“We’re no longer tethered to a desk through cords and cables,” said Kylie Roth, Knoll’s Senior Director of Workplace Research at the NeoCon commercial design event.
by Ari Kepnes
Increased flexibility on where work is done has led to the rise of working from home. Among non-self-employed workers, work-at-home has grown by 140 percent since 2005. Forty-three percent of employed Americans occasionally work remotely. Thirty-seven percent of knowledge workers come into the office fewer than five days a week.
This trend has led some companies to ask, “why have an office when employees can work at home?”
The Employee is now the Consumer
Employees have the power to choose
The workplace is a strategic asset for attracting and retaining top talent. In a 2017 UK study of 2,800 knowledge workers, 67 percent of participants attributed
Companies are responding by shrinking personal space and investing in more collaborative areas. Workplaces typically allot 150 square feet per person, 33 percent less than 225 square feet in 2010. Some workplaces are shrinking to as little 60 square feet per employee by eliminating assigned desks and designated personal space. “Hoteling” and “hot desking” policies grant employees access to space on an as-needed basis. Much like an apartment studio, open offices blur boundaries between public and personal space to maximize square feet.
In exchange for less space, employees no longer exclusively choose between the cubical or conference room. Employers are investing in amenities and services for activities that employees would normally to do at home or elsewhere.the reason for leaving their last role to a workplace not being optimized for their needs. CapitalOne’s 2017 Work Environment Survey found that roughly 65 percent of US workers believe that workplace design is equally or more important than location when considering a new job.
The option to work from home reflects the importance of providing workers with more choices. Matt Werner of CBRE Global Workplace Solutions explained an industry event, “Consumerization is here, everyone wants to get everything they want.”
The emphasis on choice and variety means that design elements at workplaces and homes are converging. Roth calls this new trend, “homing from work.”
“It’s a shift on what the office is… At home, you use your bedroom, you use your living room, you have access to the entire environment…That’s how people see the office environment today. You use the entire space like you use your entire house.” (Watch the full interview at the beginning of the article.)
Effective workplaces encourage employees to use different spaces for different needs. The goal of workplace strategy is to balance a mix of focus spaces, sharing spaces, social spaces, and team spaces that meet employee needs. Like home design, this mix heavily favors communal spaces.