How Design and Technology Will Reshape the Future

The Future Office: A Dual Frontier, Part II 

It’s hard to predict the future in a world turned upside down. But we do know that this is a watershed moment -- one that will result in long-term economic and societal changes. Even top infectious disease experts warn that the resumption of “normal” life will be a long road back and that our new normal will look anything but. 

I recently wrote about how, in the aftermath of COVID-19, the future of the workplace will be a dual frontier – one in which the skills necessary to work remotely are established, and working from home is an accepted extension of working from the corporate office. Many companies are still not fully prepared for this reality. They will need to invest and adapt in a number of areas and move quickly to ensure business continuity in these challenging times.

In this article, I explore the design and technology implications of the dual frontier, and specifically how future office spaces can adapt. There is no replacement for being physically together and the human need for connection will always remain. However, it is certain that the way the workplace functions and accommodates the needs of organizations will change and businesses must prepare for managing a (at least partially) distributed workforce.

My insights are gleaned from conversations with clients, instances where we have already designed work environments for distributed teams, and M Moser’s recent experience in Asia, where companies and our own teams are returning to the office and facing the realities of doing business in this new reality.

Designing for the next frontier

We’ve known for years that design plays a vital role in employee health and wellness, but how companies approach design - whether it be home-office set-ups or at a corporate headquarters -- has taken on new urgency and importance. Here’s what is likely to change:

• Office space, and the dedication of space within the office, will be scrutinized like never before. Government restrictions, shift rotations, booking systems and extending beyond a local workforce will all influence density in the future workplace. Why assign and lock in an office space that is only used part of the time? While some companies may choose a smaller footprint, the importance of a physical workplace for connection, community, co-creation, and more will still exist. In parallel to this, the realization that coming to work is a more conscious decision will shift workplace design to more purposeful and strategic spaces. Intentional spaces that allow people to connect and collaborate, essentially providing the experiences that cannot be met by video conferencing and remote work, while leveraging physical proximity requirements to support health, aesthetics and desired behaviors.
• Ventilation will grow in importance and impact. Depending on how densely a company’s workforce re-occupies a space, more stringent ventilation strategies that combine extraction, air changes, and filtering/sterilizing recirculating air will be needed. Many of the strategies can be added on with relative ease, while others require deeper coordination with the base-building infrastructure. Simply stated, more people in a densely packed space will require more air changes per hour than spaces that are less dense. Enclosed rooms and high-density convening areas will require more focus on the extraction systems and airflow within the space. This will be an increasingly critical component in enabling people to be in the same space without sacrificing their health or safety.
• Businesses will borrow a chapter from the healthcare industry. Employees will expect, if not demand, that their work environments help keep them safe and healthy when they ultimately return to the office. To this end, hospital-grade sanitizing inside offices (and out) will no longer be optional; self-cleaning surfaces will become commonplace; anti-microbial surfaces and materials will be incorporated throughout the office; ventilation and filtration will form an increased part of workplace design; and light fixtures (UV) will assist in disinfecting the environment and bolstering infection prevention, to name a few.
• The home office will be set up on your first day. Ergonomics and wellbeing standards -- which have traditionally been rooted in the corporate office -- will extend beyond the workplace to ensure employees maintain their health from home. What was once an independent effort, will now be incorporated into corporate onboarding as the home office will take shape with stipends and ergonomically approved checklists of tools and set-ups to ensure that there is no disparity between working from the office and working from home. Technology requirements will be met with a streamlined set of prescribed tools and internet accessibility that enables pick-up and plug-in accessibility, wherever people decide to work. And, as we are already seeing, apartment complexes will provide co-working and office amenities, fully uniting work and home capabilities.

Embracing technology that everyone can use

Before Zoom became a verb, many companies treated virtual meetings as second best to face-to-face collaboration. No longer.

Regardless of your age or role within the company, the pandemic has forced the world into a mass remote work experiment and many are discovering its benefits. As millions -- from Millennials to Baby Boomers -- have embraced technology and rapidly developed new skills to work remotely, many have come to realize that one’s age and years of experience matter much less than resiliency, problem-solving and flexibility.

So even when the current lockdowns are lifted, virtual working and learning will remain a steady part of our lives. All of this requires a strong underpinning of technology to enable remote working to flourish affordably. Here’s how:

• The clouds are gathering. If they haven’t already, companies will shift away from dependency on anchored technology (e.g. desktops, local servers, etc.) and move quickly to cloud-based platforms. In-office technology will be designed as an extension of remote working so there is a fluid transition for employees working between the home and the office.
• Instead of Ubering, let’s Zoom to the meeting. The technology platforms (and the vernacular) we use to convene meetings will profoundly change as virtual meetings become a universally accepted mode of communication in the post-pandemic era. As a result, online collaboration software will be incorporated seamlessly into daily workflow and virtual team chats will surge in volume and importance, as many will view email and traditional conference calls as a comparatively slow-moving forms of communication.
• Onboarding new employees will start at home. Setting up technology at home will become a staple of new employee onboarding to ensure that people can work remotely with ease. This will include companies supporting some or all of the costs associated with working remotely, such as Wi-Fi and other tech expenditures previously shouldered by the employee.

What design or technology changes are you envisioning for your business? Are you preparing now or waiting to see how the post-pandemic world unfolds?

In my next article, I will explore what effects this global experience is having on teams, company organizational culture and employee well-being.