As we enter 2020, there is a lot to look forward to in what is in store for us in workplace. A lot will get left behind, products, ideas, business model, concepts, behaviors, attitudes that no longer serves us. But there is always a place for new things to synthesize, for good reasons. While the last decade offered a lot of new ideas, this decade will see it taking shape and roots. Siloed ideas will no longer exist, it will be a decade of multi-dimensional, truly agile, integrated and nimble approach. The best news is human capital will remain at the epicenter of everything. Here are the workplace predictions for 2020:
Generational Integration and not Generational Shift
One of the poor gifts of industrial age was that we were made to believe that one generation is good for one thing and another for something else. This will no longer hold true in the decade to come. So, we won’t be designing our workplaces only for millennials or Gen Z. But for all generations across, as long as they will be part of the workforce. And for good reasons. We will truly be integrating all relevant generations into a workplace and will have to design our workplaces for multi generations, multi enabled and multi dimensional workforce. Skills and talent will get better placed with various age groups and talent will overshadow skills.
Female Leadership – Diversity & Inclusion
Women leadership and female workforce is only going to increase and it will be one of the fundamental shift in percentage in ratio and composition. Boardrooms will no longer have just representations but a healthy mix to balance the views. This will call for repurposing and organizational restructure at every level and design which in turn will change the way work is and what the workplace will function and provide as. Inclusive design as a term will die as that will be the only way left and not as a key superior differentiation. Organizations will have to decide: include & perform or perish.
Human Capital Centric Workplace
As human-centered design applied to physical spaces and services can improve communication and collaboration in the workplace, workplace will have to further enable empathy, observation, ideation and reflection among its people. What is often underestimated is how much our employees’ energy levels dictate our overall productivity. When people’s personal needs are met during the work day, it may not just be by being in your workplace, it allowing them to create more value for the work they do and for the company. Wellness, mental health will be mainstream and not an added trivia.
Flexible Workplace for Agile Business Model – WaaS: Workplace As a Service
The concept of Workplace-as-a-Service (WaaS) will be the more popular lease model and hence when used, it won’t require the high acquisition costs of a long term leasing and purchased property. Depending on the contract, the lease package can also include updates, maintenance and service of devices and microservices. This could be real time saver. It is also possible to scale lease models and therefore tailor them flexibly to the changing requirements of a growing or compressing business. It will be about use it as you go. Having said that, traditional offices will continue to thrive as well. There will be a certain peaceful coexistence of both the models and several hybrid models consisting of both.
Holistic Experience of the Workplace
We will no longer be looking at workplace in isolation. Journey of workplace experience will start from the time you start to go to work. Your infrastructure, your commute, amenities will all become a matter of micro and macro planning. Experiential in true sense. Complete sense of built environment.Workplace will become a part of the whole experience and demands will be set accordingly. Despite many digitizations of activities, physical workplace will still hold true and its place tight in the real estate. Workplace is not going away anytime soon and certainly not in the coming decade. As long we will have work.
Extreme Focus on Soft Skills for Workforce
With digital transformation on high gear, one thing will become of extreme value: change will remain constant and hence complex soft skills will be more valuable than we can imagine. So far, the focus has been on hard skills, but that is now changing and fast. Soft skills like, emotional quotient and rare superior combination of IQ+EQ and its application in workplace and leadership will really change the landscape of value chain in leadership.
With technology taking center stage in workplace transformation, I predict the focus will shift to soft skills like never before. Soft skills like analytical skills, written and verbal communication, and leadership, will be extremely important for both employees and employers. Soft skills that help facilitate human connection which is needed for high-performance teams. And this is the reason, soft skills will manage the hard skills of workforce.
To sum it up, we no longer will have an evolution in workplace design but a revolution. There is no better time for radical ideas than now.
PS: I have very carefully tried to exclude technology, wellness and sustainability into this conversation. Not because it is a passé but because it is a given.
