The Future-Proof Workplace

Chapter 9WorkspaceThe Future-Proof Workspace

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective.

—W. Clement Stone

We child-proof our homes, but have we future-proofed our offices?

Office space is a major capital investment for most organizations, and an important one at that. The physical work environment affects just about every part of an organization: finances, culture, work process, productivity, employee satisfaction, recruitment, retention, and how employees interact with each other. It also impacts employees outside of work in terms of their commuting time to and from work.

Design your workspaces well and you'll have a twenty-first-century environment where people want to be, in which people can thrive. Design poorly and you have the office of the twentieth century, a destination employees have to go to.

The office of the past was designed for the sedentary desk-bound worker who arrived, sat at the same desk all day, and then left for home. The office of the future has to be designed around the active worker, encouraging people to get up and move around; whether it's standing at their desks or treadmill desks, a future-proof office supports relationship-cultivation and chance encounters with teams in other parts of the building.

The office needs to transform from a location where work is done to a destination and support for how it's done. From where we have to go, to somewhere we want to go. We must rethink ...