How major PR firms Ogilvy and Weber Shandwick are preparing for the new hybrid workplace

• Businesses are investing in processes and technologies to manage the new normal.
• Two CEOs said now is an opportunity to foster inclusion and positive well-being in the workplace.
• This was part of Insider's "What's next: CEOs on How Talent Drives Transformation" presented by ProEdge, a PwC Product.

As the US opens up, more and more employees are telling their bosses they want flexible and hybrid working arrangements.

"Three-quarters of our individuals around the world said flexibility is what they want," Devika Bulchandani, North America CEO of Ogilvy, said.

Bulchandani said that Ogilvy, like many other firms, is also looking at a 3/2 working model and considering other positive changes it can introduce.

"We also shrunk our real-estate footprint because that allows us to reinvest into different areas of the business and reinvest into our people and what they need going forward," she said.

She added that they're instituting three compulsory days off per quarter for each employee to manage burnout.

"Just because we did it doesn't mean we're going to do it again," she said. "Things like, do people need to travel to a meeting? Let's ask ourselves why."

Bulchandani said that she's telling her staff to question whether there's a perspective missing from the room in terms of gender, race, or disability, as well as capability.

"I have a different skillset, would this team do better? And then my question is, 'Am I just thinking about New York, or should I be thinking about somebody from our Minneapolis office?'" she said.

In a similar vein, Heimann said that the "democratic" and inclusive nature of the virtual world is something her firm is trying to maintain as employees return to work.

Office space, she said, "will be a creative nexus, it will be a collaboration nexus, it will be a team nexus." As for remote offices, Heimann said that they're looking at a broad range of technologies that do more than simply combat "Zoom fatigue."

"I think that the new age is going to be a little more immersive, more gaming-like, and those are the ones we're testing," she said. Weber Shandwick also hired a chief workforce innovation officer and a chief impact officer to push leadership toward "transformation that puts inclusion at the heart."

"We talked to client after client about the need to solve at the intersections and therefore put together agile, cross-functional teams to bring that ability to clients again," she said.