Trends and themes the near and far future of workplace design

WORK+DC 2013

A STUDY OF THE FUTURE OF WORK IN WASHINGTON, DC DAVID CORDELL LAURIE LIEBERMAN JON PENNDORF HALEY RUSSELL

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The average person spends almost all of their time in indoor environments and a third of that at work.

This clear definition of time is becoming gradually ambiguous as the days of punching time cards for a 9-5 job move behind us. The lines between work and home are blurring in an interconnected and always-connected world.

Perkins+Will and Steelcase are both organizations that value research and its ability to inform design and process – whether it’s how we design a building, a chair, or why humans do the things they do in the spaces we create. Armed with the previous research of our companies – and that of many others – a small group of four were curious about the future of work.

We wanted to create a vehicle to explore the future of work – not the future 100 years from now, but the future in our lifetime that could inform and contribute to decisions our clients are making about work places today. There are many organizations that track trends related to workplace design – Perkins+Will and Steelcase are some of them – but no one had looked at these trends through a regional lens. Our team wanted to begin to identify the themes around work that were important to the people right here in our own backyard – Washington, DC. With that, work+dc was born with the ultimate goal of becoming a reproducible workshop that could begin to look at work in other places such as work+la, work+seattle, work+chicago, and countless others.

From two half-day workshops with representation of thought leaders from an array of businesses with a local presence we learned that the future of work will be very different from today. These six primary themes emerged as being the most prevalent:

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PEOPLE. The importance of people in the future workplace was the most common theme discussed throughout the workshops. The participants predicted that “mobility” will continue to gain importance and working from locations outside the traditional office will become commonplace for most everyone. Technology will be used to interact, connect, and mentor in an increasingly mobile work place. In such a connected world, we also learned that the importance of face-to-face interactions will not diminish – but will almost become more important – to foster the personal connections between colleagues, to contribute to the culture of the companies for which they work, and to partake in social activities for team-building and to preserve one’s “humanness.”

TECHNOLOGY. Technology already impacts how we get work done today, but currently focuses on the hardware devices themselves, access to information, and how information is shared. In the future, the participants believe that technology will become embedded into our daily routines and that it will complement behaviors transparently. Access to technology will be achieved through embedded interfaces – perhaps buildings, vehicles, or clothing that can share, store, and direct information from anywhere. With access to too much information, however, the participants also realized that in an increasinglytechnological world there will be a need to “filter” this information so that you can turn it on when needed and turn it off when not.

TRANSPORTATION. Even though transportation occurs outside of the physical work place, the participants realized the future of commuting will have a profound impact on how, where, and when we work. Choices in transportation modes and access to them will force the workplace to become more flexible and dispersed, and may impact factors such as workplace size and locations. In a city like Washington, DC where the boundaries are fixed, more workers and more people living near their work will put a strain on the existing infrastructure, which is already maximized for capacity. How will DC and other major urban areas deal with increased residents and commuters, and how does that effect workplace planning? Employers will increasingly consider ways for staff to minimize their time spent in transit and maximize time spent doing work, which translates to smaller leased spaces or increased telecommuting. This may mean the design and planning of decentralized workplace environments – having a small headquarters office and then multiple small touch-down environments – instead of large company headquarters.

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ECONOMY. An economic system is inherent in any advanced society and assumptions were made during the predictions created by the participants. Many participants thought the world economy would be a factor in the future work, but few knew exactly what that would look like. Some participants believed that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would become the North American Union in order to foster more collaboration and co-creation between the United States, Canada, and Mexico while others focused on good health as a consistent thread to connect to a vibrant economy.

Volatility of competing economies, emergence of new markets, structure of governments and politics was not a focus of discussion during the workshop.

PLACE. With current workplace trends shifting toward increasing mobility, work-life balance, and the “third place,” it’s understandable that “place” was a topic of conversation among workshop participants. It was predicted that localized multi-company business center would continue to grow in popularity but the idea of a personalized virtual environment (with its own set of security measures) might also emerge. Work time and personal time will continue to blur, but the workplace of the future will need to adapt to support this. In a traditional work place setting, it is predicted that the environment will focus on supporting learning and socialization – rather than individual assigned workplaces – with a range of f lexible work environments. There is also a balance between the efficiencies of sharing space and a person’s innate desire to personalize their surroundings. This ability to showcase a person’s personal brand will still be important in the future of work but also brings to light another question – how will the brand of a company be exhibited if the company doesn’t have a physical “place”?

SUSTAINABILITY. Sustainability was knitted into ideas generated by all groups throughout the workshops, yet only one group identified it as a specific theme. We learned that sustainability will be even more of “the norm” than today and no longer a buzzword.

Most participants instead saw sustainability woven into each of the other themes – from community gardens on green roofs to environmentally-friendly transportation such as bicycles, car sharing programs, and mass transit. It was also predicted that sustainable construction costs will be equalized to “standard” construction in as little as ten years, making sustainable design just part of good design. While sustainable design and materials may become commonplace, more interactivity with a sustainable environment will become the norm in the next generation – from individual controls to real-time monitoring and adaptable spaces that track benefits.

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