Making the modern office: Mandates don't work

Trust your staff, say IT leaders - but be prepared to step in

The appearance, look and approach to the modern workspace is very different from where it was just five years ago.

Many offices have closed or been redesigned to meet the new expectation of hybrid working.

IT leaders at a recent roundtable, sponsored by Computacenter, said hybrid working had brought many benefits, but also new challenges.

While attendees appreciated the new levels of flexibility, they admitted that some of their companies were flexible in name only.

"I have seen customers who tell me, ‘We have a spreadsheet. We expect [employees] in three days a week and we look at which days they are in,'" said Computacenter's Adam Levy.

"That mandating end of the spectrum is so dangerous when you talk about the war for talent, employee experience and flexibility. We should be judging people by their outputs."

An IT leader in the financial services sector summed up: "What you mandate and what people do are two different things."

Another delegate complained that their office space had become too restricted by a programme of centralisation. Their company operates a ‘neighbourhood' pattern of bookings, where teams have certain areas of the office they can book to sit.

"Probably only a third of the technology organisation" can come in on a single day and sit together, they said.

Office design

Mandated office days, where teammates can't even sit together, is neither conducive to efficient work nor desirable, guests said.

The discussion turned to new ways to use the workspace, starting with its basic design.

At most companies, the facilities team leads office design. With offices across the country being retooled to accommodate hybrid work, though, attendees were eager for tech to be more involved.

"They make a lot of the decisions and IT is an afterthought," one person said. Another added, "They order the tables and chairs before they think about the technology."

As with most business issues, the solution "comes down to relationships."

"You have to build them," said a guest in the banking sector. "Our head of facilities was a very difficult person to get on with, and he left. The relationship is much better since!"

It's not always a person standing in the way of collaboration. There can be processes, or simply a siloed workspace, stopping people from reaching out.

An IT leader at a large professional services sector firm said his team had worked to connect with facilities over a shared goal.

"We are all heading for the carbon neutral goal, that has actually brought us all together. They've realised that, if they are going to have a smart building, it's not about the colour of the furniture; it's about technology."

A financial services delegate took a different approach: they went on a charm offensive.

"We spent a lot of money doing quite a few facility projects.

"They felt they had been losing the IT battle. We did some of their projects, like putting in a remote capability to manage buildings, which is only one device away from being smart."

Making the modern office: Mandates don't work

Trust your staff, say IT leaders - but be prepared to step in

The appearance, look and approach to the modern workspace is very different from where it was just five years ago.

The North Star

For many guests, smart buildings facilities are "the north star," the final end goal for the workspace, and the target for the collaboration between tech and facilities teams.

A smart building can do many things. It can automate bookings for parking spaces, rooms, desks and even catering. It can integrate with wayfinding to help staff find meeting rooms, and engage with people through sensors and monitoring systems to drive building management like heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

"It provides a more automated and more sustainable solution," said Adam.

"It is what I call a smarter workplace.," said one guest, but "the challenge is trying to get recognition at a senior level that that is worth investing in."

Nobody, in fact, had reached full smart status for their workspace yet, but they were making progress

"We have sensors in certain buildings that analyse the density for usage in the office space, primarily. We have not implemented the sensors everywhere, but we do some analysis in one building then move the sensor to another building, and that is forming the blueprint for our new building.

"It shows ‘This team - let us say corporate finance - utilise a space like this. HR utilise a space like this.' Therefore, that informs us in terms of how many desks we require and how we configure the space, particularly in new buildings."

Others had started to move down the road towards smarter workspaces, but had hit personal data barriers around identifying individuals.

"We wanted to have it so I could go into an office, click on my phone and there would be a map with wayfinding type stuff, where it showed where the rest of my team were - but, to do that, the individuals have to be identified, etc. That is a bit of a red flag."

As for the modern office Big Tech firms are pushing for - fully virtual in the metaverse and accessed through VR - leaders were sceptical. It was called "terribly depressing," and people insisted they were "plugged in enough." There was, however, high interest in exploring augmented reality applications.

Much like modern IT, the modern workspace has to be flexible, agile and smart. Nobody has solved all of its challenges yet, but forging strong relationships to bring together technology and facilities will be key to reaching that north star.