Fibre on display in the foyer of Chorus's new office, in central Auckland Manson's development that has become something of a tech and telco cluster. Spark and 2degrees are in neighbouring buildings, with Sky's new office across the road in the old Vodafone building. Photo / Michael Craig
As the pandemic slowly fades, one legacy is the rise of hybrid working - some days in the office, others at home.
For Chorus, a move to a new office brought things into sharp resolution, forcing the ultra-fast broadband network operator to choose which Covid ways of working it would adopt for the long term. And it didn't do things by halves, with just 371 workstations for about 550 staff and a mix of collaborative workspaces and hot-desking.
The company's new digs are in a central Auckland complex developed by Mansons TCLM, in an area which has become something of a telco cluster. Spark is a long-time tenant in a building across the road, while the latest addition to the campus houses 2degrees, and Sky TV - now also a broadband retailer - recently moved into the old Vodafone building a block over.
(Chorus's old headquarters in Wyndham has become one of Auckland's increasing army of ghost buildings.)
After a year of planning, the new Chorus site had its opening in the last week of May. Two openings in fact, given that the new headquarters is not designed to accommodate all staff at the same time.
"The pandemic played a really big role in influencing how we planned the office space," says Chorus' project lead for the new building, Hannah Croft.
"After the first lockdown in March 2020, occupancy rates trended down. We never saw a return to office of more than about 60 per cent of Auckland staff. And that influenced how we sized the floor plate. So we've accommodated workstations for that number of people, but added extra space so that if we float above it - which we're not expecting - people can work collaboratively in open spaces with laptops."
Most staff are now working on-site two or three days a week, with a flexible schedule.
A system from software provider GoBright, accessible via an app or a touch-screen in the foyer, is used to wrangle the hot-desking - either to book a workstation for a day or half-day, or to find colleagues.
On the GoBright screen, occupied desks display in red, free desks in green and the mysterious "almost occupied" in orange. You can search for someone by name to locate them.
Everyone has their own locker and all desks can be used sitting or standing.
You "check in" to a workstation, or bag a locker, using your building access card.
"We've created [colour-coded] neighbourhoods to encourage people to sit with their teams, but there's no rule about it," Croft says. "So if you're doing work with someone from another neighbourhood, you can go and sit there."
That's in keeping with the "agile" approach that is now so much in vogue in corporate NZ, with its enthusiasm for creating cross-functional teams as project needs dictate, amid a workforce assembled into "squads", within larger "tribes" (Croft's official job title is Tribe Lead, Adaptive Organisation Tribe).
"We were over-indexed to individual working in Wyndham St [Chorus' old office], and people defaulted to closed-door meetings," Croft says.
"Now when you're coming into the office, we're expecting the kind of work you're doing is more face-to-face collaboration. The spaces are designed to encourage a more interactive way of working."
Similarly, there are more meeting spaces in the open. Even the boardroom is surrounded by an open-plan area, although it can be closed off.
The company is still feeling its way with the new setup. During the Herald's visit, Croft's colleague notes that there was "surprisingly high turnout" amid torrential rain the day before. Methods of handling meetings with some staff in person and some online are still a work in progress (Chorus is leaning towards all-in-person or all-virtual get-togethers, where possible).
But Croft says that overall, the new hybrid, flexible setup is here to stay.
"This might have started as a reaction to the pandemic. But I'm really confident that it's going to be increasingly how we work."
Not everyone is such a fan of remote work.
Elon Musk hit headlines this month when he told Tesla's white-collar staff they must spend at least 40 hours per week in the office or find work elsewhere - or somewhere else to "pretend to work", as he put it.
In a comment about the Herald story on Musk's diktat, Vodafone NZ chief executive Jason Paris staunchly disagreed.
While acknowledging that Tesla is "one of the most successful companies of the 21st century" and that Musk has "done some incredible things", Paris said: "Sure, we put in some long hours at work - even the very odd overnighter - when our customers really need us to, but there is no way that this should be the norm."
