How has Japan’s work style evolved over the past year since the return to the office began? What is the current mainstream work style in countries like the US and the UK, where companies like Amazon and Tesla have made headlines for pushing employees back to the office? This article examines changes in work styles in various countries based on surveys and examples.

The Establishment of Hybrid Work: Findings from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

According to the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s “2023 Telework Population Survey,” while some employees are being called back to the office due to the lack of remote work options from their employers, the implementation of remote work remains at a high level.

The survey found that the percentage of “employed teleworkers” who have engaged in remote work while being employed by companies or organizations is 24.8% nationwide (a decrease of 1.3 points). Although the number of remote workers is declining nationwide, it remains significantly higher compared to pre-pandemic levels. Particularly in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the percentage remains around 40%.

Regarding the frequency of remote work, the proportion of employed teleworkers who engaged in remote work “1-4 days a week” increased over the past year, indicating a growing trend towards hybrid work.

In the 2023 fiscal year, the percentage of people who engaged in remote work “1-4 days a month” increased compared to the 2022 fiscal year, further demonstrating the firm establishment of hybrid work.

Reference：The Percentage of Teleworkers Decreases, While Hybrid Work Expands – Results of the 2023 Telework Population Survey Announced

Changes in Work Styles Around the World

The survey by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism reveals that hybrid work is becoming established in Japanese society. But how are work styles changing in other countries? This section highlights examples from the US, UK, and Singapore.

USA : Support for “5 Days a Week in Office” Drops to 34% Among CEOs

In the US, companies like Amazon and Tesla made headlines for demanding employees return to the office. However, a survey by KPMG US, one of the Big Four accounting firms, of 100 CEOs of major US companies, revealed that not many CEOs expect their employees to work full-time in the office.

In 2023, 62% of CEOs anticipated a return to a work style based on office attendance (5 days a week), but by 2024, this figure had dropped to 34%. Conversely, the proportion of CEOs predicting that hybrid work would become mainstream increased from 34% in 2023 to 46% in 2024, indicating a shift over the past year.

While Japanese media reported extensively on the “return to the office” trend in the US, it appears that hybrid work, combining remote work with office attendance, is likely to become the norm.

Reference：
More CEOs expect hybrid work is here to stay
KPMG Study: CEOs tackling risks to growth including geopolitics, cyber and structural changes such as tight labor market, new regulations

United Kingdom: London Underground Usage Remains Below Pre-Pandemic Levels

In London, remote work has become so entrenched that many people are not commuting to the office on Fridays.

According to the London Transport Authority (TfL) and BBC reports, midweek underground usage is at 85% of pre-pandemic levels, and Friday usage drops to about 73%.

In response, from March to May 2024, London has designated every Friday as an “off-peak” period with discounted fares to encourage travel by tourists rather than commuters.

This change indicates how urban infrastructure is adapting to the establishment of remote work.

Reference：
Off-peak Friday fares trial to start for Tube and trains in London
In the City – deals and things to do

Singapore: All Companies Can Request Flexible Work Arrangements

In Singapore, the government announced in April 2024 that from December 1 of the same year, employees would be able to request flexible work arrangements, such as remote work, reduced weekly working hours, and flextime, from their employers.

Under the new guidelines, employers are not legally obliged to accommodate these requests if they determine it would interfere with business operations. However, employees will have the right to make such requests regardless of the company’s size.

Similar initiatives have already been implemented in the UK, Ireland, and Australia, indicating a global trend towards flexible work arrangements.

According to a 2023 survey by research firm Universum, 73% of young employees in Singapore expressed a preference for remote work.

The Growing Preference for Flexible Work Styles

Following the downgrade of COVID-19 to Category 5, the trend of returning to the office was prominent in Japan. However, mandatory office attendance has led to burdens such as commuting time and reduced time for family life, including childcare and eldercare, resulting in decreased overall satisfaction and unwanted resignations for companies. As a result, the establishment of hybrid work, which combines remote work with office attendance, has become more pronounced.

Globally, there is a continued shift towards hybrid work styles rather than solely office-based work, with more countries and companies exploring flexible work arrangements.

In response to unavoidable structural changes in Japanese society, the Japanese government is promoting childcare support, and as part of this, the realization of flexible work styles will remain a medium- to long-term theme. Consequently, hybrid work utilizing remote work is expected to become even more widespread in the future.

