In a fantastic animated format , the BBC visual and data journalism team depicted what it might look like for someone going to work five years from now, when we may not be in the midst of a pandemic any more but when many legacies of protection and distancing remain in office life. The graphics show a day in the life of Leila, a fictional office worker who mostly works from home in the year When she does go into the office, times are staggered to reduce the number of people in the space.
Some of these suggested changes are not unlikely, with a report from Ibec suggesting that 61pc of Irish businesses plan to change their physical workplace in the next three years because of Covid But these costs are more about making current open-plan offices safer, rather than investing in massive remodels to put permanent walls back up.
Hotdesking and co-working arrived as a way to save on office space while increasing employee numbers. Covid has essentially forced a large proportion of the global office workforce to adapt to full remote working. While a recent study in Ireland found the vast majority of respondents would like a hybrid model in the future of working both at home and in the office, which would normally be ideal for hotdesking, the safety measures needed to prevent the spread of Covid are the very thing that may get rid of the practice.
The idea that regular hotdesking could become a thing of the past will be welcome to some employees. Depending on the size of your office and how frequently people come in and out of the space, employees can often be left working at completely different desks every day of the week. This practice can have a lot of negative side effects and, in a time when many of us worry about the risk of infection, getting a designated workspace will likely be welcomed.
However, the challenge of not having enough desks may no longer be an issue with the new hybrid model, which could put a significant portion of staff at home.
While no one is crying out for the loss of sharing desks, the loss of collaborative spaces could prove more difficult. In the interest of health and safety, the future office will need to ensure that there are safe, open spaces in which colleagues can still meet and collaborate without concern.
Depending on the size of the office and the number of employees companies have, employers might choose to take out entire sections of desks that were once occupied by full-time workers and create more open-plan collaboration and meeting areas, while the staff members who once worked at those desks now operate remotely.
Teams working on collaborative projects will have open plan spaces, breakout rooms for team meetings, exercises, conferences or even just a place to unwind after a stressful morning. Unique technologies will be introduced to help aid the usual processes which will free up valuable time to dedicate to more important tasks.
Working from home can be nothing more than a dream for those of us who long to cut out the dreaded morning commute. However, there has been a significant uptake in off site working in some companies with employees being encouraged to step out of the office from time to time. From this, it would seem that the office of the future might be less congested with only those who are necessary remaining on site. With more employees working remotely, we may see an increase in the amount of shared coworking spaces being occupied.
Although most of us are already working in teams or groups within our respective workplaces, the way in which you do so is certainly going to change. Improvements in communication technologies will speed up collaborative efforts with decisions being made in real-time. Applications such as Slack and Asana will become the norm for delegating tasks, noting changes and setting deadlines.
With most of this collaborating happening online, some processes can potentially be automated to help save time. Advancements in both artificial intelligence AI , augmented reality and virtual reality VR will soon see them being implemented in offices around the world, regardless of what sector you work in. These days, "there's a sense of optimism that ultimately we will overcome the viral challenge of Covid, at least to a level where we feel comfortable convening again," Capron says.
Though many workers will split their time between home and office, employers will invite workers back to areas that are spread out but still spark interactions, similar to a coffee shop or co-working space.
Meeting rooms will be outfitted with videoconferencing or VR meeting technology to accommodate for workers who remain remote, Capron adds. Last spring, however, he expected that all focused work would be done remotely. But the longer people worked from home, it became clearer that some, especially parents and apartment-dwellers, yearned to get back to the office as soon as possible.
For these workers, Capron expects companies will still need to invest in areas for individual focused work, such as building privacy booths or small offices that can be booked by the hour. Larger corporate campuses might also create quiet areas that resemble a library, where individuals or small groups of people can go to a closed-off but still communal location to work.
In general, Capron still expects the open office floor plan to stick around, and that cubicles are not coming back. Moving forward, Capron expects employers will use their offices to show off their company culture like never before.
The ability to work at a nice building in an expensive real estate market could become a status symbol of sorts. Unlike he predicted last year, he hasn't seen companies move to open regional hubs for remote workers, though employers who gave up their real estate during the pandemic could turn to co-working spaces to test new working models.
He also expects workplace design will follow a pattern of drawing from the hospitality industry by creating inviting, comfortable spaces through strategic lighting; furniture arrangements; art and decor; background music; and even down to scent technology meant to evoke certain associations with a space. He says employers are increasingly using well-designed spaces as a recruiting tool, too: "If I'm looking for a job and go in to look at the space, I might think, 'Wow, this company is really thinking about how I interact with colleagues, how I can be most comfortable and how I can have a great experience in the office.
0コメント