He continued, "Recently at Vodafone New Zealand, we launched our new behaviours, 'heart', 'grit' and most serendipitously, 'freedom' - freedom to work flexibly and freedom for our teams to decide what mix of remote, home and work is best for them - sometimes that will be at work, and other times it will be remote. The important thing is that our people are free to make a choice and not feel guilty about it."
Vodafone NZ corporate affairs lead Nicky Preston later offered some details on how the new hybrid way of working is looking at the telco, day-to-day.
"We're encouraging our teams to embrace the freedom within our frameworks to set working rhythms that best suit them," she says.
"This isn't always possible. For example, for people who work in roles where they are rostered on including our call centres, network operations and retail stores.
"But for office-based teams, this generally means people are choosing to spend two to three days in the office to collaborate, and two to three days working from home."
A recent Vodafone NZ staff survey found a majority preferred a 60 per cent home, 40 per office arrangement - a reversal of the numbers early in the pandemic, when a majority wanted to spend most of their time in the office.
"Our people told us one of the key reasons they like being in the office is the ability to collaborate with teammates. Also, not everyone has an office setup at home and many find it difficult to share space when working from home," Preston says.
"Coming into the office can create separation between work and home life, and has a greater impact on mental wellbeing for some.
"But there's no one size fits all, hence why we're taking the approach to provide freedom as much as possible around hybrid working."
Most Vodafone NZ staff are alternating their days.
The most popular pattern is working from home Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and in the office on Tuesday and Thursday.
Another Vodafone NZ trend: more people are spending part-days in the office.
Daily capacity would peak around 11am before the August 2021 lockdown round. Now the peak is after lunch.
"A busy day sees 40 to 50 per cent of staff in our offices across Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch," Preston says.
"But people come into the office when big events take place, such as a recent all-staff meeting which saw up to 70 per cent of teams in each office, which was our busiest day since the August 2021 lockdown."
2degrees' new headquarters has just become the first New Zealand office to gain WELL Building Standard certification for meeting a set of social, physical and environmental standards accredited by the American National Standards Institute.
"The pandemic has shifted many organisations to a hybrid working approach, and our commitment to employee wellbeing means that when our people choose to be in the office, we want to ensure it is a space that helps them thrive," says 2degrees head of property Ben Blakemore.
Part of the certification process involved installing air quality monitors, including CO2 detectors. Elevated levels of carbon dioxide - produced when we exhale - indicate poor ventilation, which heightens the risk of Covid spread.
The air quality detectors seem to be working. Blakemore raced to the office after receiving an alert on a recent weekend - only to find the alert was caused by fumes from a fresh coat of paint.
More broadly, Blakemore says 2degrees worked with architects Warren and Mahoney to design "positive wellbeing features".
"Our Fanshawe St building allows people to choose how they want to work, where they want to work, and what they want from their workplace. Activity and movement are encouraged via the central blue staircase and large, open view across the floors connects teams to the greater business," Blakemore says.
Like its peers, Spark has moved its corporate staff to a hybrid work setup.
Spending some of their days in the office, "ensures that our people still have some in-person connection time with their teams, which is an important part of our inclusive culture," says a spokeswoman.
"However, we are always exploring our future ways of working so that we can offer our people the workspaces and environments that create excellent team and customer outcomes."
Half of Kiwi employees are suffering at least a moderate level of anxiety about returning to the workplace.
That's according to the latest instalment of the AUT Welbeing@Work study, which has been tracking the sentiments of 1000 members of the NZ workforce since February 2020.
AUT Business School professor Jarrod Haar says the results indicate that attempts to rebuild office culture and team spirit could run into tension between what he calls the "Covid Cautious" and the "Covid Cavalier".
Perhaps counterintuitively, at least in health terms, Haar found that older employers - 56 and over - reported significantly lower office anxiety, while those under 55 had significantly higher concerns about returning to their workplace.
"Employers need to understand that half the workforce is still struggling with Covid-related anxiety. Particularly given the tight labour market and the ability of employees to find new jobs with relative ease, employers need to be patient and supportive while workers navigate through these fears," Haar says.
"The evidence clearly shows that decent work is fundamental to mitigating levels of office anxiety and, therefore, helping to build a positive workplace culture."
The telco says the service will quickly expand over 2025.