The Big Blend - 3 New Workstyle Archetypes
New Archetypes for the Workplace of The Future
By Angela Ferguson
It’s now halfway through July 2020. We are still in the midst of an ever changing global pandemic, and the future is still uncertain. So, what exactly does this mean for our workplaces?
Some of us are back in the office, some of us continue to work from home.
Some of us have zero interest in returning the workplace, others simply cannot wait to get back there!
Through all our research at Futurespace, we have found one consistent theme – and its that there’s no singular experience of life and work during this global health emergency. Every individual, team, business and corporation is having their own unique ‘adventure’ during this time.
What can be confirmed though, is that this great social experiment will hereafter have a profound impact on our working lives, and the spaces in which we undertake this work. The workplace of the future is going to be vastly different than ever before, and how each company deals with this will be driven by their organisation’s own unique culture.
When nearly 100% of our office towers were vacated earlier this year, working from home became the norm. And it worked well, because almost everyone was doing it. As working from home starts to combine with a return to the office, and we have endless permutations of this situation across workforces, this “Big Blend” will require careful and strategic management.
Through our research we have found that the workplace will consist of the following three archetypes, with the resultant supporting accommodation requirements:
The Settler: People who want or need to work in the office most of the week. They will be in the office 4-5 days a week, with an allocated desk. They will undertake a variety of tasks from concentrative to collaborative. Their reasons for wanting to be in the office will be diverse – it could be related to job function, they may want to segregate their work and home life, there may be too many distractions at home or poor internet or a variety of other personal scenarios that lead them to this preference
The Roamer: People who want to come into the office 2 -3 days a week, every week, and work the other 2-3 days per week from home, blending the virtual and physical. They will not necessarily need an allocated desk and will want access to all the amenities and facilities that are available for very definite periods of time – this could be a desk, a private office, training room, project room, library, workshop or other collaborative and specialist spaces. They will come to the office to socialise, collaborate and focus.
The Caller: People who want to come into the office randomly, on an ad hoc basis, potentially only 2-3 times per month. The main reason for coming to the office is to socialise and connect with their colleagues, because they are fairly self-sufficient. Much of their work can be done away from the office, in a variety of distributed locations, including from home.
In the second half of 2020 many businesses will be considering their long term property plans.
As part of this, a careful determination of the percentage of each of the above archetypes will need to be strategized. Once this is understood, the physical environment will need to be aligned proportionally with relevant workstyles and team structures. And of course, overlaid on this process will be considerations of technology, ratio of built to open environment (especially as these last two mean an increase in voice/video in the open plan) work health and safety, hygiene, vision, purpose and more.
This year has been an extraordinary time for workplace design. As our working and home lives blend physically and virtually like never before, we are (hopefully!) moving into a new, provocative era of creating workplaces that truly support the people who inhabit them.