New Directions in Development, Essay Example

Introduction 

Considering the evolution of technology leading to a major change in the way we communicate, offices need to adapt to new trends to be able to integrate these changes. Social media is easily mixed within our work environment. We are all just one click away from our Facebook page or using the same email address for family and work thus, it is becoming very difficult to monitor when someone is working or not. Forcing a worker to stay behind his desk for several hours may not create the same productivity as it used to, because most people can now easily be distracted in their own cubicle. This new generation which grows with the use of incredible technology is different from the previous generation. Young office workers are used to multitasking and reacting much faster. We all stay easily in touch with our emails in our pocket and access to our whole computer through cloud computing.[1]

Historical Background

The world has never been as well connected with high speed internet on our phones and Wi-Fi on board of airplane. Work can be done from anywhere and is expected that way if we want to have a shot to compete with other companies. Since employees can work twenty-four hours, they are willing to spend an evening responding to an email if needed in order to close a deal that is happening in another part of the world. Thus, making it hard for employees to force that person to be working full time the next day without being compensated for it. Why is it not possible for one to work from home, make money from it and spend time with his family at the same time? How should a company structure its office to increase productivity and keep control of its employees without pressuring them?[2][3]

How can companies create new regulations with their employees, in order to boost their creativity by giving them freedom while still ensuring they understand they are part of a team? In order to accomplish this, companies need to have different contracts with their employees as well as use their office space more efficiently. Secondly if the office space becomes similar to one’s home, is it possible to combine the advantages of both? Employees will go to the office with delight, be able to work while they can get distracted and enjoy the time spent at the office. In return, the company will have more productive employees, who will also communicate with teammates and work without paying attention to time. Therefore, office buildings which provide an array of specific amenities will be best suited for companies as they will transform offices in more friendly environments.[4]

The technological modifications have reformulated and recreated the correspondence between the work and the home environment. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the majority of the members of the American society were employees who labored in their homes. The tasks and the schedules were established by the time of the year, the members of the family frequently endeavored in conjunction and the intervals of substantial activity were sequenced by intervals of rest and festivities. This process was modified by industrialization, which supplanted the qualities of working at home with the characteristics of working in an industrial zone. These migrations were not always smooth, there were the complaints of the workers who had the requisite of migrating from home employment to factory employment. These types of complaints are a mirror reflection of the types of complaints that are contemporarily presented with regards to the present generation of telecommuters. These workers documented that in the migration from the home environment to the industrial environment that they had challenges with regards to balancing their family life and work life.

As a result of the change in technology and the request to adapt to the working environment, it is necessary to review how companies pay their employees. More independency has proven to increase productivity and creativity. “Flexible workers were found to have higher levels of job satisfaction and fulfillment, organizational commitment and empowerment than its non-flexible workers”^[5]

Furthermore the world has become more international and we easily end up working with people that are at other corners of the world. In order to compete with one another it is necessary to be very active and to be present everywhere. Old contracts that pay you by the hour have become obsolete. It is not because you are not present at the office that you are not working. “Productivity is not about presence—that is, sitting at a desk—it is about performance”.^[6] [7]

It is also important for companies to encourage employees to work at all times. Therefore a contract involving a bonus compensation rather than an hourly compensation is better. Employees will be working at their will and do their best all the time. Of course it is difficult to determine if the employee deserves his bonus or not. A set of guidelines could be put in place that would help make sure the work provided by the employee is worth his bonus. For example, it could be determined that that an employee is working similarly to his normal work hours as long as between the hours of 9 am to 6 pm the employee answers his emails within 20 minutes. Furthermore it could be required that employees are reachable at all times on their phone. And finally there could be a videoconference with all the employees every week day at noon for a quick update and then all employees need to be available to video conference from noon to 2 pm. No matter where you are in the world, this would enable to still have a time of interaction with all the employees and help exchange ideas. Whoever does not fulfil these requirements would then get a reduced bonus.[8] [9]

There are a lot of problems with such a pay grade system.  It would require a lot of trial and error before the company can determine what the best solution is for its employees. Such contracts are also very management demanding as there needs to be a lot of supervision. Employees will try to find breaks in the contract to do as little work as necessary but this will become harder and harder as companies will specialize in creating those new contracts that will leave no room to doubt. [10]If the whole society transitions to a new system, there will be huge innovation that will follow. Many computer scientist are already working on programs that would be able to track if you are working on your computer and smartphone or if you are using it for leisure, thus keeping a log of time spent working.^[11]