The post Insights from 4 Countries : Changes in Work Styles One Year After COVID-19 Was Downgraded to Category 5 in Japan first appeared on Flexible Synergy Lab.

The consequences of this oversight have been devastating on employees. Remote workers report being more lonely than their in-person counterparts, leading to lower engagement, more mental health issues, and more missed days than employees who don’t report feeling lonely. While loneliness might seem like an individual issue, the impacts of loneliness on entire organizations means management has a responsibility to step in and do better. 

Despite its challenges, remote work is here to stay. With more and more managers rediscovering the importance of a positive virtual work environment, the question becomes, how do you create one? Here’s why a virtual workspace like ovice might be just what your team needs.

Resist the urge to micromanage

First, it’s important to establish what not to do. Having all of your team members together in a physical space can create an illusion of control among managers. It’s easy to see who is at their desk, who appears to be working hard, and who spends most of their day gossiping by the water cooler. This sense of control disappears when teams work remotely, and many managers have been tempted to compensate by attempting remote micromanagement. 

All sorts of monitoring tools have been created for the purpose of reassuring nervous managers. It’s now possible to track everything from time spent logged in, to an employee’s mouse usage and number of keystrokes. However, none of these measures are guaranteed to ensure the productivity of your employees. For each new monitoring tool on the market, there exists a workaround. No amount of micromanagement will prevent an employee who doesn’t want to work from not working. 

A far more effective way to manage your team remotely is to create an environment where employees feel engaged in the work they do. Maintaining a positive remote office culture is complicated, but with the right tools and the right direction, it can be done. 

Create opportunities for collision

When we look at work through the lens of productivity and workflows, it’s easy to miss some of the key elements necessary to making a great workplace. One key element to a happy and productive team is what is known as a “casual collision.” Think about any time when two employees who don’t normally work together accidentally bump into each other and begin talking about work-related topics. 

Casual collisions are critical to effective teamwork, and they are a major casualty of the remote work era. When every meeting has to be planned and scheduled, it’s difficult to tap your colleague on the shoulder and pencil in a meeting about nothing in particular. Brainstorming sessions are very popular, but they tend to be between people who are used to working together, or within the same team with regard to a specific project. Many companies working remotely have lost those water-cooler moments that result in new and innovative ideas, bridges between different departments, and valuable opportunities to exchange information about the state of the company. 

Management can play a critical role in bringing those collisions back to the forefront. The first step is to create a permission structure where employees are not only allowed to seek out new connections, but encouraged to do so. Give employees the time and the leeway to have casual conversations outside of their normal work circles. 

The second step is to create a space in which those collisions can happen. This can be tricky, since casual interactions are most effective if they stay casual, which means you can’t force your employees to collide. 

Let fun times happen organically

Fostering positive workplace interactions is about more than organizing the occasional virtual happy hour. Managers cannot micromanage their way toward better teamwork any more than they can micromanage their way toward greater productivity. Company culture has an important organic component. 

A common mistake we see in many online workspaces is trying to make company culture better by organizing mandatory online get-togethers. A few of these, well-timed and with input from the entire team, can indeed help overcome some of the loneliness and disconnection employees feel when working remotely. However, over time, employees will begin to perceive those mandatory get-togethers as a burden, and they will become counterproductive. You can’t create office friendships by forcing people to have fun every Friday from 4pm to 6pm. 

Instead, the solution is to emulate the successful environmental factors we see in traditional office settings. Casual collisions happen when employees can see each other. When they have free time to hang around and chat. When they know that the conversation is not going to take up too much of their time. In other words, managers should seek to create a space where casual interactions are low cost and high reward. 

But how can you do so in a virtual office space? Water cooler conversations happen because you see people hanging out near the water cooler. Coffee breaks lead to interesting discussions because you can easily swing by someone’s desk and invite them to get a coffee. But what does a virtual coffee break look like? That’s where technology comes in. 

The best of in-person conversations, but online

We’ve all experienced the benefits of email, file sharing and video conferencing software for remote work. Sharing information is the backbone of all teamwork. However, the software we use has a direct impact on types of relationships team members can have with one another. Email is most useful for when you have a specific message you want to convey to a specific person. Without body language and auditory cues, email and text communication carry a greater risk of misunderstandings, which is why they’re not an ideal medium for casual conversation or collisions. 

