What future the office?
Recent trends in workplace management have placed a question
mark over the future of the traditional office. Are these trends
permanent?
Downsizing and de-layering are clearly having affects on the structure
and management of commercial and public organisations. Whether such
terminology is a convenient disguise for the executive of companies
struggling to come to terms with growing uncertainties in an increasingly
competitive and global marketplace remains to be seen. If it is
to remain a feature of enterprise management in the years to come
then the complimentary techniques of teleworking, hot desking et
al, backed up with more affordable hard and software which allow
such techniques to flourish, will surely alter the need for and
the procurement and design of offices. So states the received zeitgeist.
However, there are alternative forces at work.
The idea of teleworking from home, a comfortable concept for accountants
seeking lower overhead costs, ignores several aspects of human behaviour
likely to mitigate against the achievement of low cost nirvana.
People like to work with other people, to interface, to adopt the
jargon, face to face and not modem to modem. A recent survey of
internet users showed that the majority were white males under 30
with excellent typing skills but limited social skills. It is social
skills which allow groups of individuals to work well together to
achieve given ends, one of the keys to success in a business enterprise.
The human being is still a social animal. Plus, how could a teleworking
executive keep in touch with "office politics" , a necessity
if he is to climb the greasy pole to the top? Hot desking, the concept
of cutting desk space in an office and increasing sharing of available
space is an interesting idea which has been put into practice by
some companies, most notably Andersen Consulting in London. It relies
on the fact that many staff members are out of the office for a
substantial amount of their time and therefore do not need a dedicated
desk space. But anyone who has tried this approach will readily
testify that there is a tendency for your "desk" to expand,
from your shared workspace, to a client's office to your home to
the back of your car as you struggle to find space for working files,
computer, stationery etc.
Received wisdom dictates that the new communication technologies
on which organisations (and teleworking and hot desking) rely, need
new office space to accommodate underfloor data wiring and to house
computer hardware in a bespoke environment. Out of town business
parks have blossomed leaving a trail of redundant older city centre
properties in their wake. However, environmental pressures on car
users, a planning backlash and the advent of cordless local area
data management are likely to reverse the trend. This and a possible
"social backlash" against the human cost of the new techniques
of workplace management may yet conspire to ensure a future for
the traditional town based office.
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