I was asked the question  “Do procurement leaders want to get everybody back in the office or are they pushing for some sort of a middle ground ?” when speaking on The Procurement Show recently. Here were my six conclusions to the question:-

1. A recent Microsoft work trend analysis showed 82% of leaders interviewed wanted their staff back in the workplace full time, but 72% of employees needed a better reason to come back into the workplace. 
2. It seems that employees are requesting justification to go back into the workplace full time, citing “work is something you do not a place you go to”. 
3. What staff really want is a meaningful environment to work in, that is productive, which will help build bonds, purpose and generate more collaboration.
4. Many employees cannot justify the commute into work for desk top tasks in noisy overstimulated spaces, without productive time spent with co-workers and stakeholders. This is particularly pertinent for teams who were recruited from many different locations across the UK during lockdown and found it very difficult to return to daily attendance in central office hubs. 
5. CPOs will definitely attract staff back to the office by providing great spaces to work in and setting clear output goals and objectives. Empowering teams to make decisions and work in a flexible way, by setting ground rules and a drum beat of key dates to be in the office is definitely the way forward.
6. Hybrid working is the emerging  trend which CPOs are adopting. High performing teams have a clear picture of their role in the organisation and have autonomy to plan their schedules with their co-workers and stakeholders to maximise time on site. They will know when and why they need to come into the office for group working days, team working days, team events, particular milestones and making sure that various individuals and stakeholders are there to actually support that.

For more on this multifaceted debate on ways of working, post pandemic, and the impact of AI and automation on our daily lives.  with Jonathan O’Brien and Paul Philpott, go to the podcast  https://positivepurchasing.com/podcast-the-procurement-show/