The traditional concept of corporate office environment as we’ve come to know it is changing. The global coronavirus pandemic has forced organisations to think differently about what it means to be an employee or a manager. As a result, new trends are reshaping the entire concept of what it means to work.
According to Misha Peleg, there are five major trends that are reshaping the concept of corporate office environment. These trends are challenging organisations to think differently about working and doing business in 2022 and beyond. These five trends are:
- Globalised corporate world
- Remote work
- Millennials and Generation Z in the workforce
- Social Media
- Technological revolution
Now, let’s take a closer look at these trends reshaping the concept of corporate office environment and how they redefine what it means to work.
1. Globalised corporate world
Over the past decades, globalisation has made the world feel significantly smaller. The language you speak, the country you live in, and even the currency you use to buy and sell products and services no longer present insurmountable barriers to doing business. Today, the world increasingly looks like one giant megapolis. Thus, companies can find talent and hire employees anywhere across the globe.
2. Remote work
Propelled by the global COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has become commonplace in today’s corporate environment. Video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts, enable us to communicate and share ideas anywhere and anytime, using a wide variety of devices. This means that work (or the office) has become less of a physical destination and more of a concept. Today, your office is always with you – in your pocket – wherever you are.
3. Millennials and Generation Z in the workforce
According to a recent study by analytics firm Oxford Economics, workers born between the mid-1990s and 2010 are projected to grow to 51 million by 2030. Generation Z will make up almost one-third of the total workforce by the next decade. Millennials will make up most of the rest. These tech savvy generations expect to be able to work remote at least on some days of the week.
4. Social media
Whether you are 22 or 52, you likely have an account on at least one social media platform. Engaging with customers on Twitter and Facebook, monitoring Google and Yelp reviews, and sharing photos on their corporate Instagram accounts has long become part and parcel of doing business for hundreds of thousands of companies and organisations. The ways we share information, collaborate, communicate, and learn have evolved tremendously over the past 15 years. All this is forcing organisations to fundamentally rethink and reimagine the way they work and do business.
5. Technological revolution
Big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, wearable devices, the internet of things, various collaboration platforms, and cloud computing have enabled us to work in new ways while raising our productivity. Misha Peleg predicts that, in the future of the workplace, technology will serve as the central component enabling everything else to function seamlessly.
Combined with today’s extremely competitive talent market, these five trends are forcing businesses to rethink “the office.” It’s no longer a place where employees need to be 9 to 5. Today, the office is an environment available to employees at all times wherever they are. When we think about the future of work, the organisations that will be the most effective at making this transition from the physical office space to the more fluid concept of an effective and welcoming virtual office enabled by modern technology, will be the ones able to attract and retain top talent.
If your company doesn’t yet think about the future or work and take actionable steps to get there, then your company will face significant challenges in near future.
Misha Peleg is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded several highly successful companies since the early 1990s. Today, Misha uses his business success to support a wide range of non-profit organizations throughout the world.