The era of hybrid work came at an awkward time for LinkedIn. The professional networking company was deep in the midst of a design for its new headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, when the pandemic upended almost everything about how the company envisioned its new offices.
“Prior to the pandemic, the equation was how many people can we fit?” says Lisa Britz, LinkedIn’s director of workplace design. For LinkedIn and many companies like it, the pandemic led to a rapid pivot to working from home, bringing the idea of set and conventional workplaces into question. Designing an office for more than 1,000 workers who may be often or even always working remotely changed the parameters shaping the new building, Britz says. “It’s much more complex than a one-to-one equation of hiring somebody and adding more space.”