A new kind of office for a new kind of meeting
The evolution of digital and mobile technologies has radically changed the way people collaborate within an office. This shift in mindset enabled by smart tech empowering employee interaction can open up an ideal opportunity for growth.
A shift in attitudes
Today’s tech revolution has dramatically blurred the lines between work and play with its infinite well of information readily available at our smartphone-heavy fingertips and the ability to connect with people across continents in real-time.
New technology has supported the shift towards collaboration by providing a seamless and effective office interaction model.
This shift in attitudes is especially prevalent in the tech-savvy, multitasking Millennials, the generation born in the period between the 80s and the early 2000s. In 10 short years, they will represent 75% of the global workforce. The New Ways Of Working report mentions they work differently and expect different things from work: With a variety of personal devices allowing people to keep up with their correspondence, tasks and projects anytime and anywhere, jobs are no longer a 9 to 5 affair Dolly Parton sang about. Using smart devices solves work problems in a completely new way — on the fly, faster and, most importantly, as they crop up.
Breaking the constraints of the traditional workplace, like fixed time and location, new tech is creating a better bridge between work and everyday life, helping workers achieve better results in a shorter time while theoretically in their PJs.
With a variety of personal devices allowing people to keep up with their correspondence, tasks and projects anytime and anywhere, jobs are no longer a 9 to 5 Dolly Parton affair.
In an era where an average employee will change jobs every four years or less, encouraging such flexible and dynamic models of meetings and collaboration is a huge opportunity for forward-thinking organizations to improve employee satisfaction and retention.
The meeting room reimagined
As work changes, so does office space, an environment that had remained more or less the same for decades, but the time has come to mix it up a little and offices now reflect the shift in workplace paradigms.
If work before was a 20% collaborative and 80% individual affair, this ratio is projected to be reversed in 10 years’ time with individual workplaces shrinking and meeting areas becoming more prevalent, hipper and funkier. Be it open areas with enclosed meeting rooms, conference rooms for larger gatherings or even coworking spaces, the traditional workplace is giving way to an agile working model, where office space is all about collaboration and socializing. Basically, offices have been replaced by studio apartments and people are lovin’ it.
The office is not necessarily a place where we go to do work, as reported in WorkShift: The Future of the Office. Rather, it is a place where we go to communicate about work — have meetings, catch up at the coffee machine, see and be seen, and be gone.
A smart tech boost for office productivity
From team collaboration software to project management systems, online calendars and different office productivity gadgets covering everything from Google Apps and Office 365 to smartphones and tablets — new technology has supported the shift towards collaboration by providing a seamless and effective office interaction model.
The traditional workplace is giving way to an agile studio apartment working model, where office space is all about collaboration and socializing and people are lovin’ it.
Especially important in the new, agile workplace with many employees spending more and more time outside the main office and the designated desk model are tools allowing for more effective space management.
The paradox of choice
Choosing a meeting room management device or any other smart office tech is more often than not a complicated task, and probably, somewhere in the office there’s someone losing their mind over it. The problem lies not only in the tool’s functionality and difficulty of use.
Many people go for jobs that align with their values. With offices increasingly communicating corporate culture, deciding on the right workplace tech has never been more important.
Energy inefficent office equipment is the fastest growing energy user in the business world, with its consumption representing 15% of total electricity use in offices, and the figure is only expected to double by 2020.
In an era where people progressively select employment when it aligns with their environmental and social values, and where offices increasingly communicate corporate culture, opting for the wrong technology can prove a problem when headhunting or retaining personnel.
New times, new rules
The demand for energy efficiency is something office tech will need to follow. According to New Ways of Working, with workers highly aware of ethical issues and the blurred boundaries between business and social issues, there’s increasing pressure on businesses to operate more responsibly and take care of the environment.
With the ecological component becoming increasingly important in the mindset of the modern worker and a heightened awareness of the changes in the ways we work, technology has emerged as the glue that holds everything together in a dynamic, flexible and multi-faceted but integrative workplace, virtual and otherwise. Adapting may prove somewhat tricky at first, but it is absolutely necessary and in the end immensely rewarding. Throw in a beanbag chair or a comfy couch, introduce PJ Fridays and it’s as good as home.
Header image: WeWork offices in Dumbo Heights, Officelovin’
Originally published at getjoan.com on January 5, 2016.
