creating the office of the future how to make …creating the office of the future how to make your...

CREATING THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OFFICE SMARTER

2 | Creating the office of the future

“The Edge” was developed by the Dutch real estate

developer OVG Real Estate on behalf of the auditing

and consulting company Deloitte, and knowledge wor-

kers can freely choose where they prefer to work: at

an available desk, in an inviting lounge area or even

in a massage chair. Via an in-house smartphone app

you can adjust the immediate office environment accor-

ding to your preferences: it lets you control the lighting

and air-conditioning and you can project presentations

from your notebook directly on a large video screen, In

“The Edge”, it takes but a few clicks to create a perfect

work atmosphere.

This structural freedom does not stop with the office

equipment: employee assessments are exclusively ba-

sed on the quality of their projects and their work. Where

that work has been carried out is completely secondary

– whether it was inside the office building, on the sofa

at home or in the city park of Amsterdam. The result is all

that counts.

At present, most of the roughly 17 million Germans who

work in an office can only dream of such working con-

ditions. Although you can frequently read about similar

concepts in official company or start-up publications –

if you look around in medium-sized enterprises you will

mostly find individually assigned workplaces in open-

plan offices. Instead of an indoor climate that can be in-

dividually adjusted, there are often heated discussions

among colleagues as to how far or how long a window

may stay open. Will smart work and office concepts, as

realized in “The Edge” or in the offices of Google and Fa-

cebook, continue to be the exception to the rule? As far

as the experts at Fraunhofer Institute of Labour Econo-

mics and Organization (IAO) are concerned, the answer

is, „No.“ Medium-sized companies are just as much af-

fected by the changing work environment. Given the im-

pact of the digital shift on all areas of life and work, why

should it stop at the doors of small and medium-sized

companies? “To remain competitive, it is both crucial and

timely to create appropriate structures inside all compa-

nies which enable flexible forms of work,” says Stefan

Rief, Head of the Fraunhofer IAO Competence Center in

Stuttgart.

But how can a medium-sized business create these agile

structures? How can small and mid-sized companies keep

up with office buildings such as “The Edge”? We want to

address these issues on the following pages. We will be-

gin by looking at what distinguishes smart work concepts

such as that designed for “The Edge” and – against this

backdrop – examine the role of documents in the future

office. This should give you a better idea of where to start

making your work smarter and more flexible – as a mana-

ging director, department head or employee.

If you happen to work in “The Edge” in Amsterdam, NL, you can call yourself happy: it’s one of the world’s most modern office buildings with all workplaces offering maximum comfort.

TAKE A GLIMPSE AT THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE


One thing is clear: We will all (still have to) go to the

office in the future but with one salient difference: com-

pulsory attendance will be dropped, according to Stefan

Rief from Fraunhofer IAO. “Knowledge work will be cha-

racterized by greater flexibility in the future,“ says Rief.

“We will have more choices to decide when and where

we are going to carry out our work– whether in a typical

office, a home office or even at so-called third places

which include co-working centers.”, Rief has been stu-

dying the effects of the digital conversion on the office

and working atmosphere for many years. According to

him, a trusted workplace will also gain in significance,

in addition to trust-based working hours. This assump-

tion is supported by a representative survey conducted

by the trade association BITKOM among 1,500 managing

directors and human resources managers of companies

from all industries. Every fourth enterprise (24%) ex-

pects that the typical office workplace with compulsory

attendance will become less important in the future. At

the same time, almost every third business company

(30%) assumes that home offices will gain in importan-

ce. So how about today? According to a long-term survey

conducted by Fraunhofer IAO, the majority of those in-

terviewed are already working autonomously in terms of

time. More than half of them are allowed to decide when

exactly a particular job shall be carried out. As far as the

choice of workplace is concerned, however, there are

still many restrictions. The Fraunhofer researchers also

found that flexibility and productivity directly correlate

with each other.

According to Fraunhofer IAO, 20% of all those interviewed are very satisfied with their working environment and another 42% are rather satisfied. Source: Fraunhofer IAO

fully agree

rather disagree

somewhat agree partly agree

not agree at all

Open spaces, modern IT equipment, mobile processes: the office as a place to work is gradually evolving and getting smarter. What matters in this respect is not only stylish office furniture but also a holistically planned and, above all, flexible office setting.

