July 6, 2022

The Workplace of the Future: Hybrid, Gen Z-Friendly, – and by Invitation

By: Marisa Ricciardi

Despite everything we’ve lived through, New York is resilient, gritty – and, I think, hopeful. The Big Apple is back. As I rush each morning from school drop-off to the office, I swear the number of commuters exiting the subways are increasing daily. Restaurants are packed downtown, it’s difficult to get dinner reservations, yellow cabs are hard to find and this all makes me happy and optimistic about the post-pandemic world.

As I wrote in my recent article for Fast Company, we have a chance to do this hybrid work/life/whatever stuff very differently. Let’s embrace it. Let’s really look at shifting old ideas and bringing in something meaningful that works for everyone.

There are so many questions floating around: what do employees want and/or need now? How can we build in flexibility and not lose social connectivity and dilute corporate culture? Plus – most importantly – how can we reconfigure organizations for the incoming Gen Z workforce?

Some of our staff will always be remote, in fact many have moved out of the city, but I’m committed to having an office which they can come to. I think the communal space is a powerful metaphor in which to engage employees and get stuff done. It’s all about letting people know they belong.

I know that many of my fellow marketers and CEOs, who had more traditional in-person office situations pre-pandemic, are struggling to re-engage employees and get them back to the office. Perhaps rather than demanding everyone return to life as it (once) was, consider what we’ve tried at The Ricciardi Group and “extend the invitation to return” – a subtle, but powerful, distinction.

In the Fast Company article, I go through several of the experiments, and solutions we’ve tried, some that failed, those that worked and then implemented. Everything we’ve tried has been towards creating a workplace that is hybrid, equitable, addressing the disparate needs of each employee, while being truly productive – and smart. A hybrid model requires work tasks and goals which function seamlessly while remote, as they do physically at the office. This requires a shift in behavior and intentionality in how we work.

We’re being truly intentional about why we show up at our shared space. It’s all about reimagining the office, for a multi-generational, purpose-driven, and engaged workforce. I know that if we can build this in New York, we can build this anywhere.

To read more about “The Workplace of the Future”, check out my article in Fast Company.