Insights from the forefront of future of work thought leadership

According to a recent research report by Deloitte, the office is not getting any smaller or going away anytime soon, even with advances in mobile and digital technologies. In fact, from 1990 to 2017, the amount of total available office floor space in Australia even grew by 60%.

Technology is definitely transforming the workplace and how people work – but not the way most people think. Robots won’t be replacing everyone’s jobs. Deloitte mentions that people will still be ‘central to the future of work.’ What will change is the types of work humans do and the skills needed to succeed in the future.

At a lunch-and-learn event, we covered how technology drives workplace transformation. In this post, we go deeper into the discussion and focus on the impact of technology on the way people work:

Regarding the use of meeting rooms, how do you give people a choice when it comes to physical space and being able to duck into a room without the need to book?

1. Help employees to be more productive. People don’t come to the office because they want to. They come to the office to simply do their work and be productive. Employees ask themselves: ‘What’s in it for me?’ Things like meeting rooms and booking services need to help employees navigate obstacles and do their jobs effectively.
2. Provide an on-demand and personalised experience. It’s about giving your staff what they want, when they need it and in a form that is very personalised to them. They have to be able to identify with the experience and see its value. Take the example of the Uber experience. The service is not the vehicle or the driver. A normal taxi can provide that. The real difference that Uber offers is the ability to provide on-demand services, whenever and wherever they’re needed. Once you give people the confidence in choosing a meeting experience from anywhere at any time, you will see a change in behaviour. The work environment is no longer a big deal, and you will see a significant increase in workplace efficiency. We can create variety and choice across the whole environment that permits them to basically operate from anywhere but it’s underpinned by that confidence model.

When should you start considering technology when planning an office move or redevelopment?

You need to start thinking of how technology can be integrated as early as possible. According to Dan, you have to consider technology in the early stages of the process and “talk about technology today as a scalable investment.”

During an office move or refurbishment, people usually focus on where the space is going to be and what it’s going to look like. They defer technology decisions towards the end of the project – when budgets and timeframes are already constrained. This results in making some significant sacrifices on the technology front. They start cutting down on the things they wanted at the beginning. And they end up letting down the people who are going to use that work environment, ultimately impacting the level of potential productivity that could be leveraged.

So, don’t make the same mistake. Start to think about technology as a platform approach and identify and invest in what you need early.

Also, by thinking about technology early and properly communicating your needs to providers and partners, the better off you will be in meeting expectations and deadlines and achieving the outcomes you wanted at the beginning.

What is the behavioural impact of enabling technology in the way people operate, such as working from home or working non-traditional hours?

Technology has such a significant impact on the workplace, that it is changing the way people work. Here are some insights from our panel of experts:

People still seek human connection
With advances in mobile and digital technologies, people are now able to work anytime, anywhere. These days, people have the freedom and flexibility to work from home and outside the normal 9-5 hours.

But it seems employees still look for human connection. There is a slow shift back to people wanting to work in the office. They like meeting face-to face, looking people in the eye, shaking hands and directly engaging with colleagues and customers. Some even think that they are more productive and effective when working side-by-side with their team in the office.

Work-life harmony
Let's call it “work-life harmony” rather than balance as we all have to go to work and go home at the end of the day. Both work and home life are intertwined but it’s the communication piece in the middle that enables us to connect with our families and colleagues. Nothing can replace the element of human connection.

That’s why companies like Axiom develop workplaces that enhance human experiences and implement technology that enables harmony between work and home life – encouraging people to come back to the office. This then creates a cultural shift attracting employees of all levels, including leadership, to come in and get the work done.

Personalised service
Why would someone come to this office? As an employee, why would I want to do this? What’s in it for them? These are some of the questions that you need to consider when building workplace environments.

It’s not just about how impressive the technology is that you want to integrate. It also needs to serve a purpose. People need to see and experience the value of the service. Plus, it needs to be personalised to each individual’s need. For every inconvenience, we need to give employees two conveniences so they can start to offset one another, and they can start to see the value proposition beyond the friction.

Technology won’t be able to solve everything. There are going to be certain problems that you’re never going to be able to overcome or be able to rectify, but if you start to add lots of little things people can identify with – then they will begin to see the overall value of what you’re trying to do.

So, don’t just give your employees a desk to work on, personalise the service and make things easier for them. This would not only increase employee job satisfaction but also improve productivity and efficiency in the workplace.

This is how it all comes together; you’ve got to treat the working environment with respect and your employees with respect.

Want to learn how a design partner can help implement the right technologies to create a more productive and engaging workplace for your employees? Check out our free ebook How to choose a workplace design partner. Download it now!

Technology is changing the way we work. The current workplace is no longer a single place people go to do their jobs. With advances in mobile devices, networks and cloud computing, employees can now work anywhere, anytime with just a laptop and an internet connection.

