Office or No Office
When do you really need to be in the office. Not nearly as much as I think management would think. I currently have a laptop, cell, hotspot and VPN access. My job is field IT support. At this time I can work a help desk queue from anywhere. The only advantage of an office is a better monitor and peripherals and a better internet connection. We still have a culture of wanting to see people at work, because if they can see you they know you are working.
David Graeber in his book Bullshit Jobs talked about how at one time John Maynard Keynes predicted with all the gains in productivity by now we would have the 25 hour work week. That didn’t happen, but in some offices it is more like work 25 hours and then spend 15 hours on Facebook. From personal experience working in an office often means interruptions and random conversations. Working from home often is better because you can focus on the work at hand and you are removed from distractions and the commute is great.
A Human Element is Sometimes Still Needed
But meaningless work conversations are not always meaningless. They allow you to build rapport with coworkers and possible more cohesion within teams. There is also more trust and empathy when you are working face to face. It allows you to get more subtle details that can be critical to solving a problem.
Will I Even Have and Office in the Future
Even for a company that wants to see you at work the vast amount of meetings I am having in Microsoft Teams, and a good portion of the conversations over the phone or over Teams. You probably still need an office just so you have a space that is geared toward your productivity. The state of the art in virtual reality or augmented reality is still leaving something to be desired. I am not finding someone who has traded their monitor for some kind of augmented reality rig. For most people it sounds like they are a little too tiring for long term use, and the form factor is still a little bulky. That is today, however there is no reason you wouldn’t have a AR monitor that is no different from wearing a pair of glasses and is just as comfortable as using a good monitor today.
The future office is rapidly starting to look like a bunch of people sitting in a Starbucks with good WiFi. The computers either just a box that may only connect them to the cloud maybe with the form factor of a keyboard. Probably for the old school crowd. The rest may have their box and glasses, happily typing away with haptic gloves. The outside view is just a bunch of people sitting at tables with coffee wearing glasses and headphone occasionally talking to or randomly gesturing in the air. A coffee shop with a bunch of people simultaneously disconnected from each other and completely connected to the world
What About Factory Work
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
Warren Bennis
Warren Bennis was wrong, neither the man or the dog is needed anymore. Once you start adding in telepresence and automation even factory jobs can be done remotely. The factory of the future just becomes an unlight black box with robots making stuff. Set on the cheapest piece of land that allows you good transportation and logistics. The future factory worker is still sitting in a Starbucks either monitoring equipment or controlling a robot remotely to make repairs.
Future prediction: a lot more Starbucks with good WiFi. Just kidding everyone is just going to get 5G while they sit in Starbucks.
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