MORE THAN JUST FANCY OFFICE FURNITURE: THE COMPONENTS OF A SMART OFFICE


As Rief recalls, “Our study showed that self-sufficient wor-

king conditions do have a positive effect on many areas of

working and private life. If you can individually design your

job profile, you will improve your work-life balance and ex-

perience a higher motivation and better performance.” At

the same time, Rief points out that this won’t signal the

end of the typical office. Examples like “The Edge” de-

monstrate that – depending on the situation and the pro-

ject – the employees working there still need a place whe-

re they can directly communicate with their colleagues or

work together in a focused manner. These are conditions

you won’t find at your kitchen table at home or at any other

alternative location. Therefore, home offices and the like

will not replace the office as we know it. Instead, these so-

lutions will provide employees with new opportunities to

interlink work and everyday life – i.e. they extend the office

as a place to work. The way you structure the office environ-

ment is therefore a significant lever to improve productivity

and employee satisfaction.

However, according to the same study, there is potential for

improvement in many companies: Only about 20% of the

employees interviewed are really satisfied with their cur-

rent office environment. As far as the structural design of

their working and office environment is concerned, nearly

40% of them still see enormous potential for optimization.

“The Edge” in Amsterdam is considered to be the most advanced office building in the world (OVG Real Estate).


These findings are also backed by the study “Employee

Commitment and Workplaces of the World” for which

Steelcase and Ipsos have interviewed 12,480 office wor-

kers from 17 countries. The result: on a global scale, only

13% of the employees are highly motivated, in Germany

only 12%. Particularly noticeable: While in Great Britain

approximately 49% of all offices have an open design,

only about 19% do in Germany. Especially for mid-sized

businesses it would be worth investing more in an appe-

aling working and office environment in order to attract

and retain qualified employees.

Making office work more flexible, however, implies more

than just purchasing fancy office furniture. As Rief points

out, flexibility relies on the seamless interaction of three

factors. “Really making office work smart involves an

ideal interplay between spatial conditions, appropriate

technologies and the company’s mindset.” Establishing

flexible working methods must therefore become part

of the corporate culture which means the right mindset

must evolve. This is no small objective since changing a

proven method is never easy, even though it can be very

worthwhile.So what are the opportunities for you as an

employee or manager to make your working environment

smarter? When confronting your superior with the idea of

acquiring lounge furniture in order to intensify informal

exchanges, the matter of costs is likely to come up. That

said, you can still say goodbye to traditional working me-

thods – even if these are only small steps at first.

Start with the processes in your sphere of influence and

question them: Are the established processes in your de-

partment really up-to-date? Do they allow flexible, colla-

borative ways of working? Would new solutions be more

cost-efficient? Whether you’re the manager or an emplo-

yee – you won’t be able to change the corporate culture

all on your own or within a month, nor can you motivate

changes by by making them compulsory. But if you jointly

start questioning existing processes and attitudes, you

will automatically change your working method and thus,

inch by inch, the corporate culture as well … and not

necessarily for the worse!

“To make office work smart involves the interaction of spatial conditions, appropriate technologies and the company’s mindset.”Stefan Rief, head of the Fraunhofer IAO Competence Center in Stuttgart


Hardly a working day goes by without being occupied

with e-mails. Whether it’s on the move on your mobile, on

a tablet or in front of your computer – e-mails seem to be

our communication media of choice, especially in ever-

yday business. The technology-focused market research

company The Radicati Group estimates that ca. 205.6 bil-

lion e-mails are being sent and received per day. Even

if you deduct the enormous amount of unwanted spam

mails from this number (between 80% and 90%), each

person receives several e-mails every day. We become

particularly aware of this when we return from a holiday

to a totally clogged-up inbox. But how could e-mail beco-

me so incredibly successful? Obviously because what we

want to communicate reaches business partners within

seconds – no matter where that person may be. Often

we even get a read confirmation. An e-mail is sent out

fast, easily and for free. Yet it is not really an ideal com-

munication medium to help establish flexible and smart

working methods. In fact, e-mail communication has se-

vere drawbacks including security issues. If an e-mail is

sent out unencrypted, it has the same security level of a

postcard. What’s more, due to the flood of e-mails, it is

very likely that business-critical statements or figures are

discovered too late or not at all. This can easily create

problems, especially in a location-independent working

world. Let’s assume you’re sharing a project with a col-

league who’s in the office while you’re working in your

home office: it can be truly discouraging if that colleague

doesn’t immediately respond to an e-mail you consider

urgent. Communication is vital for greater job flexibility.