This enables enhanced staff flexibility, collaboration and productivity never before seen in the workplace. However, to achieve the best results, companies not only need to provide the right workplace technology and tools for people to do their work but also create a working environment that caters to individual needs and preferences.

In this post, we focus on some valuable insights to help you create a workplace culture that adapts to advances in technology, and more importantly, delivers greater efficiency, productivity, flexibility and employee job satisfaction.

As a small to medium business, what are the things you can do to future-proof your workplace?

For a growing business, it’s important to make sure that the decisions you make today are still going to be relevant in the future, as change can happen so quickly. Here are some key actions to future-proof your workplace:

1. Review the current environment: The first step is to get a full view of the current work environment. You need to know what is and isn’t working. Try to include your staff and the key stakeholders in the business and understand their current needs. Also, do a review of the workplace technologies currently in place – and how people are engaging with those technologies.
2. Make sure people are communicating effectively: One of the biggest hurdles in growing your business is making sure people are communicating effectively. Communication is fundamentally critical to anyone’s business. So, what technologies do your staff use to communicate? How effective are they to date? How can you overcome the challenges they’re experiencing? Then make sure the tools and technologies you invest in are simple and easy to use.
3. Engage a trusted partner: Yes, tools are becoming easier to use, but most people still feel overwhelmed with new technology. Therefore, it’s important at an early stage to engage with a trusted partner to help with the discovery piece and plan the move forward. This partner can also run workshops with stakeholders in different departments and groups to understand technology needs across the organisation.
4. Look to the future: Think Nokia or Kodak. They were market leaders at some point but failed to adjust to future market needs. So often we make decisions today based on historical facts that are now obsolete. It’s not so much about what you want to do today, but more about how you want to position your company in the future. Think about where you want to go and how you can add value to your customers in the years to come.

What role does workplace technology play in helping your employees become more innovative and creative?

We all know that the greatest resource for any business is its people. There are two ways technology can add value to your employees and help them become more innovative and creative:

1. Customising the experience

It’s important to realise that most of your staff just go to the office to do the work they need to do and collect a pay cheque. That’s the reality. So, how can you help them to be more innovative and creative in their work? It is essential that you treat your employees with respect and understand that every employee is an individual, with their own needs and preferences.

You need to customise the experience for them. And technology plays a big role in doing just that. Tools and applications can be customised to suit employees’ life and work styles. Mobile and digital technologies can also make life easier for your staff – providing greater flexibility, efficiency and productivity. In essence, technology can give people more time to think creatively and focus on the more important things at work and in their personal lives.

2. Enhancing workplace culture

When people come together and collaborate at work, technology often works in the background and is not given much thought as it works on demand. However, technology plays an important role in enhancing the workplace culture. For instance, digital signage in the office can actually help inspire people at work. You can tell stories about the business, where it’s going and the success it’s currently having.

If you’re working with teams interstate or all over the world, how can you ensure people get the best experience with video conferencing?

We’ve all experienced some sort of frustration when connecting with people via video conferencing. We hear comments like ‘I can’t hear you’ or ‘your video froze’ or even ‘connection just dropped’. So, how can you ensure the best experience?

It’s important to start with understanding your company’s communication needs. What would make it easier for them to communicate with each other? How will employees use video conferencing? Is video conferencing the best solution? Of course, you first need to make sure that the technology would be widely adopted by the different teams before you invest in improving the experience.

With the internet and Wifi connectivity becoming stronger, more stable and a lot quicker, people expect video conferencing to just work. If it doesn’t, they will find another way to communicate. We always try to find the easiest way to get things done. While video conferencing is important, it is not the only way to communicate. Businesses need to be able to offer employees a lot of choices when it comes to communication – audio, video, email and text.

How can IT departments manage the security of sharing and storing information, especially across cloud platforms?

Security needs to be at the core of your technological and digital initiatives. You need to understand the flow of information across your organisation. Business data could be emailed, shared on social channels or stored on the cloud in applications like, OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive.

But how secure is the cloud? Cloud applications are getting more and more secure plus companies are now better at implementing security protocols and measures to protect business data.

The bigger threat isn’t the cloud – it’s the internet of things (IoT). IT departments need to be more concerned about the devices, machines and apps connecting to the network. These ‘things’ connect to anything and have the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human interaction.

Also, stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog, as we go deeper into the experts’ discussion on how technology drives workplace transformation! Subscribe to our blog to make sure you don’t miss out and also read our Guide to the Future of Work.

Want to learn more about technology in the workplace? A design partner can help future-proof your business by implementing the right technologies to achieve your long-term objectives.

Check out our free ebook 'Digital Transformation: The Role of Workplace Strategy'

Few would argue with the notion that innovation is the lifeblood of successful and competitive businesses. If you’re a company that’s stuck in the grind of ‘business as usual’, technology may hold the key to unlocking your employees’ hidden potential for innovation. (And it doesn’t have to break the bank either.)

