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Office-based versus fully virtual

No matter if 100% office-based or completely virtual teams — the essence is to do it consistently

I admit this is not one of those catchy headlines that can go viral, but it's my firm belief.

If all team members sit in one location but mainly chat via Slack or Teams, something is going wrong. Or at least, the potential of face-to-face communication is not being used. I've watched team members talk to each other on the phone in the group office instead of briefly going to each other's desks. If I'm just going to talk on the phone, I might as well stay home, right?

On an opposite note, I've seen a company, 50% of whose people are in home offices around the world, invite people to their office locations for Christmas parties (without giving them permission to travel). That can be done better.

Introduction

Together with Timo, I worked on this topic at the end of last year and would like to share some of our findings.

The goal of our work was to show different, coherent ways in which a company can develop.

Each individual path is neither better nor worse in itself — rather, each concept has its advantages and disadvantages and must fit the respective company and its team members. The only important thing is to follow the chosen path consistently and not to meander back and forth between different models.

Die Alternativen

We have identified these four alternatives:

1. on-site
2. office-first
3. anywhere
4. virtual

On-site

All team members are located in the same office (however, there may be multiple, globally distributed offices to which different teams are assigned).

• Personal collaboration is the focus and is designed to foster relationship building as well as creativity and identification with the company.
• Processes and tools are designed to work on-site while working from home or while traveling is only possible in exceptional cases and is limited in time.
• All meetings are held in person within the teams, and important team-wide workshops are held in person in one of the meeting rooms.
• Information is shared in person on-site, and the company culture is significantly shaped in the offices.
• New talent is sought exclusively in the vicinity of each office or must relocate there.
• Offices are set up for daily on-site collaboration, with fixed desks for all employees.

Office-first

Most team members work in one of the offices, but teams may be spread across multiple locations. Individual team members work remotely.

• The emphasis is on face-to-face collaboration in one of the offices while also emphasizing creative work and social interaction.
• Processes and tools are designed to work on-site, while individual processes are opened to external team members as needed.
• Meetings are held face-to-face wherever possible, and remote team members either attend hybrid meetings or must be present in the office more frequently.
• Information is exchanged locally but documented and shared with remote employees — Remote employees are aware of and commit to participating in important corporate culture artifacts.
• New talent is primarily recruited for one of the office locations. Only in exceptional cases will remote employees be accepted.
• Offices provide space for predominantly on-site team members, while additional space is provided for co-working.

Work from anywhere (any office or HomeOffice)

All team members are mobile by default and can work from the location where they are most productive. This also means that individual team members or even people with specific tasks can work permanently in an office if needed. Entire teams can also choose to work together in one physical location.

• The focus is on virtual and asynchronous collaboration — across time zones and locations to enable focused knowledge workers. Offices can be a purposeful part of this collaboration.
• Processes and tools are designed for virtual collaboration and enhanced with on-site components as needed.
• Meetings will primarily occur virtually, while certain meetings may be scheduled in person — where it makes sense.
• Information is digitally documented and transparently shared so that all team members can access it equally.
• New talent is recruited in the form of remote roles worldwide (individual countries or time zones may be excluded), while individual roles may be tied to an office.
• Offices are similar to "flagship stores." They are designed for intensive collaboration and aligned as "identity-creating home ports " as well as meeting places for internal meetings or customer/investor discussions.

Virtual

All team members, without exception, work together virtually and can use a co-working space of their choice if they can't/won't work at home.

• The focus is exclusively on virtual collaboration, and all energy is directed towards support and success of confidence and team-building activities. At the same time, face-to-face interaction takes place exclusively in the form of retreats, events, or meet-ups.
• Processes and tools are designed exclusively for virtual collaboration.
• Meetings occur virtually, while intensive workshops, retrospectives, or other events can be held at a location that suits one's needs.
• Information is digitally documented and transparently shared so that all team members can access it equally.
• New talent is recruited in the form of remote roles worldwide (individual countries and time zones may be excluded).
• There are either no offices at all or some flagship-store-like offices that are used exclusively for company presentations, client/investor meetings, or company events (but do not serve as a workplace).

Pros & Cons - Decision Guide

With the pandemic, we have a pretty wild situation. Many companies whose team members previously worked exclusively from the office suddenly find themselves in a situation where employees demand to work from home or may even be located far away in other cities or countries.

