As of yesterday, German companies are no longer legally obligated to have their employees work remotely whenever it's possible. Still, many workers and companies choose to keep up remote or hybrid working arrangements as they've experienced benefits and flexibility during the last year – but also quite a few challenges. Already a few weeks ago we held a working session titled “Gamecity Forecast: Is work still a place?” to discuss the future of workspaces and work culture in the games industry, as well as the challenging way leading there together with representatives from Hamburg-based games industry companies Goodgame Studios, Deep Silver FISHLABS, 4Players, RetroBrain R&D, Tiny Roar, Osmotic Studios and Curvature Games.

We saw an interesting exchange of experiences and learnings from switching to remote work, sharing of new ideas and concepts in the making, but also a fruitful discussion of questions that yet need to be answered: How to keep up informal flows of information, team spirit and fun when teams work together remotely or hybrid? How can companies help their teams keep up a positive work-life-balance – no matter if they work from home or in the office? How to plan a timeline for restructuring and redesigning office spaces?

What we learned during the session:

• There’s no perfect solution, even less one that fits every company’s situation. But now is the time to try out new concepts and ideas regarding workspaces and work culture and refine them iteratively.
• Communication and understanding are key when moving forward: There’s not going to be a complete switch back to the “pre-Corona” office and work setups. Listening to the stakeholders involved and individual needs while not losing sight of the good of the whole team and company is going to be a demanding challenge.
• Office spaces need a “why”: when rethinking and redesigning work spaces one should keep in mind that these spaces should provide the people who use them with functional and/or emotional benefits they can experience. This helps teams to view office spaces as places of productive and inspiring encounters again.

A big thank you to all participants for this interesting evening! A special thanks goes out to creative office space specialist Thomas Huth, who kicked off the session with an interesting keynote.

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