16 We need to come together FACTS: The importance of the office to people’s social lives and friendships is related to the fact that the office is a space for spontaneous interaction, encounters and knowledge transfer. Its ability to play this role hinges on architectural factors such as office type, layout (how functions are divided and how communication and concentration are facilitated), aesthetics and the choice of materials. References: Bodin Danielsson, 2015, 2019; Brunia, De Been, & Van der Voordt, 2016; Sailer, K., & McCulloh, I., 2012 The office remains a factor for success. When we ask our respondents whether they see the office as a site of knowledge transfer, innovation and creativity, the majority respond that the office still retains a central role. Everyone contributes in their own ways, but when it comes to employees with specialist skills and competencies, we can see that their knowledge and experience are especially important to the organisations, particularly with regard to younger and newly recruited staff. Encounters and interactions with colleagues are also what the employees themselves report that they miss the most, according to surveys conducted by the participating organisations. Our study shows that many of the respondents are conscious of the risks involved in failing to sustain this, and a lot of brainpower has been dedicated to these questions, and to the office set-up. Some of the organisations have downsized their premises as a result of low attendance – in part to cut costs and in part to stop the office from feeling desolate and empty. Others have chosen not to cut their surface area but instead to establish different types of meeting and collaboration spaces to draw staff back to the office. We can see that this is something both private and public organisations are battling with, and in principle all participants report that they are working actively to make the office a more attractive prospect. “Organisational culture emerges from encounters between people.” It is through physical encounters at the office that informal bonds are forged, and these in turn foster increased understanding and tolerance. Employees enter into a psycho-social work climate which is closely linked to the organisation culture that is formed and sustained by encounters between people. It is at the office that the ‘real’ meetings take place – i.e, meetings where we can use all of our senses to pick up on subtle signals loaded with important information and which allow us to think big and outside the confines of the highly regimented meetings that take place online. This is likely one of several reasons why the participating organisations feel that the office is central to future- proofing their businesses (see fact box). We quite simply need the office in order to come together.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=