For every aspect of life, there is a normal way of doing things, which is popular and widely accepted. Then you have the alternative.
It is applicable for every decision you take – even the one concerning the design of your office. If you have the option, will you try an out-of-the-box office layout design?
If you still have not broken the shackles of the ordinary and opted for something beyond certainty, then now is the time. We are in an era embracing a ‘new normal’ in ‘uncertain times.’ Sometimes alternative options provide opportunities that are beyond ordinary and help add an all-new perspective. The same is true for offices today.
Working Outdoors
The rise in remote workers has amplified the need for improved speed, communications, and connections. Wireless capabilities have pushed the boundaries of workspace limits supporting the dream of your very own backyard office!
The onset of the pandemic had suddenly thrown people to face the challenge of working from remote locations. The workforce has always meant to work in tandem with the other departments through liaison and coordination. An absence of physical communication and presence has wiped out such a means.
This trigger has also made everyone adapt to the new environment and carry out the jobs differently than they used to do in a pre-pandemic era. The meetings take place through video conferences on Zoom, Google meet, or Microsoft teams. Though VC was a tool present for a long time, the actual utilization happened only post-pandemic.
The high-speed networking devices have enabled the building up of a new space – the home office. Critics, however, say that these concepts take away the freedom from the people as they tend to work for a higher number of hours than they did before.
These spaces created a new environment for the companies to work. Such a situation has led to the slash down of the overheads for the companies and increased employee productivity.
Alternative Officing
For understanding the benefits of alternative officing over traditional desking concepts, it is first important to understand the concept. In layman’s terms, it is office hoteling.
Instead of loitering from one facility to another, hoteling will stimulate them to book spaces for a specific time. Alternative officing helps preserve the diversity and flexibility of the workplace. It puts a rider on how employees can use it.
The quintessential aspect of this approach is also to aid in extending non-traditional workplace elements. It means offices can be within the coffee bars or spaces outside conference rooms to help accommodate the meeting spillovers. It is a distinct departure from the traditional office concept. It helps create a flexible, dynamic, and comfortable space to work. Its creation took place with the idea to aid employees to work better.
Benefits of Alternative Officing
At a time when traditional workspaces are being rendered to be ineffective, such concepts can help better adapt to the situation. In the middle of a pandemic situation, traditional workspaces fail to adapt to the changing environment and exhibit any flexibility. The adoption of such alternative means, especially in major cities like Miami and Chicago, helps to
- Maximum space optimization leading to reduction of workplace costs
- Improved productivity of the workforce with new guidelines
- Ushering new technologies, leading to improved workplace utilization
- Maintaining order while facilitating employee mobility
In addition to the above, the chief change that the alternatives officing brings in is the good human resource culture. It entails the employees to promote collaboration, teamwork, and better usage of the workplace.
Such practices help bond the employees better and help them get a chance to foster stronger relationships among them. In the traditional ways, they remain hooked to their desk all through their time in the company. They occupy space when they need it and move to a different one as the need ceases to exist.
So breaking the barrier helps identify new opportunities and also gives a chance to increase productivity through untapped means. A catalyst like the COVID-19 pandemic has given us many reasons to find alternatives. The efficient and effective use of such spaces can help change the face of the workplace.
However, it is a welcome change for the employees and the employers as it helps to increase productivity by quite a high margin. The remote working conditions have led to cutting down the office overheads, which ran into thousands of dollars for the large enterprises.
The motivation to work from another location other than the office can be because of various reasons which are not often necessarily linked to convenience.
