Everything in the office is changing. Those of us who have been around and seen the prior evolution of working practices can perhaps appreciate this, but as working professionals we still need to understand and react to these continuing developments.
We have in a relatively short space of time seen some of the greatest changes in offices in history. Telexes have been replaced by fax machines and they in turn have given way to the ubiquitous email which is being challenged or at least supplemented by instant messaging. Fibre optics and PC's and the Internet mean we can work anywhere and at any time.
Every day, herd like, over half a million people commute into the city of London. Over 3 million people in the UK spend more than two hours travelling to work On average we use up a year of our lives getting to offices. But we don't have to for the most part and the next generation brought up with smart phones won't want to.
Everything is delivered to them as a web link or an app on their phones. In 2009 worldwide mobile app downloads amounted to around 2.52 billion but are expected to reach 268.69 billion in 2017.
This "app generation" is not going to be content with the existing way of office life. They will want and demand flexibility and will not accept traveling for three hours a day on a non air conditioned, overcrowded train to sit at a desk in an office in the city.
Another office revolution is on the way. Because technology means you can work at home or in coffee shops offices have to be more attractive. I read that Google's offices in Switzerland have an aquarium, a massage room and a slide to deliver engineers to the canteen. In LinkedIn's headquarters in California there is a music room with guitars, drums and keyboards. Deloitte has an office in Amsterdam where there is an empty room on every floor for employees to put what they wanted - a lot go for table football.
Roll on the office and working practices of the future - I'll take flexible working, music rooms and table football over commuting, crummy coffee machines and tea trolleys (remember those!) any day.
We have in a relatively short space of time seen some of the greatest changes in offices in history. Telexes have been replaced by fax machines and they in turn have given way to the ubiquitous email which is being challenged or at least supplemented by instant messaging. Fibre optics and PC's and the Internet mean we can work anywhere and at any time.
Every day, herd like, over half a million people commute into the city of London. Over 3 million people in the UK spend more than two hours travelling to work On average we use up a year of our lives getting to offices. But we don't have to for the most part and the next generation brought up with smart phones won't want to.
Everything is delivered to them as a web link or an app on their phones. In 2009 worldwide mobile app downloads amounted to around 2.52 billion but are expected to reach 268.69 billion in 2017.
This "app generation" is not going to be content with the existing way of office life. They will want and demand flexibility and will not accept traveling for three hours a day on a non air conditioned, overcrowded train to sit at a desk in an office in the city.
Another office revolution is on the way. Because technology means you can work at home or in coffee shops offices have to be more attractive. I read that Google's offices in Switzerland have an aquarium, a massage room and a slide to deliver engineers to the canteen. In LinkedIn's headquarters in California there is a music room with guitars, drums and keyboards. Deloitte has an office in Amsterdam where there is an empty room on every floor for employees to put what they wanted - a lot go for table football.
Roll on the office and working practices of the future - I'll take flexible working, music rooms and table football over commuting, crummy coffee machines and tea trolleys (remember those!) any day.
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