Collaboration tools or workflow solutions provide an ef-

ficient remedy to this problem, enabling a clean separa-

tion line between official business communication and a

quick exchange among colleagues. They offer functions

we know from messenger services, providing a faster and

more direct exchange with colleagues than by e-mail. Yet

e-mails are just one example that shows how collabora-

tion in companies can be improved. Let’s look at working

on a client project: whether it concerns product require-

ments or orders, status reports, delivery documents or

contracts – during a project, numerous documents are

created which have to be passed around, edited by va-

rious persons and finally filed in a way that they can be

quickly retrieved from anywhere. In a flexible working en-

vironment, your inbox or a random file on a server may

not be the most appropriate place.

The office of the future is above all flexible. However, how people communicate and accessibility to information are central to establishing flexible working methods. This is why you should challenge established technologies and procedures because they don’t always help you in reaching your goal, as the following e-mail example illustrates.

FLEXIBLE VS. FIXED: ENCOURAGING COLLABORATION


Workflow solutions or digital customer files which im-

prove responsiveness are clearly a better solution. They

enable you to safely and centrally file and administrate

business-relevant information: with electronic busi-

ness partner files, sales employees, customer or ser-

vice staff can evaluate a client-relevant situation and

provide specific information within a very short time.

These two examples show which issues can be addres-

sed by companies if they want to design smarter wor-

king methods.

Cooperation with colleagues or external agencies, ser-

vice providers or customers is becoming more import-

ant in a hyper-flexible working environment. Ask your-

self: Do the currently implemented solutions ensure an

efficient exchange between all the persons involved in

the process? And do the tools and processes that are

applied actually meet the requirements of the respecti-

ve department with regard to an advanced information

management? Is all vital information always available?

Since most of the business-critical processes in your

company are based on documents, managing docu-

ment processes offers a high potential for making work

more flexible. KYOCERA offers you the possibility to

carry out a self-check and find out just how good your

information processes are. Within 15 minutes you will

get an assessment report outlining where there is room

for improvement in your department or your company.

More teamwork – collaboration will characterize work in the future


The Building Research Establishment (BREEAM) (agency

for sustainable real estate) awarded “The Edge” with a

98.36% positive rating. The highest mark ever rewarded

an office building. Located directly on the Amsterdam

beltway, “The Edge” was designed by Dutch real estate

developer and investor OVG Real Estate for the corpora-

te consulting company Deloitte. They worked closely to-

gether to achieve the best results. The south side of the

building is equipped with highly efficient solar panels

which produce more energy than needed for the more

than 1,000 employees working there.

Furthermore, it’s the first office building in the world

equipped with the innovative office lighting system “Po-

wer-over-Ethernet“ (PoE) from Philips. This networked

system combines comprehensive light management

software with intelligent, PoE-compatible LED luminaires

which are integrated into the IT network. What’s more,

the building is able to continually document and adjust

its energy consumption according to individual user

needs by means of efficient technologies. However, even

if “The Edge” sets new standards in terms of eco-friend-

liness – hard to achieve by medium-sized businesses

– one thing becomes crystal clear: Environmental sus-

tainability will definitely be an issue in the office of the

future. Another Fraunhofer IAO study on “Green Offices”,

issued in 2014, reports that most companies and, above

all their executives, are well aware of this topic and wil-

ling to take eco-friendly measures, although there is still

a lot to be done on a nation-wide basis. But especially

small and medium-sized businesses have the opportuni-

ty to considerably push their economic efficiency with

appropriate concepts and heighten their attractiveness

in the eyes of their staff as well as job applicants. There

are several approaches worth mentioning here. In addti-

on to commuting to work in an eco-friendly manner using

things like job tickets or parking lots reserved for car-sha-

ring, it is also possible to create reward systems to limit

the use of energy and resources as well as nurturing en-

vironmentally responsible behaviour through communi-

cation. Another aspect which is frequently addressed in

any discussion about “green” office structures is how to

cut paper consumption. The “Green Offices” study also

revealed that most companies have already taken steps

aimed at reducing paper consumption. While this seems

to be common practice, today’s offices still can’t func-

tion completely paperless. Nonetheless, a few compa-

nies have managed to go pretty far in their transition to

digital working methods. One of those is Connox GmbH

in Hannover, Germany. As managing director, Thilo Haas

recalls, “The conversion of processes takes time and ac-

tually starts in the preparation phase. We started by ana-

lyzing all existing paper-based document management

processes.

