The Hybrid Workplace

As a customer-centric organization, Tangram has been a ‘hybrid workplace’ for years. We’ve also had the benefit of several office locations near our customers and employees, which has given us tremendous choice and control over our daily schedules. While there’s obvious challenges this new workplace style and the return to the office presents, it doesn’t feel quite as new to us as it might to many of you.

That being said, through our experience in actively participating in a hybrid workplace model paired with the massive shift in the last two years, we have learned a few things:

Technology makes or breaks a space. We have become well acquainted with tight-framed videos of our co-workers. It’s an entirely different ball game when there’s three conference rooms with strange angles and bad lighting, 10 remote employees and that one guy who forgot to mute. We need to take notes from our friends in the entertainment industry and think of our conference rooms more like sets, complete with optimal lighting, angles, collaboration tools and hopefully comfortable seating to outweigh the alternative of connecting on your personal device.

Individual private spaces are vital. This isn’t a large-scale return of the private corner office, but rather a focus on spaces that allow a user to tuck away and escape distractions. There’s a habit of making these environments ‘fishbowls’ (glass on all sides) but we need some more secluded areas as well.

Embrace the uncertainty of the future. There is a huge difference between voluntary remote work, hybrid work, and the pandemic workplace. We don’t know what work will look like in five years, but I think we were all amazed by our adaptability and capability of finding ways to work when together wasn’t an option. Let’s keep innovating and changing the way we work.

Enjoy our selection of products, spaces and research that we hope will help kickstart a conversation of what hybrid could look like for your workplace.