The End of the Traditional Office
June 27, 2006
Obviously, most offices will remain traditional. But Businessweek reports on the growing trend among advant-garde companies to redesign their traditional office spaces to accomodate an increasingly mobile workforce.
What’s should be inspiring to shareholders and managers is the tremendous cost savings combined with productivity enhancements:
Cisco Systems Inc. cut rent and workplace service costs by 37% and saw productivity benefits of $2.4 billion in 2005 from just such an overhaul. Estimates Charles Grantham, co-founder of Work Design Collaborative: “We believe companies could get as much as a 30% to 40% cost savings.”
It is interesting to note that even as workers become more dispersed, working from home, coffeeshops, or on the road, office design is actually becoming more socially oriented:
Paradoxically, as we disperse more, our need to gather in an ideal environment intensifies. So the rethink also includes a growing appreciation for the “social architecture” of offices. Architecture and interior design firms such as Archideas Inc. are creating offices for companies by mapping the informal networks in organizations and then structuring space around concepts such as who employees bounce ideas off of and who they like to hang out with.
This development shows that it is a mistake to believe that trend such as homeshoring will lead to less social interaction. Rather they will lead to less unproductive and unnecessary social interaction (pointless water cooler chatter) and to more productive engagement so that employees can, lo and behold, focus on what they’re being paid to do, namely create value for shareholders.
Entry Filed under: Social Benefits, Tech. .
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1.
Strategic HR Lawyer&hellip | July 9, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Updated Blogroll
I’ve updated the blogroll on this site - check the link on the left sidebar called "Diane’s Blogroll" under "Resources" and you’ll be taken to my daily reading list of blogs. Some new additions: The California Labor & E…
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ced55 | September 2, 2006 at 2:31 am
Our workplace is a huge factor of coming up with a well done job. Like in my case. I get more inspired to do my job well if I am in a crowdy place like a coffee shop perhaps. I would carry my laptop with me and do my job there and surprisingly the others do the same.
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