The death of the office

OPINION: Technology is changing office life, forever. Are we looking at the death of the office? Will cost cutting, mobile technology and the emergence of a generation raised on social networking make the office redundant?

Are we going to see more people working from home, or on the move, or in temporary shared offices?

Earlier this year, the Boston Globe ran a piece on the biggest employer in Kenya Txteagle. A company with 10,000 employees, it doesn’t rent any office space. BusinessWeek has a piece now on people working from the beach. Is that a sign of the future?

According to this Microsoft video we are seeing the development of the "hybrid organisation" where the boundaries between home and work merge. That could spell the end of the office, or for that matter, the desk.

The Microsoft study predicts that fixed office spaces will be turned into shared bureaus that allow staff to have office space when they need it, and at the same time, mix and swap ideas with people from other organisations.

Companies will be able to cut costs with as much as 30 per cent of their real estate becoming redundant. Instead of silos and a collection of desks, the office of the future will be the place where people can meet, and then go separate ways.

More companies will factor in the "third space" where people can work, outside of home and the office, and staff will be making greater use of social media and collaboration tools.

Blogger Seth Godin says the office is a relic from the time when it was located next to the factory and all factories were built in straight lines.

Why do people go there now?

They go there because that’s where the items that they work on are located, where the boss can keep tabs on their productivity and where they can attend meetings and collaborate with other people. But now, all that’s changed because you can have that anywhere.

That leaves only one reason why people still feel they need an office: it gives them some place to go. Once someone figures that part out, he says, the office is dead. But that’s a big one and hard to solve. Which is probably why the office will never disappear.

It’s a point taken up in this piece. Sure, offices will change with more employees flowing in and out as opposed to sitting at one desk. But companies will keep them going if only to have some management control in place.

Then there is the psychology of offices. "While there are many entrepreneurs and freelancers perfectly content to work by themselves, many people need and crave personal interaction. They want the water-cooler gossip, the coffee breaks, and the opportunity to collaborate and exchanges ideas. This is what motivates them to come to work every day, even though the commuting to and from the office can be a grind."

- © Fairfax NZ News