In my morning reading, I was just going through a report that talked about the trend towards maximalism. And I got an eyeful of bright colors and clashing elements in photos from hotel chains.
Social media giant TikTok recently worked with Airbnb to create a design trends report highlighting the emergence of a “maximalist” aesthetic. The report noted that interior design trends have notably shifted in emphasis from minimalism, which had been hip for more than a decade, to maximalist styles, which have drawn 693 million views on TikTok to date.
From there, I went to look at the Accor Brands page to see some of the examples mentioned in the articles I have read.
My POV on this is that after several years of feeling trapped in our locations, we want to splash out for an over-sensory experience versus a feeling of scarcity.
However I have noted most of my colleagues have taken the last two weeks of holiday break in natural settings (oceans, mountains, long walks in nature) vs. rushing for over stimulus.
If we require both stimulus and excitement, as well as calm and peace, what then does this tell us about our daily work environment? Why can’t workplaces be destination locations with different characteristics that reflects that location? Or even different themes in different parts of the location that suit different generations?
In our annual quest to find and resonate on the topics that mean the most in the new year going forward, I want to talk about my two research areas for this Spring.
ORGANIZATION RESILIENCE
Organizational resilience for me is top of mind. This combines a number of factors — cyber resilience, employee motivation and commitment, resource allocation and supplier relationships, core competencies and agility to go to market. In a time when economic factors, levels of demand uncertainty and regulatory risk all put the organization on edge, how resources are allocated, supported and made agile will allow organizations to pivot more flexibly.
Technologically, we have been focusing on productivity and collaborative work this last year. My concerns are echoed by a recent paper in the MIT Sloan Management Review. The authors, Jonathan Trevor and Matthias Holweg, both at Oxford, stated that collaborative technologies do help bond hybrid and remote workplaces, but these tools and platforms still haven’t made the grade as far as replicating in-person settings. This is where I am putting my own efforts this Spring in looking at work as an experience (WaaE) and the worlplace as an experiential location.
In their paper, they claim that organizations and the technology they employ have done a good job of keeping everyone connected and in tune with what’s going on, but still can’t fully replicate the innovation seen in face-to-face workplaces. Perhaps their most significant observations are how organizations face challenges getting people together in one place at the right time, and the fact that employees in the survey “complained that work had become more transactional and operational in the hybrid environment. They missed feeling engaged and noticed a decline in the infusion of new ideas.
Being resilient as an organization is about harnessing the resources in a timely and effective manner. The ability to be innovative will hinge on how agile and supple an organization can be.
Having the right place to work to be agile and innovative will be critical. A part of this MIT survey looked at real estate usage. According to their study, ” The top planned changes cited by our sample are additional social areas (80%), creativity spaces (75%), meeting rooms (74%), shared offices (74%), and hot-desking (71%). Corner offices are on their way out.”
WORKPLACE ANALYTICS
Which leads me to the second critical area I am examining this Spring.
Workplace analytics combines occupancy analytics, visitor management systems and more traditional facilities management tools in examining usage. This is normally used by facilities managers, corporate real estate teams and the C suite to understand spending and costs.
But what we really want to examine is utility, in other words, how the workplace served its function in supporting work.
Key question I will be asking: How does the infrastructure support the work activity? Can we take a pulse on a regular basis to see what contribution technology in the workplace makes in making work happen productively and with purpose?
As an example, I bring up the latest survey recently from Relogix, a workplace analytics firm, on global workspace usage.
This report suggests that the last six months or so have been relatively static regarding those coming in and those remaining remote. But what is interesting is the shift between individual offices and the collaboration spaces that were once connected to them, both of which declined, whereas general meeting spaces and casual social spaces doubled and quadrupled.
People are looking to engage with other people if they make the commute into the office. Where does technology play a role here and can we make the workplace a destination and an experience?
Assuming you are not commuting during the holiday period, I wish you a wonderful season and a happy new year. May 2023 be productive, full of good health and wonderful innovation!
As we go back to the office, the process of not only being there but being productive there needs to change. In order to engage the employee, the supplier or the customer to come into the corporate or region office, they have to be able to successfully do their business when and how they are comfortable with doing it.
