What makes a modern office? Is it the office design, the employee perks that come with, or something else altogether? If you really think about it, the physical nature of the office space has clearly changed over the years. Walls and partitions have come down, with many moving on to open office concepts that are brighter and chock-full of perks designed to entice the millennial workforce: Creative break-out areas, recreational facilities, well-stocked snack bars, and most importantly, office décor designed for maximum ‘Instagrammability’.
What hasn’t changed are the challenges facing the average office worker today. Laptops, smartphones, and more software services than you can shake a stick at are helping office workers do more than ever before, and across geographical boundaries and time zones. Yet we’re struggling with being able to communicate with older generations of office workers still in the workforce, as well as the challenge of staying efficient and productive in a digital era filled with distractions.
When it comes to figuring out what the ideal workspace is and how we can be more productive, I would posit that enterprises and office planners should be asking the following three questions.
First: “Where do people like to work?”
There’s no doubt that the open office concept is popular amongst workers today. More than half prefer open shared floor plan offices, and that number goes up steadily with the younger generations.
However, while these places may be great to “hang out” after work, they may not be helping keep productivity up. According to research by Harvard Business School, transitioning to an open office architecture can create an environment that’s overstimulating for employees. In fact, four out of 10 workers in open-plan offices reported being always or very often distracted.
One solution is to set up small pockets of rooms within the organization, or as the industry likes to call it – huddle rooms – where workers can find quiet spaces to really get down to getting things done, whether taking an important conference call, or to simply brainstorm and collaborate with smaller groups of colleagues.
Second question: “When do people like to work?”
We’ve all heard about Jack Ma’s recent endorsement of the ‘996’ work practice in China, referring to working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week.
While I’d argue that such a practice may be in fact counterproductive, maybe the real message is that organizations should start looking at the “traditional” 9-to-5 workday as a general guideline rather than something mandatory. With the proliferation of mobile technologies such as Wi-Fi, messaging, video conferencing, and virtual workspaces, acts of business can happen at any and all times of the day, anywhere you are.
Organizations that adopt flexible working schemes also have the benefit of improved employee engagement, loyalty, and retention. What’s more, flexi-work arrangements can also come with the added advantage of choosing from a wider talent pool that prefers to be productive at different hours of the day, or even in different time zones.
Of course, this needs to consider issues of trust within the organization. As Uncle Ben famously said, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Organizations need to trust that employees won’t abuse these privileges, and that there should also be investment into effective communications of these new ways of working.
This brings us to the third question: “How do people like to work?”
We’re at an interesting time when it comes to the modern workplace; least of which is that the typical office now houses multiple generations of workers that all have different styles of working. The younger workers may prefer using email, text messages and communications platforms like Skype, Teams, and Zoom, but avoid phone calls. The older workers on the other hand prefer human interaction, preferring meetings in-person.
Rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and trying to make these different groups conform to the same sets of rules and guidelines, organizations should instead be adapting to individual working styles. By empowering employees with their preferred tools to help them get the job done, this ensures that you can get the best out of each individual, generational gap notwithstanding.
As we look to a future where emerging technologies like voice assistants and Artificial Intelligence will be playing a greater role in redefining the boundaries of what it means to be productive, we firmly believe that the reality of the ideal modern workspace is that people should be enabled to work from where they want, when they want, and how they want.
