WHY THE MODERN OFFICE CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT IT TO BE
With many businesses now looking at their workplaces in terms of health and hygiene, a question is being asked: is the conventional office model set up for social distancing?
''[In the short term,] one could achieve social distancing by phased return, occupying fewer desks within the same office, with robust communication on maintaining social distancing and sanitation,” he says. “However, to achieve a resilient and responsive workplace in the longer term, organisations we need to rethink the design of the workplace entirely.”, says says Dr Shrikant Sharma, head of analytics at Buro Happold, an engineering consultancy firm that has used predictive modelling technology to understand modern office use.
To understand, what a new office environment might look like, it’s helpful to look back at how the office has evolved over the years.
The path from office with cubicles to the open-plan variety can be traced by popular culture and real-life examples. In the 1960s-set advertising-industry drama Mad Men, agencies were portrayed with strict divisions that allotted workers their own distinct workspace. But as Western society adopted more relaxed attitudes to work (and life), walls started coming down both physically and figuratively.
By the 2000s, real-life ad agency Mother became one of the most well-known examples of doing away with individual workspaces entirely. In fact, their model took it one step further: a modular 250ft concrete desk was introduced into a vast space, and hot-desking became the modus operandi for whichever employees were on site that day.
As a workspace-provider of 30 years’ standing, IWG has been at the forefront of office culture and its development. From the outset, when the company opened its first centres in Belgium, flexibility was at the top of the agenda. Creating offices closer to home – places that allowed its members to tweak the workday to suit them, rather than the other way around – was the end game.
The myth that flexspace is solely for startups and small businesses is fast becoming outdated. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s often large corporations that prove to be nimblest when it comes to acquiring new workspace for specific teams. Flexspace is not only flexible in terms of the length of the lease: floor space can be adapted to suit different ways of working, from a private room for quiet contemplation to the breakout space required for informal get-togethers.
As the way we think about work shifts from being a place-based to an activity-based working, the nature of the flexible office seems like the right tool for the job. From sole trader to startup, and medium-sized company to global conglomerate, flexspace can work for everyone.