The emergence of new working methods from a Smart Working perspective is leading to greater flexibility in the choice of spaces and times for working. Any place can be used as a temporary office: the armchair of a train, the bench in a public park or the sofa at home - through increasingly smart technologies - become nomadic workstations from which it is possible to stay connected remote with our own team. At the same time, the hypothesis that virtual communication and remote work will completely replace offices is still a long way off. The answer is rethinking work spaces by designing offices that are less formal and rigorous than those we are used to.
THE KEYWORD IS FLUIDITY
The trend is hybrid workspaces: a mix of open spaces and more intimate workstations that encourage movement, several times during the day, from one space to another according to special needs. Spaces to concentrate, spaces to communicate, spaces to share. We can leave behind the idea of a fixed location where to spend the entire working day. Instead, fluid and multifunctional work environments are spreading to stimulate creativity and interaction between colleagues. The great giants of Silicon Valley, such as Google and Facebook, have already adopted this approach, organizing their offices in order to encourage fortuitous encounters - called 'bumps' - to train the comparison of new ideas and strategies. Even the furnishings become simple and essential but above all modular in order to offer several possibilities of aggregation and reconfigurability.
RELAX AREAS AND SERVICES: YOU DON'T LIVE ONLY FOR WORKING
Today entertainment and relaxation are considered an integral part of creative and production processes, and they are no longer moments separated from the strictly working activity as it was in the past. This is the case of important multinationals which were the first to create spaces dedicated to rest, and well-being culture in their headquarters. Areas which are available to employees any time because they are considered essential for improving employee satisfaction. It is not just a question of redesigning buildings and replacing traditional desks with mobile models, but to ensure an improvement in the overall experience from an “employee-centric” perspective.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ARE THE PROTAGONISTS OF THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE
The new ways of working remotely and the fluidity of spaces require relevant tools and technologies for immediate access to services and for maintaining effective collaboration between geographically distant teams. Applications, cloud computing and wearable technology will tell us, for example, which areas inside the building are noisiest and which are quieter, where the meetings are or even who is in the office among colleagues. In the future, the Internet of Things will enable new services: allocation of parking spaces and workstations and new contact points that will support people's work such as, for example, interactive totems, e-boards, multifunctional installations based on an advanced use of digital signage. This scenario is close but not yet on the agenda. Meanwhile, communication and collaboration platforms, a meeting point between the company and the worker, are now an integral part of the technologies for managing physical and operational work environments, both inside and outside the traditional office.