The office will never be the same again
"Sweden, who would believe this".
In October of 2020 Sweden was declared the most network ready nation in the world.
These days that title is rather important. That explains why Sweden was so well prepared for what happened last spring. That may partly explain why Swedish unemployment has not skyrocketed as badly as some other countries, but it is better explained by Ericssons stellar result in Ericssons which was also released in October: A 17 percent growth while 85 percent of the staff was working from home.
Did you expect that? I sure didn′t.
Most measures indicate that white collar productivity has risen as a result of home working.
Nor did I expect the results in our survey* which showed that 2/3 of the Swedes that worked from home enjoyed the experience.
But mainly, I want to discuss "the office landscape haters"; the people who detest working in an open office landscape. Two thirds of them enjoyed working from home. This minority of white collar workers account for an outsize part of the office space.
That is great news for everyone in business, except for those renting out office space. Lower fixed costs means corporate funds can be spent where it matters more to customers, emplyees, owners and society. It means new startups need less capital and that they can reach black numbers faster.
Most of us still want the office, but just about one in five white collar workers want to go there five days a week.
All that work where you need to focus will be happening at home.
We will probably be going to the office for social meetings, creative meetings, project startups and some strategic work.
That means the corporate office will become a smaller, more flexible and much more fun place than it used to be. It will be more social, creative and interactive.
* EIBA, Netigate, Professor Stefan Tengblad of Gothenburg University and Petri Kajonius of Lund University (psychology; an expert on personality). We surveyed a representative sample of 1500 swedes out of which 506 had worked from home.
Global Planning & Purchasing Manager at POC
4 年Interesting article. What do you think will be response from the employers? Are we going to see a down-size of the office spaces (smaller offices) and an even swifter change towards project-oriented office landscapes as a result of the experiences during the pandemic?
Professor i/in Human Resource Management
4 年Thank you M?rten for a great article. Just one thought and that is the benefit of combining work from home with teamworking, doing individual task all day long at home can be tedious and bad for the work morale. Being connected is a key.