Over the past year, the news cycle has been dominated by big names like Elon Musk and companies like Apple forcing employees back into the office after years of allowing employees to work remotely. Despite this, thousands of companies have found that advertising their job openings as remote or hybrid is a powerful draw for high-value talent – meaning we’re unlikely to see the end of remote work any time soon.
This trend means that many office spaces will likely see a transformation in how they’re organized and equipped to handle non-standard work crews and shifts. Hybrid companies will find that switching to less or more open-concept settings will benefit the employees still coming into the office, depending on their roles. For remote workers on the move, a shared workspace can help provide a focused and driven environment they may not find at home or in the hotel room.
What’s Old Is New
The battle between open-concept office space and more traditional cubicle-based settings has been ongoing since the 1990’s, and is no closer to being settled today. It seems clear that open vs. closed office arrangements benefit some professions over others, which means hybridizing companies can equip their offices with the furniture that suits those employees regularly coming in.
Cubicles are ideal for providing a measure of privacy, intimacy, and a focus on the work in front of you rather than collaboration. For those offices specializing in individual work that requires concentration and quiet rather than a more boisterous communications-based environment, cubicles are an ideal choice. For hybrid companies with small teams of specialists like accounting departments or analysts coming in on different days, providing a quiet and private environment that enhances focus will benefit over a more open-concept space.
Collaborative Spaces
Even if your office space is dedicated primarily to providing a quiet and focused working environment for your employees, every team requires collaboration and meetings to coordinate work efforts towards a mutual goal. This means that every office requires dedicated spaces for in-person and remote communication.
Meeting and conference rooms need to be equipped with specialized furniture that simplifies data and power connections for the technology that enables video conferencing. Tables like the Cancun Series Conference Table provide a permanent and stable solution with plenty of data/power connections. If a more responsive and dynamic option is preferred, flex-tables allow for total reconfigurations of the room depending on the needs of the employees working in-house that day.
Global Shared Workspace
The first generation of ‘digital nomads’ consisted primarily of bloggers, e-book authors, and entrepreneurs selling online learning courses traveling the world while working for themselves. Thanks to COVID, this lifestyle has been made available to a far greater number of workers, allowing employees to live and travel far from the city their jobs are ostensibly based in.
However, this lifestyle is not particularly conducive to focus or concentration as they either float from one hotel or Airbnb to another or try to avoid the distractions available at home. This need for a place that can promote focus and quiet has led to the creation of shared workspace providers like WeWork, which provide fully equipped working spaces and conference rooms for their digital nomad clientele.
Shared workspace providers usually equip their offices with collaborative benching systems rather than cubicles or stalls to create a modernized and open look and feel. Each benching system is usually equipped with dividers to demarcate a single workstation that can be rented. Each station has its own power and data connections and USB connections for phone charging.
Creative Office Design has helped companies all over southern California design and furnish their offices and facilities. Whether you’re looking to redesign your office to suit a hybrid workforce better or are opening up a new shared workspace, Creative Office Design can help design and fulfill every need a modern office needs to house and support its workers. Call today!