Video reintroduces auditory and non-verbal cues, providing a more complete interaction. However, most video conferencing technology has a scheduling component. You need to figure out when the person you want to talk to is free, block out a fixed amount of time, and provide at least some idea of what you want to talk about. Some companies get around this obstacle by encouraging small-talk sessions, especially between managers and employees. Casual 1-on-1 conversations are an excellent way to build a workplace relationship, and should be a part of every manager’s toolbox. It’s also easy to schedule regular 1-on-1s between managers and employees when the need for collaboration and coordination are obvious. But what about between people who don’t usually work together? Here, most video conferencing software falls short. 

In the end, the only solution to allow for casual collisions and a broad range of interactions between remote workers is to have a virtual workspace. Technologies like ovice allow you to see who is currently available and open to have a casual conversation. You can easily set up your own virtual coffee break area, where employees from around the company can come together and hang out, discuss new ideas, and get to know each other organically. It’s even easier than in-person office interactions, since you don’t have to physically run around the office, nor worry about the coffee machine getting too crowded!

Bolstering productivity in the workplace is not just about how individual employees perform the tasks assigned to them. Employee engagement starts with a positive environment, which can’t be achieved if your employees feel lonely and disconnected. At the same time, remote work isn’t going anywhere. By figuring out the greatest benefits of physical office work and bringing them online, managers can combine the best of both worlds. 

The post Good Remote Management Starts With a Positive Virtual Workspace first appeared on Flexible Synergy Lab.

First, you want to make sure that your game is addressing an actual issue within your team. According to a major 2023 survey, two of the biggest struggles for people working remotely are loneliness and the inability to unplug. Your game has to help people connect with one another, build a sense of community within your team, and disconnect from work. To do so, your game has to:

1. Involve everyone
2. Have nothing to do with work
3. Not replace a normal break time
4. Take place during regular working hours
5. Happen synchronously via video, or ideally in a virtual workspace like ovice. 

Emphasis on number 3: Don’t be the boss who gives their team a 5-minute break between presentations, but then uses that break to play a game! Regular break time already helps people disconnect from work. Filling that time with a game will only earn you groans. 

Second, you want to make sure everyone can participate in the game without it becoming awkward or cringe. Games that involve sharing your biggest fears or most embarrassing stories are fun for some people, but can cause a lot of anxiety for the introverts on your team. If you’ve worked with everyone for years or are preparing some major executive retreat, then maybe you can do some of those deep connection games. If not, you’d better steer clear, and keep your games fun and light. 

The same goes for very specific trivia games, and physical games. A five-minute yoga session can do wonders for your team, if and only if someone on your team knows how to guide the session. You’re not helping your team connect if a bunch of first-time yogis are watching a YouTube video together in silence—especially if you have members who, for whatever reason, are not physically capable of doing the yoga poses. 

So to recap, before choosing a game, keep those two caveats in mind. Make sure you’re increasing human connection while allowing your team to disconnect from work. Then, make sure everyone is comfortable doing the game you recommend, based on the type of relationship your team members already have and what everyone is capable of doing. 

Good to go? Alright, here are the games we tried and found to be the best for remote teams.

1. The Ice Breaker Game (done right)

There’s a reason every team coach and leadership guru recommends some variation of an ice breaker game: it does a lot of things at once. Ice break games encourage people to speak out in front of a group, think creatively, share personality traits not normally shared in an office setting, and more. 

However, there’s always a risk of cringe with icebreaker questions. You don’t want them to be too personal, or to lead to a conversation too deep for the few minutes of team building you have. You also want the questions to be relevant to everyone: for example, don’t ask, “What’s your favorite Halloween costume?” to a person from a culture that doesn’t celebrate Halloween. 

An easy way to mitigate the risk of awkwardness is to introduce some randomness. There are plenty of random icebreaker question generators out there. The facilitator can simply press the button, gauge the reaction in the room, and if nobody asks to pass on the generated question, then you can go ahead with the game! 

An alternative safe way to do the icebreaker game would be to prepare a list of questions in advance and have participants vote on which ones they want to answer—but that takes time. Best leave things to chance. That way, if you end up with a cringeworthy question, at least nobody’s to blame. 

