The office has broken its physical boundaries. It is time to reimagine it as an experience and innovation platform and make the user experience customized and seamless with smart building solutions and ecosystems. Today, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional office needs to be reinvented. Remote work has become an accepted option for many people and organizations; however, it is unlikely that majority of employees will not return to the office at all after the pandemic. They will, however, challenge the traditional office experience, from physical layout and surroundings to the content of work, interactions, and movement of people, and everything mentioned calls for a transformation. To empower this transformation, KONE, Accenture, and Amazon Web Services have come together to engage the broader industry in a conversation about how and where work will be conducted in the future. The product of a visioning process, Reimagining the Office envisions how the office can be transformed into a place that offers new opportunities for employees, employers (tenants), building owners, and managers. We invite the industry to reimagine the office of the future with us and contribute to both the vision and its implementation.
What do different stakeholders need?
Our dialogue has shown us that all stakeholders in the office environment share a common goal: each strives to convert recent learnings into long-lasting benefits through the transformation of the office ecosystem. A study by IPSOS 1 covering over 10,000 workers in Europe, North America, and Asia revealed that more than 85% of office workers were dissatisfied with their office environment. The key reasons were constant distractions and a lack of private space to concentrate. In the context of changing post-pandemic requirements, the pressure will increase to rethink these office environments and start incorporating new, sustainable solutions into the existing infrastructure.
THE FUTURE OFFICE WILL NOT JUST CONTAIN ONE, BUT DOZENS OF SOLUTIONS THAT ALL NEED TO BE ALIGNED AND INTEGRATED.
| EMPLOYEES | TENANTS | BUILDING OWNERS AND MANAGERS |
| will need to be delighted with new office experiences. The office will need to be inviting and offer clearly superior experiences for employees to consider going to a physical office instead of working remotely. They will think of the office as a place to fulfill a purpose, be it to engage in social interactions or access resources and amenities. Moreover, the office will serve as a platform for collaboration and innovation. | will continue to broadly see the office in terms of productivity and operating costs. However, for them, it is also a networking platform, a place to build and nurture company culture, attract talent, and develop their employer brand.
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are primarily concerned with maximizing their return on investment. With potentially lower numbers of people in a building at any given time, they will be looking for new opportunities to maintain or increase their revenue streams either via new services or business models, including outcome-based offerings and sustainability-driven tools and capabilities.
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The key drivers of change
We expect four key behavioral shifts shaping the office context to last beyond the pandemic.
THESE FOUR DRIVERS OF CHANGE WILL BE AT THE CORE OF NEW SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT THAT SHAPE HOW FUTURE OFFICES WILL BE DESIGNED, BUILT, AND OPERATED.
| Transition from a fixed office location to multiple workplaces | Prioritization of employee well-being, safety, and security | Increasing utilization of solutions that promote sustainability | Increasing adoption of digital tools and ways of working |
| Work-from-anywhere has become mainstream, but the fundamentally human need for face-to-face interactions will remain, albeit at the discretion of employees. Flexible work arrangements that balance employee and business objectives and optimize both will have to become the norm if an office space is to acquire an employee-friendly reputation. | The COVID-19 pandemic has brought home the importance of ensuring the physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being of employees in the office. Companies will focus not just on productivity, but also on enabling office spaces that are even healthier, safer, more inclusive, and more secure than before. | With the effects of climate change becoming ever more visible, eco-aware tenants and end-users – especially the younger generations – are demanding more sustainable solutions, processes, and spaces. Offices that do not prioritize sustainability may risk becoming irrelevant as users choose spaces with a lower carbon footprint or cleaner air that help them take actions to reduce their personal carbon footprints even further. | Pervasive digitization is transforming many aspects of human life. Companies will have to accelerate the digitization of work even further, invest in new tools, and enable new ways of collaboration as the level of digitization becomes a key factor in attracting and retaining talent in the future office. |
A sneak peek into the future office
Going to the office should also be an irresistible, but highly efficient and sustainable experience to justify the need to commute. For the employers (aka tenants), the office will be a space designed to activate branding, encourage innovation and co-creation, and help company culture come to life while providing flexibility to scale as their business develops. Building owners and managers will see new business opportunities that will increase overall sustainability and help them to tap into new and lucrative revenue streams beyond the concept of selling space. All this requires a completely new operational model and mindset shift.
REDEFINING USER EXPERIENCE
REDESIGNING SPACES
REINVENTING OFFICE AS A SERVICE
RETHINKING SUSTAINABILITY WITH INCLUSION
Transforming work into personalized experiences
IMAGINE an office that provides its users with unparalleled convenience and a purposeful, frictionless, personalized work experience. Enabling a sense of flow, it guides employees to focus on what matters. Your movement in the office is completely intuitive and effortless – and simultaneously ensures your well-being.
IMAGINE a continuously evolving space that adapts to both daily needs and long-term trends, ensuring users have the right options to succeed in their goals and interact with each other through a smart collaboration space. This flexibility is crucial when employees decide where they want to work – in the office or somewhere else.
IMAGINE the office not as a physical space, but as a service and innovation platform where users pay for what they use and value the most, with a continuous flow of new offerings and innovations to help them succeed. In this space, building owners and managers enjoy closer relationships with their tenants and grasp opportunities for new revenue streams.
IMAGINE an office that, in addition to having green building certificates like BREEAM and LEED, makes sustainability and inclusion visible every day, and has an active role in guiding its users – both individuals and facility managers – toward better decisions. This office shows the building’s sustainability metrics in real-time and demonstrates how the building promotes sustainability.
IN THE OFFICE AS A SERVICE MODEL
| BUILDING OWNERS | FACILITY MANAGERS | TENANTS |
| Can develop the value of the office over time by continuously launching new, human-centric services and technology innovations. | Can make better decisions about space usage and allow for the development of service offerings based on real insights. | Will be able to have a more flexible arrangement where they pay for what their employees use and value the most. |
The future office belongs to a sustainable environment that combines the needs of people with the needs of nature. it considers the ways in which people move between spaces to benefit both themselves and the environment. this vision of the smart office of the future is part of a broader ecosystem – of multi-experience buildings and a smart city.
Conclusion
No matter how diverse the stakeholders in the office space ecosystem may be, they are united by an interest in benefitting from a positive impact on the office ecosystem. Employees are motivated to enter an office that serves their needs and acts as a platform for collaboration and innovation. Tenants will see the future office as a flexible networking platform for nurturing their company culture, attracting, and retaining talent, as well as developing their employer brand. Building owners and managers will be incentivized by new modular spaces, providing them the opportunity to co-create the best solutions for the use of space and identify new revenue opportunities. In the new urban normal, the office must deliver on the employer’s promise to provide their employees with unparalleled convenience and a purposeful, frictionless work experience to justify the commute. It must also maximize value for the building owner and increase tenant satisfaction. At the same time, it must consider the best way to promote the responsible use of scarce resources.
THE FUTURE OFFICE WILL BE A PEOPLE-CENTRIC ENVIRONMENT.
…citeste articolul integral in Revista Constructiilor nr. 205 – august 2023, pag. 46-47
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