Recreate or Repurpose Office

Based on “Technology in the Pandemic: Recreate the Office or Prof.Dr.Aung Tun Thet
Repurpose It?’ by Eliana Crosina and Beth Schinoff, MIT SMR, 8/6/2020
July 16, 2020
MANAGERS

• Strategically balance:
• What work used to be
• What it is now

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 • Forced companies to adapt
quickly to new realities
• Shifting to virtual work
arrangements
• Rethinking short- and long-
term business priorities
• Managers help employees
shape work lives in effective
and healthy ways
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OFFICE

• Socialize
• Flit from meeting to meeting seamlessly
• Establish routines and patterns

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MANAGERS

• Use technology to recreate dynamics

• Replicate life as it was in ‘brick-and-mortar’ offices
• Or
• Drastic switch to virtual work and try something
different

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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Disruptive events profoundly alter work
circumstances
• People feel sense of loss and void

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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Shift to virtual work left workers bereft of:
• Common place
• Unplanned interactions with coworkers
• Learning opportunities that colocation promote

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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Workers grieving aspects related to how, where, and
when they work
• Workers mourn unexpected loss differently
• Craved safety of former work lives

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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Recreaters revive what they had by pursuing similar
work opportunities
• Repurposers craved control they had
• Hold on but did not try to replicate it
• Repurpose skills and knowledge and pursue
different careers
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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Two approaches
• Managers better understand and manage remote
employees

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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Recreator
• Instead of meeting face to face
• Meet colleagues and clients via Zoom from home

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RECREATE OR REPURPOSE
OFFICE LIFE
• Repurposer
• Checks in with colleagues and clients via email
• Text periodically throughout the day
• Complete most of work at night

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RECREATING AND REPURPOSING

• Fulfill different needs for employees

• Recreating provide sense of safety in time of
uncertainty
• Keep same schedule and regularly meeting with
colleagues virtually
• Preserve previous rhythms of daily life
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RECREATING AND REPURPOSING

• Repurposing about reimagining execution of tasks

to separate “what” from “how”
• Adjusting and time-blocking new schedule provide
sense of control over work life

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RECREATING AND REPURPOSING

• Companies and managers seeing these mechanisms

play out for employees in different ways
• If face-to-face team meetings about checking in with
one another

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RECREATING AND REPURPOSING

• Repurposers maintain some meetings but

transform how they happen
• Institute asynchronous discussion boards
• As opposed to arranging synchronous virtual calls
• Managers make the choice

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UNDERSTAND EMPLOYEES’ NEEDS
AND CONSTRAINTS
• People coping with sudden, unexpected loss in
individual ways
• Have honest conversations with employees
• Recreate certain aspects of work lives
• Work with them to repurpose

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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Through Technology
• Working virtually allow employees to choose
whether to repurpose or recreate office lives
• Rather than leaving choice solely in their hands
• Set company or team strategy and offer guidance

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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Brainstorm with employees about aspects of office
life they individually miss
• Help them recreate or repurpose

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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Two questions:
• Is there anything from your work life pre-COVID-19
that you no longer have but would help you meet
your professional and/or personal goals?
• How might we incorporate that based on your
current life?
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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Recognize limits of recreating and repurposing
• Giving employees complete autonomy over
recreating or repurposing ultimately erode ability to
form and maintain regular cadence with coworkers

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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Consistent cadence with coworkers determine
quality of remote workers’ relationships
• Institute virtual collective routines

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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Recreating unlikely to bring back face-to-face office
experience
• Setting realistic expectations critical

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BALANCE RECREATING WITH
REPURPOSING
• Repurposing shift focus of work from process to
outcomes
• Recreating challenging to enact when work highly
collaborative and interdependent

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RECREATORS AND REPURPOSERS

• Working together toward same goal

• Communicating expectations, deadlines, and
processes critical

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‘NOVICE EXPERTS’

• Master being expert virtual workers

• Without requisite experience
• Have general strategy to repurpose or recreate
• Preferences shift from repurposing to recreating
and vice versa

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‘NOVICE EXPERTS’

• Manager patient and supportive when preferences

shift
• Foster psychologically safe environment
• Employees better cope with uncertainty and grief

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MANAGERS

• Deal with sudden and unexpected

• Loss about holding on and letting go
• Honest conversations with employees
• Setting clear strategy for recreating, repurposing, or
combination of two
• Manage through uncertain times and prepare more
28effectively for new age of virtual work