2. The Scavenger Hunt

This is another classic. When working remotely, it’s hard to conceptualize the physical space occupied by our other team members. We have our own home office, but everyone else lives in a sort of online void without detail or substance. Scavenger hunts help bring physicality to the online world by having participants rummage around their homes for interesting items. There’s also a storytelling element to the presentation round. Here’s how the game works.

1. Choose a theme. Make sure it’s something everyone can relate to: your Gen Z team members probably don’t have many postcards or CDs lying around. Here are some easy examples: 

• Your favorite gift
• The snacks you have lying around
• Something you own but never use
• The oldest thing you own
• Your most recent purchase
• Your favorite source of entertainment
• The most inspiring thing you own
• The most interesting thing you can see from your desk

2. Give everyone a set amount of time, 30 seconds to a minute is usually enough, to go fetch that item.
3. Have a round of presentations, where everyone shows their item and explains why they picked it. 

That’s it! No need to make it competitive or add some elaborate scoring system. Just old-fashioned show and tell. 

3. Gartic Phone (Pictionary, but better)

You’ve probably played Pictionary, where one person draws, the other person guesses, and that’s that. There are plenty of websites that offer a version of pictionary, and if that’s what you’re into, you should go for it. 

The one caveat some people have with pictionary is that the players who draw the best tend to win. Team members who are bad at drawing or don’t have much artistic sense might cringe at the idea of a drawing game. 

Introducing: Gartic Phone. This game is a mix of Pictionary and the telephone game. Each player receives a prompt to draw. Then, they pass it on to the next player, who has to guess what the person drew. On to the next player, who draws something new based on the previous player’s guess, and so on until the original player gets their prompt back. At the end, there’s a presentation round, where players get to see how far the final drawing strayed from the original prompt. 

The advantage over Pictionary is that the worse you draw, the further you stray from the original prompt, and the funnier the presentation phase becomes! This game is ideal for teams of 4 to 8 people. An alternative for smaller teams would be Skribblio. 

4. Geoguessr

The premise is simple: The game drops you in a random location on Google maps, and you have to figure out where in the world you are. The most precise guess wins. You can play co-op and try to figure out where you are all together, or competitively. 

This game is especially fun if you’re part of an international team! It’s an opportunity to share travel and cultural experiences. Make sure you involve everyone, and give people time to explain why they guessed a specific place. 

This game is ideal for smaller teams of 3 to 6 people.

5. Something in Common

This is another icebreaker game, ideal for teams of 4-5 people. In a set amount of time, the group has to come up with as many common traits as possible. These can be anything from, “We all have pets” to “We’ve all eaten at least once at the In-N-Out Burger in San Francisco.” 

To make the game more challenging and encourage more discussion, it can be helpful to set a few limitations on very obvious commonalities. For example, you can choose to ignore physical similarities (we all wear glasses!), food preferences (we all love coffee!), and work-related topics (we all work for Bob!). And obviously, make sure to keep your common traits workplace-friendly. 

To encourage some friendly competition, you can also split large teams into groups of 4-5 and see who can come up with the most commonalities. 

***

Those are our recommendations, but there are plenty more out there! You can even use online board game websites with hundreds of options, like Board Game Arena. Whatever you end up choosing, just remember why you’re playing games during work time. The ultimate goal is to foster connections and teamwork, while unplugging from regular work. 

The post 5 Quick and Cringe-Free Remote Work Games first appeared on Flexible Synergy Lab.

However, allowing remote work isn’t as simple as authorizing people to work from home. Maintaining a high level of productivity can be a challenge for organizations without the proper technology and policies. Remote work can also have negative repercussions on the health and well-being of employees. Increased isolation, coordination issues, a more sedentary lifestyle, and decreased motivation are the most commonly reported struggles faced by remote and hybrid employees. 

There are several ways to deal with the challenges of remote work. One is to give up altogether and force everyone back to the office—but for many employees, that simply isn’t a viable option anymore. Companies without a flexible work policy are effectively renouncing a large and growing part of the top-tier talent market. 

A more flexible approach is to implement the tools that will allow your company to reap the benefits of remote work while minimizing its downsides. Having a virtual workspace like ovice can spell the difference between isolation and collaboration. 

To better understand what virtual workplaces are and how they work, it’s important first to understand the benefits and challenges of remote work. Then, we can look at how to maximize good aspects while minimizing the bad aspects.