A new contract were employees are not required to be present at work would not require as much office space for the employees. Therefore smaller office spaces will be preferable for companies. Rather than having cubicles and spaces reserved for each employee, it would be more advantageous to have some communal space that can be used by whoever wants to come to work on that day. Employees would be travelling with portable computers and would only need that in order to work therefore an office space that has a plug and internet access is all that would be needed. It is more important that companies invest in spaces that can be used for team meetings or presentation because they are not common in one’s house. Many conference rooms would be beneficial to achieve that need.[12]

Although employees would be given the opportunity to work from wherever they want, it is still beneficial for employees to be present at work.

“Some managers feel that distance inhibits collaboration. They need the energy in the room when a crisis occurs.”^[13]

Therefore working environments will need to be more enticing to employees than the home environment. If the work environment became an extension of the home environment, employees would see no difference between staying at home or at the office. Offices could have rooms where the employees can come with their children. These rooms would allow the children to play and the father to work while keeping an eye on their kid. Some workout space in the office would make the office space more tempting to the employees.[14] At home you are not forced to do anything, you can work however you want and seating behind a desk can be very annoying to some people and remove from their creativity^[15]. Therefore the work environment needs to recreate that same relaxing and free will space. An employee can work standing, work while he is working out, have a space to walk with a computer when he wants to and finally not be tied to stay inside the office all the time. Companies need to be more lenient on the amount of time an employee can spend to get a coffee or lunch. If someone cannot focus on their work it will not help to force them to stay behind their screen. Let them get fresh air and inspiration and they will get back to work when they are inspired again.[16]

Employees would be happy to see change and not always be forced to be at the same place. We all want to see something new and not get stuck in a routine. This is very important to help people stay creative and mentally challenged. One way to help this would be to have a working environment that is not the same boring place all the time. Similarly to the previous statement where it would be beneficial to leave people the freedom to go to different places to relax and change their mind, having meetings in different places will allow people to get some fresh air, change their minds and get out of their routine. Meetings could be held in coffee places, or different buildings, or in different looking conference rooms within the office. Having a bigger variety will help avoid boring the employees.^[17]

Again this would create a lot of lost time where employees are not working. This is why it is important that they are not paid by the hour anymore but rather by productivity or availability.

Considering such a change economically and the adaptation of a more friendly office space, real estate would be greatly affected. Companies will not have the same requirements for their offices. Smaller floor plates would help give companies not only the advantage of renting smaller spaces but also to rent several floors and create different environments. Secondly, similarly to the high demand for amenities in residential condos in New York, office towers would have to include amenities for the employees. For example, office buildings would offer a gym area, as well as a spa, a laundry service, child care services and a cafe.[18] All these amenities would be paid with service charges that the companies would pay every month. This will create a whole new market where developers will be competing with each other and try to provide the best amenities in order to attract the bigger and more luxurious companies, which in turn will enable them to demand higher rents.[19]

Another way to answer the new demand, coming from the increase in mobility and the advantage of a new contract, would be to have more office spaces that are available for short term rentals similarly to LiquidSpace or WeWork. Companies would rent an office space with all the amenities in one building and every month they would move to another building. This is possible since most companies only run on computers and do not need storage anymore. All the data is saved on a server in some location and then employees can easily work from any location. Offices could also be bought on timeshare. For example three companies would buy three different office spaces and every trimester they would inter change location.[20] Employees would have the opportunity to change neighborhood as well as be in a different building and have different amenities.[21]

Taking into account the change in technology and our social life, it is important to adapt the work environment otherwise we risk losing the interest of the employees and kill their will and their creativity. With a radical change in how an employee is paid, giving him more freedom and giving him the opportunity to stay connected with the rest of the world, we see a change in how office spaces should evolve. Office real estate would have to adapt to these changes. Smaller offices with more common spaces and shared meeting rooms would be preferable. Furthermore offices with different styles and more amenities would better respond to new trends where employees like to get out of their routine as well as have a home feeling away from home. The continuing modifications in the work routines that incorporate the presentation of new computer technologies introduces opportunities and challenges for all of the employees. These opportunities and challenges are introduced especially to the parts of the population that are neglected and developing. The segments of the population that are developing are flexible shift employees, telecommuters and the physically challenged.[22]

