If your dad has ever accompanied you to your office, he would tell you how different the offices were back in their day. In fact, your office design might even leave them stunned. The reason is simple; office design has evolved drastically over the years. And it continues to evolve further.
In a few years to come, the offices we'll see will be nothing like the traditional offices we see today. Mind you, the traditional office design of today is nothing like what offices were like in the last decade and before that.
We mean to say that office design is evolving rapidly, and new trends are hitting the market every day. Features and elements that one couldn't imagine having in an office back in the day are the norms today. For example, many offices today have game rooms where employees can relax and unwind during breaks. This is something we couldn't have even imagined a decade ago.
We think that we're living in an era where technological advancement is at its peak, and office design has evolved enough. Only if we knew how wrong we were. Yes, we are currently in the middle of an upward technological trend, but we're far away from the peak. Things are changing, and they're changing fast!
This makes us wonder; what will the office of the future look like? What should we expect?
Is the Current Office Design Full-Proof?
When we say that the offices of the future will look nothing like offices today, it means that there is room for improvement. Right? If the current office design was full-proof, we wouldn't have felt the need to change things.
As much as the current office design is an upgrade from the offices of the past, it still poses various challenges and problems that employers are trying to find a way around.
When we say offices of the past, the first image that crosses our mind is a dully painted room with poor lighting, lots of cubicles, a mess of wires, stacks of documents, and overworked employees. The picture today is different. Offices are more spacious, brighter, neater, and more organized.
But there are still some noteworthy challenges that need to be addressed.
Rigid
The current office design is still very rigid. Employers are still reluctant to give their employees a free hand, room to relax, and time to stop working and take a deep breath. Employers still look at their employees as paid robots who have been hired to work, and that's exactly what they expect and make their employees do.
The result is overworked, overly frustrated, and unhappy employees. Nobody likes to work in a rigid environment where the employees have to follow a set routine every single minute of the day. This affects the mood, morale, and of course, the productivity of employees big time!
Inflexible
The traditional office design is inflexible for the most part. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has changed this to a great extent, some employers with a typical employer mindset are still not willing to offer any sort of flexibility to their employees.
The employees have to report to the office at 9 a.m., they can't leave work before completing their 8 to 9-hour shift, and they can't leave the premises for lunch. If the employee wishes to do anything that the employer hasn't permitted (like going out for lunch), the employee has to go through a long process of getting permission, ensuring their boss that they'll be back in time, and whatnot!
The younger generation doesn't have the temperament for all this, and this has started to affect their mental well-being.
Uncomfortable
Another major problem with the traditional office design is the lack of consideration for employee comfort. All employees have to work on the same workstations and sit on the same chairs. Not many employers consider that every employee is of a different height and physique, and making them use desks and chairs of the same height and dimensions makes them uncomfortable.
If an employee isn't comfortable at work, they won't be able to focus on work, and their productivity and efficiency will take a blow.
Noisy
The open floor plan encourages healthy engagement and communication among employees. While this has made workplaces more collaborative, it also poses a challenge for people who wish to work in silence.
The traditional open-floor plan is extremely distracting, and departments like finance and research that require silence to work often struggle to focus on their tasks.
How Will the Office of the Future Benefit Employees and Employers?
Now that we know there's plenty of room for office design to improve, we can say that the offices of the future will be designed keeping in mind the challenges of the present office design. What will these offices look like? How will they benefit the employees and employers? Let's have a look.
Smart Segregation of the Workforce
The age-old cubicle office design has long become obsolete, and today, open office spaces are trending. While open office spaces have got their own vibe and benefits, they have got their own set of challenges. The major one is difficulty focusing due to background noise all day long.
One thing that some employers have already started to work on, and we expect this to become more widespread in the future, is the smart segregation of the workforce.
Instead of making all employees sit together in an open space, the design will feature segregated sections for different departments. The office design will still be open, but there will be clear segregation with adequate acoustical partitioning to make designated spaces more soundproof, enabling the more critical departments to work in silence.
Brighter Offices
The offices of the future will have more influx of natural daylight. Research suggests that employees who work in spaces that have an influx of natural light are happier and more productive. We aren't talking about offices installing windows. Instead, we're talking about something on a bigger scale.
Glass walls, sunroofs, terrace spaces, rooftop sitting areas, and the ideas are endless. Not only will offices with more influx of natural light enhance the productivity and satisfaction level of the employees, but it'll also cut down the energy costs for the employers!
Ergonomic Offices
Employers didn't even know what ergonomics were back in the day. However, the awareness about workplace ergonomics and the importance of ensuring good office ergonomics is increasing. We can expect the offices of the future to be equipped with more ergonomic features than we can ever imagine today.
The most common ergonomic changes that employers are seen making today are ergonomic workstations and ergonomic chairs. But you can expect employers to go the extra mile in the future because by then, they would have already realized how important it is to provide workers with comfortable, safe, and healthy working conditions.
You can expect employers to make Home office All-in-One Desk Bike/Bike Workstation V9 available for their employees. You may want to know if under-desk cycles are good for you. The answer is yes! Under desk bikes ensure the employee doesn't stay seated in their chair in a poor posture all day long. An under-desk bike will enable the employees to keep their muscles moving and active while not compromising their work.
You may wonder, can you lose weight with a desk bike? and the answer to this question is yes. If you've got an under-desk bike at work, you can stay physically active and fit and stay in shape!
This is just one example of what we expect future offices to be like. One thing is certain the offices of the future will be more employee-centric.
Activity-Based Office Design
Most offices today have designated workstations for everyone. You can expect this to change in the future. The office design will be more activity-based. The employees will be able to use the office spaces that suit the nature of their work for the day.
There will be meeting rooms, idea-generating rooms, focus cells, and other similar areas in the office. The employees can use the meeting room if they have to attend meetings. They can use idea-generating rooms with their teams for brainstorming sessions. And so on. There won't be any designated workstations, and the office design will offer flexibility to their employees!
Virtual Offices
As we've said earlier, we're in the middle of a technological wave, and the peak is yet to be achieved. Technology is evolving rapidly. You can expect the offices to be virtual in the future. Thanks to COVID-19 for normalizing remote working, many employers now understand its excellent working model.
The employers will set up virtual office spaces where everyone will work remotely. The employers won't have to invest in setting up a physical office space. They can instead invest in technologies that enable them to pull off a fully remote working model.
The office of the future will be designed to ensure the employees are happy, satisfied, safe, and healthy. Future offices will be everything that the present offices lack. We're moving towards better office designs, and the future generation can expect to get all the facilities and amenities that we can only wish for today!