Why employees love remote work

The main reasons people prefer remote work all have to do with greater control and work-life balance. These include:

• More flexibility in how employees spend their time. This means being able to divide time freely between work, rest, and household tasks. 
• Reduced commute times, which frees up time before and after work for self-care and other important daily activities. 
• The ability to work within your own space, away from the common open-space office arrangements where employees are lined up like machine cogs. 
• Financial advantages, mainly to do with living in a less expensive area, eating at home, saving on transportation, and so on.

Why employers should embrace remote work

Contrary to what some managers might intuitively believe, research shows clear business benefits to allowing for more flexible workstyles. Some of the positive effects include: 

• A double-digit increase in productivity, with an associated increase in output. 
• While there may be some concerns regarding remote workers’ motivation, overall absenteeism decreases when people work from home. 
• Retention rates are better among remote work and hybrid companies. Given the high employee demand for flexible work arrangements, they also have a broader range of candidates to choose from when hiring. 

Remote work saves money. Savings on everything from transportation costs to office space and electricity are estimated to add up to an average of $11,000 per employee per year.

Where employees struggle

The most common and pervasive remote work problem we see across reports and surveys is loneliness. Not only do we see fewer people over the course of a regular workday, but the types of interaction are different. Spontaneous ‘collisions’ become much rarer. Formal meetings multiply. 

The disconnect between the benefits of flexibility and the tedium of formal meetings can also lead to a loss of motivation. In recent years, phenomena like ‘Zoom fatigue’ have increasingly been gaining traction in research and the media. 

Finally, the blurring of boundaries between work and rest have made it more difficult to unplug. When everyone is working on flexible schedules, it becomes more common to receive messages outside of your own working hours. Without a physical space we can use to show our colleagues we’re currently working, it can become more tempting to reply to messages when really, we should be resting. 

Where employers struggle

On the employer side, the greatest reported struggles have to do with maintaining a strong corporate culture, and fostering collaboration between employees. 

When members of each team only meet amongst themselves and don’t accidentally run into members of other teams, the result is often a silo mentality. A breakdown in interdepartmental communication tends to negatively impact creativity and slow down workflows. 

Classic communication problems can arise if leadership doesn’t provide the adequate tools for remote work. Sharing information can become more complicated. If employees repeatedly don’t know how to get the information they need to do their jobs, they are more likely to feel demotivated. 

Also, when we are forced to work with more and more people we don’t know or haven’t seen before, it becomes harder to trust our colleagues. Employees may begin to feel like they don’t know what’s truly going on within the company, who is doing what, and if business overall is going well or poorly. 

The right tools for the job

There is no single solution that will magically eliminate all the challenges employers and employees face when working remotely. However, with the right combination of online tools and corporate policies, companies can go a long way in reaping the benefits of a flexible model without suffering the drawbacks. 

On the policy side, management has to respect the core benefits of remote work. Don’t grant more flexibility with one hand only to take it away with the other. Trust you hired a group of mature adults who are willing to do a good job. Don’t overwhelm your team members with mandatory events—even if they’re meant to be fun teambuilding activities! Give employees time and space to have informal conversations, solve problems without management getting too involved, and you’ll have a thriving flexible corporate culture. 

As for having the right tools, a modern virtual workplace solution like ovice can go a long way in recreating the benefits of a physical office. 

Virtual workspaces make remote work better

A virtual workspace is a software solution specifically designed to emulate the benefits of a physical office while preserving the best elements of remote work. With a virtual workspace, you can: 

• Create dedicated online spaces for work and for relaxation, where employees can communicate however they want. Set up a virtual water cooler, and you can even bring those critical office ‘collisions’ into your online environment!
• Encourage collaboration by displaying who is available to chat, who is already in a meeting, and who needs time for deep focus.
• Foster creativity, company culture, and team building through highly customizable designs. Arrange your virtual environment to suit your needs and tastes. 
• Use spatial audio to make walking up to virtual colleagues feel as natural as an in-person conversation. 
• Get rid of all the meeting links and simplify your scheduling with an array of fully integrated audio features 
• Link your workspace to your calendar, file sharing technology, or whatever other software you use for your business with integrated apps

Reclaim your company culture by creating a visual identity, hosting online events, and opening a space for your employees to feel like one big team again.

The post Flexible Work Done Right: The Case for a Virtual Workspace in 2024 first appeared on Flexible Synergy Lab.