The types of work areas that will be developed are special robot rooms that are installed with computer technologies. The rooms can be designated as being work areas that are animated. The benefits of the animated working areas is made more concise by acknowledging what it has as benefits. It is not a software application or a piece of equipment. The animated working area is an area that is easy to use and programmable with analog and digital capabilities. The animated working area is a combination of ergonomics and high tech elements that have the ability of being calibrated. This calibration enables the employees to feel more at ease while manifesting greater productivity. In addition, the animated working areas while enable greater innovation and efficiency.[23]

The animated working area is conceived as a surrounding that is filled with accessibility to information resources while having the capacity of being able to transform to adjust to a diverse range of requisites. The center of the animated working area are smart surfaces whose form can be modified  with regards to their configuration of operating capacities that can be administrated by the employee. Furthermore, the animated working area has the features of a diverse range of conventionally found components that are inherent to information technology, enclosed in devices that are commercially accessible. [24] As these components are appropriately implemented, the animated working area would transform into an environment that is intelligent and easy to use. The animated working area would include radio identification consumer tags which enable it to coordinate digital and printed media. The area would include screens that are integrated with audio speakers, keyboards and projectors that would give the animated working environment the characteristics of being a comprehensive working area that can be programmed in order to adapt to a variety of circumstances and requisites.[25]

There have been a scarce number of prototypes of the animated working area models that have been produced by the information technology and architectural planning fields. The animated working areas that have shown the most efficacy have been IDEO’s Q and IBM‘s Blue Space.[26]

These prototypes ate substantially progressive applications with regards to the incorporation of design elements and information technology. In comparison to the conceptualization of the animated working environment, the Blue Space which is proposed by IBM is constructed of information technology elements which are more subtle and intelligent in their design. The Q paradigm which has been proposed by IDEO is formulated for one employee who must be seated at a desk. The IDEO’s Q and the Blue Space presented by IBM cannot be adapted in the manner that the animated working environment manifests.[27]

The most promising conjunction of architectural design and information technology are manifested by the endeavors that have been introduced by Phillips with regards to “Ambient Intelligence”. However, the Phillips’ product is manifested as a solitary product instead of an entire working environment which do not provide the modifications that are introduced by the animated working area. The animated working environment is derived from the research that has been conducted by Mitchell (1996) with the edifice and its rooms functioning as robots and computers.[28]

Bibliography

Ammons, Samantha K. & William T. Markham. “Working at Home: Experiences of Skilled White collar Workers” Sociological Spectrum 24, no. 1(2004): 191– 238.

Barry, Leonard L., Ann M. Mirabito & William B. Baum. “What’s the Hard Return on   Employee Wellness Programs?” Harvard Business Review December, no. 1(2010): 1- 9.

Cohen, Wesley M. and Daniel H. Levinthal. “Absorptive capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, no. 1(1990):128- 1152.

Connelly, Rachel & Jean Kimmel. “Marital Status and Full Time/ Part Time Work Status on Child Care Choices” Upjohn Working Paper 1, no. 99-58(1999), 1- 45.

Green, K.E., L. J. Gugherty, I. D. Walker & J.C. Witte. “AWE (Animated Work Environment): Ambient Intelligence in Working Life” Proceeding of the Ambience 05 Conference, Tampere, Finland (2005), 1- 6.

Haynes, Barry. “An Evaluation of the Impact of the Office Environment on Productivity” Facility 26, no. 5/6(2008): 178- 195.

Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. New York, NY: Penguin, 2012.

Kahare, Evelyn Wanjiru. “Assessment of the Role of strategic ergonomics on Employee Performance in the Health sector in Kenya: A Study of Health Care Workers in Nakuru County” International Journal of Science and Research 2, No. 10 (2014): 2100- 2107.

