Office work scenario, post pandemic ..

The world has changed post pandemic, more so regarding the way people work. When I check up with my colleagues working in IT companies, some of them have not gone to the office for more than a year and are comfortably working from home, though definitely bored..

I was naturally interested in the new work scenario and while going through the latest HBR article in this regard was surprised to find the future work spaces to be very flexible.  One definite point we have observed is that whatever changes have happened have happened for the good. The work from Home or Work from Anywhere concept is here to stay.

Click here for the article Five models for the post pandemic workplace, HBR, June '21 by Daniel Davis 

As per the research conducted by the HBR author Daniel Davis, the future workplaces are going to be one of the following

• As it is : the original workplaces before the pandemic, which has completely changed. It is very difficult for the world to go back to those days.
• Club house model - people visit the office only when they need to collaborate. Else they can work from home and complete their piece of the work.
• Activity based working - involves employee coming to the office but do not have fixed workplaces. They will keep moving from table to meeting rooms to conference halls to tea rooms etc. Accordingly the size of the office can also be reduced.
  
• Hub and spoke - In this style of working, the employees will be working in satellite offices away from the city centre, dropping into the main offices only once or twice in a week as need arises. The main city centre office can now be small with less rents. 
• Work-from-Anywhere model - this is what we are currently pursuing and this is the model being considered. In situations where customer interaction will be needed, the meetings can be held at a place of convenience of the participants either at the customer premises or anywhere, it seems convenient. The organisation benefits from not having expensive real estate in the city centre. 

Field work involving manufacturing, projects, physical retailing, agriculture, food processing, customer service, healthcare, tourism, hospitality, supply chain management, logistics , transportation etc. involves direct involvement of the service provider and service recipient and hence needs live interaction. The office interaction in alll these cases will continue to be any one of these above five models. 

What this means for the future real estate business, travel and tourism, transportation industry etc is beyond any wild guesses we can do today. The advent of AI, IoT, Robotics, AR and VR will change the world for ever.

A link from The Conversation on work place trends of 2021 is available here .. Picture courtesy, The Conversation.

George..