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The new workplace

GUEST COMMENTARY



TRECKER

TRECKER

Are you one of the fortunate ones who can work from home? Roll out of bed in the morning and check in? Depending on your business, those days may be numbered.

A recent Wall Street Journal headline sounds the warning: “More Bosses Order Staff Back to Office,” an entreaty to return to pre-pandemic times — or else. The work-from-home days are a thing of the past, employees are told. Get back in your car and commute or run the risk of being sacked.

For heavens sake, why? Aren’t there real benefits to the home workplace?

Staying at home allows you to work in your pajamas, avoid cumbersome commutes, spend more time on the job, deal with overseas time zones (2 am meetings), have more time with your family.

The flip side is the office workplace offers the touchy/feely interactions that are difficult online. Innovation occurs more often in face-to-face settings, and decision-making is clearly better in person.

What’s the right balance? Depends on the business. Financial institutions, sales offices, software companies do well with 3-4 days at home and 1-2 in the office. Wet-work requires more time on site. (Chemists can use AI technology to focus on likely candidates, but eventually have to go into the lab and make the product.) Manufacturing requires almost entirely on-site work.

Some office-centric businesses are insisting on a full return. The WSJ reports that a financial services company on the West Coast tells job candidates the work is “100% in office.” But that’s not true everywhere. My younger son, a computer engineer, oversees a technology group that’s spread all over the country. Not a single report, not one, is in his company’s Massachusetts office. Almost all communications are remote.

The paradigm is changing. Here’s the Financial Times view of the before and after.

Pre-pandemic – In the office 4-5 days a week. Rooms with desks plus conferencing space. Copy machines, file cabinets, paper. Collaboration and face-to-face team building.

Post-pandemic – In the office 1-2 days a week. Everything electronic. No photocopying or file cabinets. Little paper anywhere. Virtual interactions with colleagues and most customers.

The office layout is changing as well. The old digs had personal spaces. The new office is an open area, with no cubicles or assigned desks. The worker takes whatever desk is available, each set up for “laptop plug-in and play.” It’s called “hoteling,” with nothing personal, a so-called neighborhood approach to assembling.

With less space required and fewer days in the office, building usage is down. The WSJ says occupancy rates have dropped 28% since 2019.

And it’s not just the office that’s changing. The office worker is changing as well.

My daughter, a working mother in Connecticut, says employees today have little company loyalty. Used to the freedom of working remotely, they insist on a flexible workday. If they don’t get what they want, they quit and go to another company. Job-hopping is the new norm.

Location has also become a factor. Affordable housing is a go/no go for many entry level workers.

Another change is the technology. High-tech offices are coming, with robots scooting about, making routine deliveries in the building, and smart computers spewing out information to colleagues in Dubai and India. International Zoom-type meetings are old hat now. Hotel bookings are down, and less business travel is needed.

Then there’s the real far-out stuff. In coastal Thailand, floating offices (properly tethered with attached gangplanks) are making use of waterfront space. And cross-country trains in Canada are testing “workspace cars” where travelers have computing tools at their fingertips.

No offices in space yet, but it’s probably just a matter of time. ¦

— Dave Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Naples.

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