The Future of Work: How office design is changing

By Emily Peiffer and Kathryn Moody

The future of the office is not in free meals or massages. Or the slides between floors or pod-like desks.

While the fluorescent-lit rows of cubicles — implemented to save costs in an era where workers had no choice but to work at the office — have been summarily rejected by the new generation of tele-able employees, young hires are looking for a workplace experience that engages in more ways than the quirky or off-beat.

Times have changed, Jonathan Webb, vice president of workplace strategy at KI, told HR Dive. As millennials and younger workers enter the workforce straight from college, more workers are demanding different work environments that allow and encourage the flexibility and movability that they had during university.

But employees of all ages are also seeking offices that encourage health and wellbeing — and that means saying goodbye to cramped spaces, windowless walls and sitting for eight hours straight.

What defines the office of the future? We spoke to the experts to find out.

Flexible space: Reflecting university

Shifting the structure of today’s offices is about more than aesthetics. About 82% of the companies that Webb’s KI, a furniture manufacturer, spoke with said that many of their recent grad hires get “lost in transition” when they move from a flexible collegiate atmosphere to a structured corporate one. That means new hires take longer to understand their new corporate role and are at increased risk of leaving the company altogether, KI found.

“Attraction and retention remains one of the biggest issues in the U.S.,” Webb said. “Gen Y is now the largest working generation, and this generation has more choices of where to work than any previous generation.”

The new boundaries of choice are thanks to the amount of knowledge-based professions that have flooded the work world. Two jobs in two years is acceptable to millennial job seekers — but not exactly a joy to companies struggling with turnover.

That means an engaging office experience could make the difference in retaining top young talent.

“I think the thing that companies fail to do the most is recognize the different work styles that are demanded by workers,” Webb said.

In university, students can work in libraries, classrooms, cafes and their own rooms. Offices need to accommodate the same by offering spaces for and allowing movement between:

• Ideation and focus. Private places to collaborate.  

• Engagement with others. Open areas for meal times and daily work.

• Regeneration. Quiet places to rest the brain, get away from others, and do focused work.

Workers also expect a strong sense of collaboration and integration of technology in their spaces, Webb said. All of KI’s clients in their study said that their newly hired grads liked to work in groups — meaning a good work environment will offer plenty of spaces where workers can choose to work in collaboration if they wish. Open office environments have gained traction for similar reasons.

According to a Ted Moudis Associates report, 89% of workplaces surveyed were open office style, with 67% of those workplaces using a desking/benching set-up, which makes what was once individual workspace more sharable and communal.

Keith Perske, executive managing director of workplace innovation for Colliers, told HR Dive that the entire definition of the workplace may need to change to adapt to this new need.

“When you think about the value of the workplace, it too often has been thought of as a way to squeeze cost,” Perske said. “The real value of the workplace is about encouraging the culture of the company and encouraging certain behaviors.” 

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