M You should never dive too deep into strange worlds, and you may never return. Or reluctant. This is what happens when you deal with the new office world: with fresh work concepts, modern equipment, multi-room and relaxation room. For a few months, we did this every week at F.A.S. – and since then it has been hard to get back to the “single cell” every morning.
Editor in economics and for Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Since I know that job researchers call my office at the end of the corridor, it has lost some of its shine. Even worse was the derogatory look of a project leader from a DAX company, as I just mentioned that single cell at the bar table of a network event. “Unimaginably anachronistic,” said this look. Backward-facing, uncommunicative. The world out there is much more colorful now.
The right office mix makes it
“Multispace” or “activity based working” are vocabulary that should be available nowadays. The topic draws itself at the Business Dinner. Nothing fulfills the needs of the employee more than this neat office mix of different working environments, which the employee can freely choose according to his task. This has just resulted in a survey among companies of all sizes at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO on behalf of the “Design Function” Group. More than half of the surveyed about 1,000 managers expect that this will be the dominating office form in the future.
And somehow it is clear that at home one does not live his life exclusively in the bedroom, at least if one does not have to confine oneself spatially as a penniless student. Instead, you swing back and forth between your living room, kitchen, bedroom and balcony, according to your needs. That’s how job researchers – and now me too – imagine job fulfillment. Diversity keeps you young and flexible and encourages collaboration, so employees should have the opportunity to choose the right environment for each activity.
After all: Bunter it is also in ours in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung Since we started our little self-experiment shortly after Easter, as part of this series. To do this, two design consultants approached us, sensitively inquired about our work schedule and needs, took measurements, and jumped at everything that could quickly be used as a pilot: our conference room. The single-cell structure did not produce more, if you do not want to tear down entire walls at the same time. And the bosses did not want that.
Which brings us to the next surprising result of the Fraunhofer study: Employees do not see change in their companies fast enough. The management, however, finds their chosen pace just right. So far, one has always had the opposite impression: Managers have visions, make the impossible possible, while the collective-bound employee clings to his beloved everyday life. In fact, according to the Fraunhofer Institute, it is exactly the opposite. The management depends on the structures created by it. If you left the employees, companies would be more innovative.
The conference is more flexible
But that does not mean that nothing would happen. Something is happening here too: for months, the height-adjustable conference table “Tyde”, a simple example of the furniture company Vitra, has been the adornment of our conference room. In an unobtrusive way he brings a little movement in our meetings, sometimes we stand, sometimes we sit, sometimes both in a row.