What worked well for a while turns out to be a productivity killer after a year, or the corporate culture threatens to go down the drain. "Just having fun together at work again" — that supposedly only works when working together in the office. "The freedom to work for a month with a view of the sea" — this is supposedly only possible with a remote employer.

On-site

Many of us have grown up with it: You go to the office to work. For example, this has clear advantages regarding a strict separation between work and private life. However, for many, this also means they spend a significant part of their lives commuting to work. The office offers a natural opportunity to get to know each other and build a social bond. People naturally get to see how others are doing and can help each other uncomplicatedly. However, this model comes with difficult hurdles in terms of cost, flexibility for further growth, hiring staff, and providing space.

Especially as a fast-growing company, this approach means looking for new office space every 1-2 years. If you are in an attractive location like Berlin, there is a lot of competition for workers. If you are "in the sticks," you must make attractive offers or live with what is available.

But in purely structural terms and in terms of organizational effort, the classic office is a "no-brainer" — compared to the other models.

Office-first

This approach complicates collaboration because teams no longer necessarily have to be based at one location. At the same time, however, this also opens up many opportunities when it comes to recruiting. Team members who are not at any location but completely "remote" know they are virtually second-class team members. However, it is feasible since they decided to do this consciously. Example: In a meeting, all team members would sit together in one room and eat together during breaks - except for the remote team members.

Similarly, other measures that create social bonding would be focused entirely on office locations. And either the remote team members come in or stay out.

This also relates to collaborative whiteboarding and other impromptu forms of collaboration.

The reality is that many companies are living this model without clearly communicating it.

Work from anywhere (any office or HomeOffice)

The focus here is on the team and the joint work. The location plays a subordinate role.

Therefore, everything is also optimized for distributed teams. Teams that find out for themselves that they work better together in one place and also find very good people here can do so - but they have to share the necessary information using the same methods as the virtual teams.

And that's also the crux of the matter: everything has to be set up in such a way that it is perfect for virtual teams: the means and channels of communication, the collaboration, and also the social exchange.

Experience shows: Even a distributed team can develop a tremendous sense of "we" and have enormous fun at work - if you consistently enable them to do so. And for many, this doesn't come as quickly as in a shared office, where the necessary practices are pretty familiar: "Just bring ice cream for everyone in the summer, and people will come together." It doesn't work that way with virtual teams, and I can report that sharing ice cream in front of the camera/screen is anything but superb.

So this way is one that combines many good things but also contains the weaknesses of the different approaches. Often, just as with office-first, you feel you can't please anyone.

Virtual

"Remote native" or "fully distributed" are other terms for a completely virtual team. Just like the alternative, in which all team members are in one office, this path is very consistent. And therefore, you can also be very consistent in focusing on optimal implementation.

Not having an office in no way means having to work from home. Almost every city has co-working spaces in the meantime. And even without them, you're bound to find a company that still has a desk available that you can rent. But it also means that you're not in the same place as "your own people"; this is very important to some people. You exclude these people as potential employees. But in return, you create an almost infinite labor market because you can hire worldwide.

But be careful: Without necessity, you should not exceed the following limits:

1. mother tongue: If you find enough people who speak a common mother tongue, that's great. One should not change without the necessity to, for example, English as the company language. However, if it is clear that you will have to do it sooner or later, after all, you should definitely make the switch as early as possible.
2. regional proximity: As long as you can still find good people in the region, you should stick with it. It's so helpful to be able to meet as a team quickly and without too much hassle. The circles will undoubtedly get bigger as you grow, but the stages ( North Rhine-Westphalia, Western Europe, Europe, World) should be walked carefully.
3. time zones: If everyone works in one time zone, it makes many things easier. Plus/minus one or two time zones is usually not bad - you have that in the team anyway due to different living habits. But the first time you have team members who are seven time zones ahead or behind you, synchronous collaboration suddenly becomes more complicated - primarily if individual team members only work in the morning or afternoon.

Resume

Personally, I am a fan of clarity and simplicity. Therefore, my favorites are the two extremes: all team members in one office or completely without an office. Anything in between is complicated and involves a lot of small compromises.

I also think it's consistent when employers say that all team members have to go back to the office. That doesn't mean that you can't stay at home for certain activities — but the standard is the office.

On the other hand, I think it's wrong to say that you can only have fun and feel closeness together in the office. It is easier, yes. But from my own experience, I can say that you can have just as much — if not more — of a "we" feeling as a fully distributed team. You just have to organize the way to get there.