Hellamaa said she considers herself a believer in hybrid work. Speaking to "Vikerhommik," Hellamaa said: "I find that the office has its good aspects, where there is a social element; you can communicate with people, build contacts and solve problems quickly, but I personally do the so-called quiet work from my home office."

Hellamaa explained that studies on productivity when working in the office versus at home reach different conclusions. "So-called 'correct' answers can be found at every margin. There are studies that say productivity peaks only when people are in the office. But a recent study I read claimed that if there are 25 to 40 percent so-called contact hours, then this is the peak of effectiveness," she said.

"In this American study it was stressed that contact hours should be spent together with your team or department, so you see each other. Not sitting alone in a corner of the office for 10 to 15 hours a week and then going home. It still has to be so-called quality time, where you're in the same information space and physically close," Hellamaa explained.

"Again, it's up to each boss and each organization to decide who they listen to, what they read, and what their goals are, what they want to achieve. That is also key," she added.

Hellamaa said she has observed that when employers reintroduce rules on coming to the office, they often don't explain to the employee why this is important or why they are doing so. "Or they say something like 'I want to see that you're doing work.' To the employee, that sounds like the employer doesn't trust them, even though they know what they're doing. And this is where the conflicts start," Hellamaa noted.

"The team or department should communicate about coming to the office or working from home. They should talk about each other's expectations, reasons why someone doesn't want to come to the office, reasons why the organization or the boss wants someone to come to the office. It has been pointed out that if needed or desired, the whole department should come in all at the same time. Or they can come on in stints for some time so they can speak directly with the boss," Hellamaa went on.

Online meetings do not create a sense of belonging, however, she continued

"These tend to drag on, and are boring. There's no water cooler conversation where people just talk about how they've been or something funny that happened on the way to work, or the day before. Those are the kinds of conversations that bond people."

According to Hellamaa, it is also important to listen to an employee and to provide explanations. "If you just tell them to come to the office, they will come, but there's no point. Maybe the boss just says 'hi' and then the employee just sits there. The employee doesn't see where the benefit is either."

On the one hand, Hellamaa says working from home is more convenient — you can do your laundry in between work and don't have to drive 40 minutes to get in — and on the other hand, many people don't like open-plan offices either, which can be too noisy.

"At least based on what I've heard — and of course that's not a perfect sample — there are very few people who say they really like open-plan offices. Of course, people are different: There are extroverts and introverts. Those who want to sit with the door closed in their own office, versus those who would go crazy if they were given their own office," Hellamaa went on. She said she had already heard from people in pre-pandemic times that in an open-plan office, they tend to get tired faster, their attention drifts more quickly, and everything gets too much.

"During Covid, when people were given the chance to not be in a big office and could stay at home, they felt the difference, and have now gotten accustomed to being at home," she added.

Hellamaa's work is essentially about putting out fires, she said. She is not approached ahead of the fact: Before office spaces are created or decisions about work arrangements are made.

"In other words, when things have already gone so wrong that no one understands how to get out of the situation anymore, then usually, just like in private life, people turn to a specialist and ask what they can do now."

With remote working more and more normalized, interview stage is as good a time as any to iron these things out before the fact and not after.

"Organizations always have the chance to ask during a job interview where the person wants to work. If they prefer people who like to work in an open-plan office, they can take that into account during hiring. It's harder with those who have been in the organization longer, who have already gone through several change cycles and are simply presented with the fact of the open office," Hellamaa noted.

"The job seeker should be specific. What they expect and why they expect it. If someone is in great fear and just wants to find a job no matter what and agrees to everything, then they also have to take responsibility for doing that," she summed up.

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