Advisory No 12 - The Traditional Office is an Endangered Species

You’ll notice a common theme if you stroll the central business districts of many of the world’s larger cities.  There are increasing numbers of premium office spaces being turned into luxury apartments.  

Of course there are practical considerations here, both technological change and the cultural change that favours renovated warehouses as workplaces can mean that many of our eighties-style office blocks are now redundant and are preferred for housing over business.

This change may however be the development of a major shift in business culture to us working remotely or "teleworking".  Indeed it’s entirely possible that the office of the future is not an office at all and is likely, for many of us, to be a place where we meet, exchange ideas and tasks, and then complete our working day at home.  

The end of the traditional office could well occur during the course of our careers and we have to be ready to adapt our operational systems and processes accordingly.

In the USA in 2012, 2.6% (3.3 Million people) considered "home" their primary place of work. (Source: Global Analytics.com).  This figure had grown by 80% from 2005 and continued growing even when the workforce declined in 2011-2012.

In 2013 the Australian Bureau of Statistics concluded that 24% of Australian workers spent at least part of their time working from home.

In that same year the Australian Public Service Commission Employee Survey found that 80% said working from home ‘increased work and life balance’ with 69% saying they were ‘more productive’.  

Interestingly, these Australian teleworkers had higher employee engagement, worked longer hours and had fewer sick leaves.  This is not at all surprising considering they get to give up the daily commute and put some extra quality hours back into their working day.  The Australian Government now has a target to double the formal teleworking workforce by 2020. (telework.gov.au)

So, teleworking should be embraced because what any manager wants is a fully engaged productive workforce who are happy and committed in their roles.

Technology has enabled this flexible work practice and the widespread availability of mobile and cloud technologies now has most of us connected to our workplace 24/7.  It's practical then that only way to make the 24/7 work culture sustainable for us personally and professionally is to have the tools to take some time back for ourselves while still operating in the reality of modern business.  Teleworking is part of the solution for this.

Teleworking is both empowering for the individual and productive for our businesses.  

As managers and business owners we have to be ready for this inevitable change in our operations and ensure that we have adapted our processes accordingly.  

We need a management structure that recognises our increasingly fluid teams and, at the same time, we need to ensure that there is increased formality and accountability around roles and responsibilities.  We need to keep our project management tight and our meetings formal, structured and action orientated. 

By recognising this change and working with it,  we win all of the benefits of an engaged motivated team and less of the risk around lack of accountability with a mobile workforce. 

The Advisory Partnership assists its clients with operational strategy, delivering outputs that are scaleable to meet the challenges of technological change and International growth.

Post by James Douglas
www.theadvisorypartnership.com