“The Edge” in Amsterdam is not only an office building with the latest technology. It is also the world’s most sustainable one. This high-tech complex spans over 40,000 square meters and proves that the topic of environmental friendliness extends beyond energy savings to also provide users an attractive workplace.

GREEN IS ACTUALLY SMARTER: THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE IS ECO-FRIENDLY TOO


You have to critically examine the situations where prin-

ting something is unavoidable. We were really surprised

just how many individual work steps are involved in, let’s

say, an incoming invoice. This is necessary, however, if

you want to identify at which points you can save paper.”

Again, if you intend to scale back paper consumption,

you will have to question established procedures. The ex-

ample of Connox shows that paperless work can only be

achieved by making structural changes to existing proces-

ses. This means that if saving on paper is all you want to

accomplish, you will very likely fail – just like setting up a

table soccer on a department floor won’t really heighten

the feel-good factor in the office. This is confirmed by Thilo

Haas as well, “The most important step in the conversion

process was one of a psychological nature. We had to raise

the awareness of our employees first. The concept of truly

reflecting reflect is a document really needs to be printed

has to “click” in the mind of every colleague.” Of course,

Connox is not an isolated example of advancing digital do-

cument processes. About 25% of all German companies

already rely on digital correspondence, and 40% intend to

increasingly shift to digital communication in the near fu-

ture. This is confirmed by a representative survey done by

Bitkom Research. “A company which digitalizes all docu-

ments is able to operate more efficiently”, says Jürgen Bif-

far, head of Bitkom’s competence area ECM. “Classic mail

generates undue costs for companies as well as for the

environment. These costs can be considerably lowered by

applying digital document management solutions.”

Digitalizing documents (e.g., scanning)

Process control/process management (e.g., invoice approval)

Archiving and document management (e.g., electronic files)

Output management (e.g., generating documents)

Business collaboration (e.g., virtual team rooms, panels, portals, etc.)

Cross-divisional search for company information

Automated detection of incoming documents and information

For which of the following fields of activity does your company already use

or is planning to use software to organize office and administrative processes?

Many roads lead to the digital office

In use

Envisaged

Companies with more than 20 employees | Source: Bitkom Research


Compulsory rules are certainly the wrong approach to

bring about change. However well-intentioned, a spe-

cific measure such as our example above of the table

soccer idea can create pressure which inevitably leads

to resistance and denial. The road to the office of the fu-

ture will only be successful if it can be co-designed by

all. This may sound trivial but introducing a new, colla-

borative and flexible working environment is nothing

short of changing the corporate culture. The bad news

is that this cannot be achieved overnight. It takes time

and patience from all those involved – no matter if it’s a

manager or employee. But the good news is that culture

is then created by the entire staff. Therefore, everybody

has a chance to make an impact. But how can you im-

plement this change in individual departments or across

an entire company? The easiest way is probably to set up

a cross-functional team of employees from different de-

partments. Individual team members should see them-

selves as an ambassador of their department and jointly

discuss all existing processes: How are single workflows

initiated? Are the tools and solutions that are used the

right ones? Where is room for improvement regarding

communication, collaboration and organization? In sum-

mary: Which changes does the company need, and how

can these changes be implemented? It’s not just the

current employees who will benefit. In view of the demo-

graphic and digital shift, companies in the “traditional”

part of the economy will have to address the issues of a

better work-life balance, flexible work concepts and ope-

rating scopes in order to meet the expectations of skil-

led employees. The issue of the workplace of the future

is not just about trendy feel-good strategies. Rather, it is

a matter of making all processes and structures as well

as the corporate culture future-proof. Should you crui-

se the Amsterdam beltway anytime soon and pass the

glistening facade of “The Edge”, just remember that the

office of the future involves more than just an attractively

designed exterior or interior. Instead, it’s about the tri-

ad of architecture, technology and mindset. The office

of the future is a long term objective that will take time

to develp. But many offices are already well on their way

to getting smarter. And don’t forget that you can indeed

contribute to making your working environment more agi-

le, more flexible and more sustainable. For more informa-

tion about creating a smarter office, you can also check

our e-books “How to make your business processes more

agile with digital workflows” and “How much DMS do you

need? Information management on the test bench”.

IT STARTS WITH A CHANGE IN MINDSET: NEW APPROACHES PAVE THE WAY TO THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE

This applies to executives as well as to employees. It is very easy to champion change but incomparably more complex to get it done. So how can you succeed in bringing your colleagues and superiors further on the path to the office of the future?


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