Why Companies Are Suddenly Investing Billions On Their Workplaces
Is it possible that communications tools like Skype, Zoom.us and Google Hangouts will have the effect of making communal office spaces obsolete?
Is the day coming when organizations will redeploy workers to home offices – where they’ll have no commute, and the freedom to work all day in play clothes?
A few years ago, researchers at iconic furniture maker, Herman Miller, began a deep-dive into the future of the global workplace driven by the desire to answer questions like these. Clearly, technology already makes it possible for many people to work away from conventional offices. The question is whether that’s ultimately the best thing for workers, not to mention the companies that employ them.
As part of the study, a team reviewed academic literature on psychology, anthropology, sociology and behavioral sciences – looking as far back as the B.C. era when human beings first began documenting ideas about work.
The research conclusions were then presented at the Dive! Innovation Conference held this summer in Rennes, France, which I attended. The following is a summary of the firm’s most compelling discoveries as shared by Mark Catchlove, Herman Miller’s Director of Knowledge and Insight. His overriding conclusion is that many of us will indeed end up working remotely, just not all the time.
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