Partner Article

Building a smarter working office without walls

According to research from IDC, 34 per cent of the world’s working population will be mobile by 2015. That’s an estimate of 245 million mobile workers across Europe.

This is not your father’s office. Today’s workforce is no longer confined by four walls, a desk phone and an 8-to-5 punch clock. Employees can work from anywhere and at anytime, resulting in a more complex world for employers and a change in the physical work environment.

Organisations must innovate. They must adopt proven technology and shift their mindset on the manager / associate relationship, establishing trust in the new world of smarter working. While it may sound counterintuitive organisations must also be open to what the new office workspace looks like despite a mobile workforce that isn’t on site everyday all day.

Plantronics has taken an innovative approach to this borderless lifestyle with the opening of multiple smarter working offices across the globe. Offices that with the HR, IT and FM departments working together, embody this new way of work and provide employees the tools to successfully work dispersed from traditional office locations.

The traditional office environment, whether it is the primary office, secondary, a nomadic office or at home, is often plagued with challenges for working - physical discomforts, high noise levels, missing key work tools, a lack of privacy and constant distractions. All of these disruptions can contribute to an unhealthy working environment.

To resolve these issues, we employed an acoustic zoning design introduced to meet four critical new office workspaces in our redesign. These zones focus on the ability to Concentrate, Communicate, Collaborate and Contemplate:

• Concentrate – Quiet space for focused work (i.e. monk cells, acoustic pods)
• Communicate - Vibrant, busy areas for constant noise, group touch down zone (i.e. café, lobby) but also energetic voice calls, shielded from those that don’t want to be hindered by such
• Collaborate – Zones to work together: (i.e. work pods, touch down benches/areas, meeting rooms)
• Contemplate – Time out space for creative inspiration, refuelling, relaxation (i.e. taking a break from work)

Another key item often overlooked in the creation of a new workplace environment is the need of well-conceived space acoustics. As a company in the acoustics industry, we were very receptive to the ABC’s of space acoustics. They include Absorption, Blocking and Cover and in our journey towards new smarter working offices, we incorporated all of these items.

For example, absorption factors in the need for sound to be captured by panels and textiles – not just in ceilings and wall but also in acoustic furniture - to quiet the overall environment. Blocking is the installation of defence mechanisms like sound barriers that help keep noise from travelling. And lastly, Cover produces anti-noise sound that helps mask echo and voices that carry throughout the office.

It is my belief that the key in building the right environment for work is having the right spaces to do the right activities. Tearing down both the physical and virtual walls of an organisation makes work as comfortable and productive as possible.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Plantronics .