What will a post-covid office space be like?

An easing of Covid lockdown

With the lockdown associated with coronavirus pandemic now starting to be eased for countries coming through the peak you’d expect normality to return but we’re hearing differently from a variety of sources.

If you think back 6 months, millions of us globally made the daily journey into the office. In the UK this would involve sitting in traffic jams, or trying to find space in overcrowded car parks and all this before you even started to use public transport for some of the journey. It was that last part that I particularly disliked. Finding a seat, if I was lucky, on a packed commuter train, or shuffling like penguins one foot sliding forward as the mass of people funnelled into the entrance for the London underground trains. Now, the thought of it makes me want to avoid the mass queues.

Why work in an office?

If we look back an office was, and still is, a place of bureaucracy where administrative tasks are carried out, or that was the original intention. Prior to the early 17th century coffee shops and people’s homes were the office of the day. Owners would live above a shop and employ clerks who also lived there, no commute as we do today but also no escape!

Then, in 1729, a large company called the East India Company, built one of the first purpose built offices in Leadenhall Street. They required a place where the vast number of documents generated by the business could be processed. Mind you, back then the mail would take months to arrive at the destination, be processed, and a reply to be sent. Now some people get twitchy if the reply takes more than a few minutes.

Much like the office of today there were parties and celebrations, but also more depressing examples such as one worker who threw himself out of the office winder in the 1790’s. So not much has changed really.

Problems with Homeworking

Ever since 2002 I’ve had the ability, even luxury, to work from home. It isn’t always as cool nor as great as it seemed at first. Working for a US start up meant late night calls with the US team and early morning starts to meet the customer across Europe.

One of the main problems with working from home is the boundaries blur, there is no rush to catch a train, no wind down time while travelling back to your home. Instead you walk out of your workspace… and that can mean anything from a separate room in the house, a wooden office in the garden, or stepping away from the kitchen table. Whatever it is, there is no time for your brain to process what has happened in the day before you are in your home environment.

Speaking to someone I know who is fairly senior in the banking sector this also means that for new employees, trying to impress the boss, can lead to them working even longer than normal. This person has, on occasion, worked until 2am, travelled home, and was up again at 5am to head back to the office so for them to say the new people are working even harder makes me concerned for their welfare.

So why do remote workers often put in these extra hours? Because research shows us that it is a flaw with management, managers tend to overlook people not in office and promote those they can see or interact with. Reminds me of that saying “Out of sight, out of mind”.

It is also a problem with some managers where it’s difficult to track and monitor their staff output directly, for these managers there will always be a lack of trust of their workers. That said, there is always a way to track output so it’s more about having the right processes in place to facilitate home working.

There are many other problems but the two here stand out to me after having experienced homeworking for nearly 20 years.

Benefits of Homeworking

While there are, for me, many benefits of homeworking there are several that stand out for me

Business Investment

However, I think that this will change. Morgan Stanley's chief executive said recently he’d rather invest the ￡35m he spends on expensive officers in people instead, and the boss of Barclays also said “The notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past…”

So we are starting to see some business leaders who recognise long term change is necessary and are looking at how to make those changes now.

Equality

If we think about how primarily women although it can affect men too, have their career slowed or even cut short with the break of maternity leave it is hugely impactful them. However the impact is wider as their talent and experience is now lost. With homeworking flexibility comes the ability to keep those people employed benefiting both them and society as a whole.

There is a big word of caution though, not all people will have the facilities or support of partners to work from home, and could to some extent increase inequality for those who have poorer facilities.

Cost Reduction

Apart from the obvious reduction in office costs (up to 77% for Contact Center operations), impact to environment etc. there is also a reduced cost through reduced turnover of staff due to higher retention rates. These range from 80% retention for home workers vs. 25% for call centre agents working in the centre.

Office of the Future

I believe that the large offices we see today will still be used but scaled back, primarily because organisations are led by managers and as noted above it is managers who drive behaviour, and I know one banking exec who is already working hard to bring the majority of his UK operations back into the office.

However, I also believe, and hope, that this will accelerate a change in enabling people to work remotely where possible. Not 100% of the time, but for the majority of the working week.

So what will support the remote worker the most?

Communications

It will be technologies like Zoom and other remote working tools that will facilitate this, along with the growth of technologies like Digital Assistants. Digital Assistants are the next generation of Chatbots, but with improved capabilities such as being able to handle multiple types of questions and integrate to a variety of back end systems. For example the internal digital assistant we use at Oracle can handle many things such as searching the HR Directory for contact information for an individual, and I can use my voice to ask the question. It will be improvements in these types of

Automation

While not strictly necessary for homeworking to be successful it is through the use of technologies such as machine learning to automate processes that will further improve businesses supporting home working. Processes such as suppliers making enquiries about PO’s will be handled by bots, expense approvals, PO payments etc. can be managed by AI processes with human oversight etc.

In summary the office we know will change forever with distancing, possibly teams working in rotation in the office and more people enabled to work from their home. However, it will still be the place to meet for those all-important chats around the coffee machine.

One final thought: Without the huge improvements in infrastructure such as broadband and fibre to home this would not be anywhere near as feasible as it is now

Note these are my own views and not those of Oracle.

#homeoffice #chatbot #officeautomation