The ‘paperless office’ never quite materialized, but the ‘peopleless’ office is all too common – particularly on Fridays! But also, more generally: occupany studies regularly show average workplace utilization of say 40%. As I run a corporate and government occupiers group, called the Workplace ‘PIN’ (performance innovation network), I get around to see a lot of large companies’ offices. And often there are whole areas of sparsely occupied workstations. We all know why: companies have built in management by objectives, rather than by ‘presence’. That results in ‘choice’, and leads to demand for workplace mobility.

Increased mobility, as a result of technology and flexible (or ‘advanced’) working, means that more professionals, managers and white-collar workers have more choice where and when to work. And I say, great – let’s see more of it. Charles Handy said people don’t want freedom from work, but freedom within work. I think he was right, and we will only see more people, not less, pushing for a better work-life balance.

OK so far, but, where I disagree with many workplace commentators is about homeworking (or ‘teleworking’ as it used to be called – what happened to that phrase?). I don’t believe that mobility will result in massive shifts to home working. Why? Because people are social creatures, and seek out other people with similar interests, to ‘hang out’ with. And the recent explosion of new social media opportunities means that everyone is only a few clicks away from many people that they would like to meet, work with, collaborate with, drink with, or even date (not in business hours, clearly….!). Working at home has its pros and cons, but how many people would want to work at home all week?

I see a new phenomenon arising from workplace mobility – the “destination workplace”. And here’s why….

Mostly we choose where to live, and to visit ‘holiday destinations’. If we can work anywhere, why not a “workplace destination”? Why not somewhere that we like to go, rather than ‘have to’ go? Some might say, there’s nothing new in that. If you’re well connected, wealthy, or part of a profession that has such facilities, you can go to your “club”. Most major cities have many such places, some by invitation only, some by membership like the IoD, or the RICS.

But I see a wider need for “destination workplaces” for any mobile worker. With huge respect to REGUS, there is a model whereby anyone can ‘buy space’ for a period of time. But, like most offices, few of their centres could be deemed “destinations”? Somewhere with attractive outdoor and indoor spaces, places to eat, mingle, and meet like-minded people, intentionally or by chance.

Various loose associations of people (or “tribes” as Seth Godin calls them in his book of the same name) may adopt a “destination workplace” for their collaborations. Perhaps a client, a consultant and a service provider, working on a common problem or project.

So who will build, manage and market these “destination workplaces”? And how will customers (not “tenants”) engage? More in my next blog….

Paul Carder

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Advanced Working, The Advanced Workplace, flexible working. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.