Kidd, Cory  D, Robert Orr, Gregory D. Aboud, Christopher G. Atteson, Irfa A. Essa, Blair McIntyre, Elizabeth Mynatt, Thad E. Stamer  & Wendy Nesstetter, “The Aware Home: A Living Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing Research: Cooperative    Buildings, Integrating Information Organizations and Architecture” Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1670, no. 1 (2000): 191- 198.

Mitchell, William J. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996).

Panchal, Dhiren N.  Book Review of the Social Structure of Organizations, edited by Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn. Mumbai, India: HR Folks, 1978.

Siha, Samia M.  & Richard W. Monroe. “Telecommuting’s Past and Future: A Literature Review and Agenda” Business Process Management 12, no. 4(2006): 455- 482.

Ward, Andy, Alan Jones & Andy Hopper. A New Location Technique for the Active Office. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge, 1997.

[1]. Dhiren N. Panchal, Book Review of the Social Structure of Organizations, edited by Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn (Mumbai, India: HR Folks, 1978), 22.

[2] . Wesley M. Cohen and Daniel H. Levinthal. “Absorptive capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, no. 1(1990), 132.

[3] . Andy Ward, Alan Jones & Andy Hopper, A New Location Technique for The Active Office (Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge, 1997), 1.

[4] . Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home (New York, NY: Penguin, 2012), 259- 260.

^[5]Andrews, A. (2009). Home advantage. Utility Week, 30(8), 25. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/232141433?accountid=10226

^[6]Productivity:, Workplace. Workplace Strategy’s (n.d.): n. pag. JLL. JLL. Web. <http://www.us.jll.com/united-states/en-us/Documents/Workplace/workplace%20strategys%20transformative%20role.pdf>

[7] . Cory  D. Kidd, Robert Orr, Gregory D. Aboud, Christopher G. Atteson, Irfa A. Essa, Blair McIntyre, Elizabeth Mynatt, Thad E. Stamer  & Wendy Nesstetter, “The Aware Home: A Living Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing Research: Cooperative Buildings, Integrating Information Organizations and Architecture” Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1670, no. 1 (2000), 191.

[8] . Barry Haynes, “An Evaluation of the Impact of the Office Environment on Productivity” Facility 26, no. 5/6(2008): 179.

[9] Evelyn Wanjiru Kahare, “Assessment of the Role of strategic ergonomics on Employee Performance in the Health sector in Kenya: A Study of Health Care Workers in Nakuru County” International Journal of Science and Research 2, No. 10 (2014): 2102.

[10]. Samia M. Siha & Richard W. Monroe, “Telecommuting’s Past and Future: A Literature review and agenda” Business Process Management 12, no. 4(2006): 460.

^[11] TimeDoctor.com

[12] . Samantha K. Ammons & William T. Markham, “Working at Home: Experiences of Skilled White collar Workers” Sociological Spectrum 24, no..1(2004): 194.

^[13] GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com

[14] . Leonard L. Barry, Ann M. Mirabito & William B. Baum, “What’s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs?” Harvard Business Review December, No. 1(2010): 3.

^[15] Productivity: Workplace. Workplace Strategy’s (n.d.): n. pag. JLL. JLL. Web. <http://www.us.jll.com/united-states/en-us/Documents/Workplace/workplace%20strategys%20transformative%20role.pdf>

[16] . Ibid, 4.

^[17] Productivity: Workplace. Workplace Strategy’s (n.d.): n. pag. JLL. JLL. Web. <http://www.us.jll.com/united-states/en-us/Documents/Workplace/workplace%20strategys%20transformative%20role.pdf>

[18]. Rachel Connelly & Jean Kimmel, “Marital Status and Full Time/ Part Time Work Status on Child Care Choices” Upjohn Working Paper 1, no. 99-58(1999), 14.

[19] . Barry et al.  “What’s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs?” 3.

[20] . William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 75.

[21] . K.E. Green, L. J. Gugherty, I.D. Walker & J.C. Witte, “AWE (Animated Work Environment): Ambient Intelligence in Working Life” Proceeding of the Ambience 05 Conference, Tampere, Finland (2005), 2.

[22].   Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn, 59.

[23] . Green et al., “AWE (Animated Work Environment): Ambient Intelligence in Working Life”, 2.

[24]. Ibid, 3.

[25]. Ibid, 4

[26] . Ibid, 3.

[27]. Ibid, 4.

[28]. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn, 49.