The Office… is not dead yet. Should we save it?
For most of my career, the work arena was the office. Not any more – at least for now. What’s happened, what have we lost, and do we need to get the office back?
My first ‘proper’ job was in an open plan office. I was a graduate trainee and it was really useful to be within chatting distance of everyone I could learn from. I would never have made the transition from learning to earning otherwise.
And then as I made it a few inches up the greasy pole, I was actually given a little cubbyhole of my own.
I ran a telephone marketing team at one stage. Here the office was divided into Dilbert style cubicles so the team members could shout down the phone without deafening their colleagues. But everyone also knew how they were doing – competition and camaraderie were great motivators.
My own office disappeared again some years later as management fashions changed. Suddenly, the managers were meant to be closer to their teams again. But it was a good move as bosses were much more aware of team morale and motivation – and properly involved.
In one form or other, I thought office life would last for ever. After all it has lasted the 42 years of my career so far. Now it has all gone in a few short months – courtesy of Covid 19. But is it really just Covid, or something rather longer lasting? All the pandemic has done is accelerate what have might have happened anyway.
No, the real threat to the office is the internet – and the (wonderful) technologies it has inspired. The world wide web has, ironically given us the ability to physically disconnect from the world.
It’s no surprise that this physical disconnection now includes the office – the traditional world of work. It started by enabling us to offshore vital functions to cheap areas of labour like India, and now into another low overhead part of the world – our own homes.
Think of what we can do without leaving our home now – that we couldn’t do before without stepping out and searching physically…. We can order every grocery we dream of for delivery to our door, get dishes from favourite restaurants without needing to book, watch the very latest movies, buy instantly and then read almost any book in the world, the list goes on.
So the internet has made our home the centre of everything we do. But it’s also allowed us to earn a living without venturing outside as well. Think of the work related activities we can also do online. We can access our work ‘filing cabinets’ and systems, communicate confidentially with colleagues and customers, hold team, project and town hall meetings, and run training courses. (As that’s what I do for a living these days, I’m very grateful for the latter.)
So while Covid is preventing our daily trip to the office, it’s not stopping us doing a lot of the tasks that might be mentioned in our job spec. So what’s the problem? Well I’d call it Quality.
The quantity of things we can do from our homes is amazing – but what about the quality?
Which is the richer experience…?
Watching a play on TV or being in a theatre – just feet from living, breathing actors?
Interviewing a potential new team member on zoom – or shaking their hands face to face in your office?
Watching a video tour of a potential new home – or walking round it yourself at your own pace, and living and breathing it?
Running a company meeting on the internet – or getting together with your people together to enthuse them and pool our energy and ideas?
So just as we need to get together with other people in our personal lives, we also need to get together with our colleagues and clients in the office too. The trouble is many companies are already downsizing their office space – or dispensing with it altogether. Chief Financial Officers are rubbing their hands with glee, as it enables them to slash overheads and recover the cash lost during the pandemic. But have they forgotten that we are human beings – not robots?
I don’t know about you, but banished from the office, I just can’t seem to feel motivated by the sense of ‘being at work’. I miss meeting and chatting with anyone and everyone as I move around the building. I can’t grab those unplanned, impromptu opportunities with others. And I can’t seem to generate a buzz within a zoom group brainstorming ideas and solving problems the way we could in the office. I miss my work friends and, I never thought I’d say this, I might even miss my boss.
I also miss my proper home and personal life. For most of us the work laptop is always on and watching us from the corner of the room. For many city dwellers in small apartments, that evil eye is even in our bedrooms…
So please, let’s get back into the office as soon as we can. And preferably, before it’s gone forever. Because if we don’t go to work in the office, we may never be able to come home.