Taking a holistic approach to building the tech stack, smart orchestration should be a core component of the digital infrastructure that underpins the built environment, as a means to utilise a richer data set around space and building usage that allows us to work smarter and more comfortably.
Some already call a portion of this workplace experience management. But in order to manage the experience, there has to be an orchestration of workflows that go with that experience set. How the different experience management tools harmonise together to create the necessary processes for productive work.
When we come to an office, we want to know:
Availability of people and resources. This involves open scheduling, collaborative tools and change management resources.
Status of physical areas and their hygiene. This includes digital signage, capacity data being communicated, and personal preferences to heat, light and air quality.
Capacity of environments in terms of usage. Can I come in? Can others still join?
Procedures and protocols for visitors, suppliers, procurement of goods and services, etc.
Changing regulations about how we engage with the environment, including cyber security protocols.
Role of sensors and edge computing in orchestration
The underlying aspect of knowledge is data, and we have to be able to gather the necessary data to create the knowledge and communicate it to the right stakeholders in a timely fashion. The tech stack on which decision making sits is made of both internet of things (IoT) and operational (enterprise quality) technology.
Both for IoT and operational technology (OT), the common characteristics of these technologies is that they are based on decentralized architectures and they use edge computing. There is an explosion of sensors, devices and compute at the edge, and that is bringing in new types of artificial intelligence (AI) usages at the edge for real-time analytics that enable decision making.
Summary
Orchestration is harmonized with other key factors in workplace design as visibility, light penetration and communication potential; we should examine workplace tools, data analytics, sensor technology, and smart algorithms will impact how we design and what we design, to help shape the workplaces of tomorrow.
I have been actively looking at workplace design the last few years, focusing on why and how a workplace motivates creativity and inspires collaboration. If you go back and look at some of my blog posts, you will see discussions on IoT, lighting, temperature and use of space as part of our quest with technology to make workplaces more inclusive and efficient.
But I am not ending it here, in fact quite the opposite. I have recently seen how the space that you work in impacts how you perceive work. Which is why I question the whole coffee shop working ethos, as well as the lack of logic on putting up glass walls between offices. Neither situation creates comfort and engagement. Coffee shops may be hip, have coffee and great music, but you cannot focus nor engage well for any period of time with others there. And as for the glass walls, my colleagues either stay away or put up posters blocking the view.
So I am now looking at how technology enables the use of space, and how technology and intelligent design can really push the boat out on how we work, and more importantly why we work as we do.
When you hear the term “wearables”, you think of smart watches, fitbits and other consumer oriented devices. But the real market for wearables will be in the enterprise, such as on the shop floor, warehouses and in the conference rooms. This is the research I am working on right now.
Initial deployments should be industrial applications that have use cases that are specific with clear efficiency metrics and goals. Although some believe the “killer app” is the ability to work hands-free, the real level of personalization is the ability for the environment to recognize the user and his/her needs via their role in the organization. Entry/physical access, two factor authentication, personal preferences for heating and lighting, all of these can come from user recognition.
Another aspect of wearables is worker protection. For example, integrating intelligent textiles into clothing provides the possibility of changing color when exposed to damaging chemicals and/or radiation, warning the user of exposure in a way more immediately noticed than gauges or readings. Shape memory fabrics/garments can potentially be manufactured as novel fabrics which respond to the temperature stimulation, protecting workers by telling them when they might be in danger of cold or heat. And shear thickening fluid can be used for use in protective clothing as liquid body armour as it behaves as a liquid until it is exposed to mechanical stress. At that point, within a matter of milliseconds, it hardens into a solid. So when there is no threat to the wearer’s safety, he or she experiences little impairment in flexibility or range of motion, which is excellent for a warehouse or dock worker.
The eventual use of wearables among knowledge workers will be more of a generalized phenomenon, particularly when the devices become as multifunctional as their smart phones are. As many wear company badges for access to facilities, these could be become not only more fashionable but multifunctional as RFID and other technologies could be added to adapt the functionality to the role of the wearer.
Alea Fairchild - Strategic Views 