Here are 5 ways technology can support innovation in the workplace.

Improved communication and collaboration

There’s a reason why so many companies are trying to break down silos within the business and foster more collaboration – improved communication frees the flow of ideas, allowing for better insights and faster decision-making. Deloitte has even put a dollar amount on the benefits of collaboration, estimating that quality improvements brought about by collaboration are worth around $2517 per employee and manager per year.

Collaborative platforms like Google Docs or Slack allow people to share files, collate discussions around particular topics, centralise knowledge and work on documents simultaneously. This means you can get on with the business of working together without any of the frictions and frustrations that often go with it (‘Where did that email end up?’, ‘Why haven’t they got that document back to me yet?’ etc.).

Video and voice conferencing technology, such as Zoom, can help to tear down communication barriers, which is particularly helpful if your team is spread out geographically. Interactive whiteboard technology like Webex or Jamboard also gives your team the freedom of brainstorming on a whiteboard combined with the ability to pull information, images and documents directly from the web, while again allowing team members to participate from wherever they might be.

Improved collaboration strengthens ties across the employee organisation chart, including senior management. Better accessibility to managers, directors and the C-suite – whose buy-in is vital when it comes to actually implementing ideas – can smoothen the path to innovation, allowing for creative ideas to become reality much faster.

Increased efficiency and productivity

Just about every job is susceptible to automation to some degree. Many CRMs and marketing automation platforms, for example, automate tasks like data capturing or lead nurturing. And while the idea of machines ‘taking away’ certain aspects of our jobs can be somewhat anxiety-provoking, automation can often be good for workers (when implemented mindfully and in conjunction with good workplace design).

Technology can foster innovation simply by making our lives easier. By partially or completely automating repetitive and mundane tasks, employees have more time to engage in higher-value tasks such as strategising and analysis, which of course often leads to innovation.

Better access to data

Data is essential to innovation – without accurate, up-to-date data, innovation simply isn’t possible. Today, technology plays an essential role in information gathering, from a simple IoT sensor picking up a single data point, to dashboards that help make sense of the information, to cloud data stores that hold and compute our vast swathes of data.

Getting a good handle on data visualisation using tools like Tableau can also help pave the way to innovation, making data manipulation and analysis far easier, thereby putting innovative ideas at your employees’ fingertips.

More flexibility

Innovation means coming up with new ways to do things – and this, of course, requires a great deal of creativity. But employees who are sitting at the same desks, doing the same things day in and day out, aren’t going to be feeling particularly inspired.

Technology can help here, too. Collaboration tools like those mentioned above can be perfect for a remote workforce, allowing people to feel connected and involved no matter where they’re working from. You can also use technology to support flexibility within the workplace – sensor solutions, for example, can give you real-time information on things like desk and office availability, minimising time wastage and helping to facilitate a more agile, activity-based work environment.

The regular change of scenery, and interaction with different people in the organisation, that comes with such flexible work arrangements can do wonders when it comes to helping people think outside of the box.

There’s also a lot to be said for a fast, reliable wifi connection! After all, it’s pretty hard to be innovative these days without internet access.

Aside from these direct impacts on innovation, giving your staff flexibility at work can increase employee engagement, which in turn makes them more willing to search for and develop ideas that will benefit the company, rather than simply going through the motions of the daily grind.

Boosted wellbeing

It may surprise you to know that improving your employees’ wellbeing can also lead to innovation – after all, happy, healthy employees are creative, engaged employees! And believe it or not, tech can play a role here as well.

Things like wellness portals, where employees can do things like book gym classes or monitor certain aspects of their health, can give employees the tools they need to stay fighting fit. Sit-stand desks can help promote exercise and movement throughout the day, helping employees to perform at their peak. Even a simple app that reminds workers to stand up and move about on a regular basis can be a way to get the creative juices flowing!

Giving employees more control over their environment can also help boost employee wellbeing. For example, smart lighting solutions that give staff individual access to the lighting in their particular area allows them to adjust the lighting as necessary depending on the time of day or task at hand, ensuring optimal working conditions at all times. Similarly, individualised climate control, which enables employees to adjust the temperature in their particular area, can also help ensure employee comfort throughout the day, so they can focus fully on the job in front of them.

A culture of innovation

Fostering a culture of innovation is not just about providing your employees with the right tools – it’s also about seamlessly integrating these tools into your workplace design so they become as much a part of day-to-day business as email or the photocopier. Ensuring employees have access to communication tools in collaborative hubs, or conferencing software and equipment in meeting rooms, for example, can ensure everyone actually makes use of the technologies at their disposal, so they can get on with the business of innovating.

Is innovation a core value for your business? A workplace design partner can help ensure your office reflects this. To learn more about how a workplace design partner can foster innovation at your business, check out our free ebook How to choose a workplace design partner. Download it now!