward, that's really intentional to bring out our Best Collaboration and approaching this through a really thoughtful way. We also know we're not going to get it right, immediately, we're going to try things we're going to learn and we're going to keep dialing it in as we go. We're really taking this learning approach to the redesign of work, because absolutely everything has been impacted.

Jarett Anderson  19:18

Absolutely. And then, you know, I'm curious as we go forward to how our clients will feel this in terms of our day to day meetings, and ultimately, in the spaces that we create for them? You know, all the little things eventually add up to something great, ideally, and in the end of a project, right, all that, all the hard work on both sides of the table, get you to where you need to go to issue that project and eventually walk into that space when it's finished. And we're trying to do that in a little bit different way than has been done in the past. And, you know, as our clients think about hybrid work and what that means for them. You know, I think we have some norms that that we've set in terms of you know, how our typical meetings tend to run The one person one screen idea. What are some other things like that, that you think other organizations should maybe adopt?

Mallory Furlong  20:08

I recently had a client, a healthcare client, that was looking at redoing their admin offices. And as healthcare professionals, you know, they've been working in person, they haven't really changed their work culture over the past few years as you have to be in person to take care of patients. But one thing I stressed as the construction cost has dramatically increased recently. So instead of building an office suite, maybe you need to rethink about how you do your work. Are there people that don't need to be there in person, or are they only in person one day a week? The client decided not to go in that direction for lots of reasons, but you know that since we've had that experience, and I don't do office work myself, but I've lived it, I can still talk about it in a more educated way than I would have a few years ago. And that helped them at least make a decision on how they want to move forward with their their construction project.

Stefnee Trzpuc  20:59

I think meeting norms are important. Team agreements are important. I think it's more about what's right for your organization. I think bringing together the right team of people to look at this from a very comprehensive view. For example, looking at it from like a work ecosystem. It's the how you work. Looking at your processes. The developing a common language for how you're getting work done. You can look at the tools that you're using. Almost everything has a technology component, and also the where in which you work. I think there's always going to be a need for some communal spaces to bring people together to really focus in on some of that deep work and build the relationships, access to equipment and resources, and making sure that your approach is one that looks at it from all different angles. And don't hesitate to try new things, pilots and things, learn from those things, and keep developing it and dialing it in as you're going because this whole practice will continue to evolve and serve organizations very uniquely, depending on their approach.

Jarett Anderson  21:53

Hybrid work really is quite the design problem. And it does have implications to space. And it has implications to culture and how we do our daily work, and how we function. And it also has implications to either our work life balance, or our work life fit. You know how we operate on a day to day basis as well. Behind the scenes, you've been in a lot of conversations about all of this for a very long time. So, it's got to be fun for you to see it start ...  to see it playing out right. And to be learning. It's a little bit nerve wracking to maybe, but to see it playing out and see it happening. And what are you most excited about? About hybrid work like you, you as Stef T? What are you most excited about?

Stefnee Trzpuc  22:40

It think,yeah, to see it all become a reality and learning from everybody who's trying it and putting a unique approach onto it, and just keeping feedback loops open and engaging staff as part of this co-creation of what this means for BWBR to move forward. And I think the piece that excites me the most of course, is I love looking at the design of our workspaces and how it relates to the flow of knowledge in our organization. And that's why I love that idea of like how if we can all bring our best selves to work and build those deep relationships and balance the employee needs, balance the team needs, I think we're gonna have better experiences as a knowledge organization and coming up with better design solutions for our clients. And that's an ultimate goal.

Jarett Anderson  23:24

Awesome. Mallory, what are what are you excited for about hybrid work moving forward?

Mallory Furlong  23:30

I think really is flexibility for me being able to do great work at an organization I love working for, but that still meets the personal life goals I have as well. That is an amazing opportunity for myself and my family, as well as other people that work for BWBR

Jarett Anderson  23:47

Awesome. With that, are there any closing comments that either one of you would like to make?

Mallory Furlong  23:53

Hybrid work isn't something that'll just happen. It's something that we need to put a focus on and organize, to make sure it's successful. Trying something out and failing at it the first time doesn't mean that the whole idea is a failure, you need to rethink of how you could make that commitment successful.

Stefnee Trzpuc  24:12

I think hybrid work is really a unique approach to how we how we all do our work and looking at those reasons why we collaborate, whether it's coming together to solve complex problems, or to build a shared understanding of something, but really important that we're building relationships with each other and bringing together that, that trust that's within those teams that really allow us to do some incredible work. And I think at the heart of trust is really you know, it's more effective knowledge sharing, it's more engaging experiences, we can feel free to bring our full selves into the work that we do and have great outcomes for the clients that we serve. And to do this right. It means that we're building that deep trust and building a culture that really supports not only the hybrid work, but the work that we are doing.

Jarett Anderson  24:58

I love that Stef. I love that Stef. Because it's trust, trust really translates to that psychological safety, which means people can be their best selves and do their best work for the clients. And that's such an important thing. That's what we're focused on. And we're learning how to do it on a day to day basis. And I think we're gonna get better and better and better at it as we go forward. So thank you both for what you do for both BWBR and our clients on a on a day to day basis. I always enjoy talking with both of you. Thank you so much for your time and insights. And thanks to our listeners for joining us for this episode. Until next time, we'll see you on the other side.

Matthew Gerstner  25:37

This has been cited designed from BWBR brought to you without any paid advertisements or commercials. If you found value in what you've heard today. Give us a like, leave us a comment, or better yet, share us with your network. You can also reach out to us if you'd like to share an idea for a show or start a discussion. Email us at sideofdesign@bwbr.com