The Pandemic and the Future of Workspaces

Today's article in the #TimesOfIndia was something that we needed to accept the fact that Workspaces of the Future is changing.

Today its apt to call them Workplace vs just Workspaces, because we are looking at a future that is beyond Just Space.

With companies releasing more than 6 million SFT of workspace in just the first half of the year we at HMPL Consulting started to think what could be the possible way forward. How are businesses going to adapt to this new change ?, the answer was simple Moving from a Workspace strategy to a Workplace Strategy.

What is the Workplace strategy?

Workspaces in the past saw anywhere between INR 15,000-INR 20,000/seat/month as the operational expense, so by downgrading the assets size are we merely looking at Cost saving or does it open up more challenges ?

At this conjunction is were Workplace Strategy place a crucial role because it moves beyond traditional approach of managing spaces to offering a Workplace of the Future.

Workplaces of the future involves Digital Workforce and this needs a Digital Fabric called Digital Workplace working in tandem with all internal teams for a successful migration.

Work from home has shattered previously held believes on how we work, collaborate and be productive. Today most of our work is happening remotely so its becomes imperative that office is beyond the physical space but more a Digital Phenomenon. This calls for increased involvement of HR, FM, IT, RE and the company leadership to come together to create a new Workplace Strategy.

Maybe, we can look at What is missing in a Work from Home option? to relate to a Workplace Strategy

1) Increased communication using 3 rd party applications like WhatsApp- since we are working away from office interaction/ collaboration with colleagues is moving Digital and are we prepared to handle this Change from a Information & IT Security and HR perspective

2) Cybersecurity- Working from home has left our cyber defence open to potential threat, its increasingly becoming important to safe guard all points of data access

3) Demand based office need-We still need to come to office because nothing works better than face to face meeting, how do we ensure our workspaces are prepared to handle this demand based office access?

4)Employee engagement-HR teams have built employee engagement frameworks that have worked wonders over the years but is it prepared for the Digital Workforce?

5) Intelligent buildings- Smart buildings are a thing of the past Intelligent buildings are soon becoming the norm for effective building maintenance.

We have great learnings and well established frameworks for physical workspaces and when things have moved Digital its imperative internal teams come together and align themselves to creating a Digital Workplace Strategy.