Through technology, the physical boundaries of a workplace aren’t what they once were. Nespresso Professional commissioned The Future Laboratory to identify the trends that will shape the workplace over the next decade in the Workplace Futures report
The workplace is in a state of flux. Digital transformation over the past decade has fundamentally changed how people work, yet the vast majority of today’s workplaces are still based on a dualistic, late 20th-century model in which rows of desks in open-plan spaces for workers sit alongside private offices for senior staff.
Yet by 2030, the workplace will have caught up with digital transformation, as office design moves towards hyper-flexibility where everything from mixed-reality interfaces to neural tools will allow us to create spaces that accommodate different needs in terms of how we collaborate, socialise or work solo.
Indeed, if the 20th century was about open- space collaborations, many ergonomists and social philosophers believe that the 21st century could be about ‘closed space, lone- lancing’, says The Future Laboratory co- founder Martin Raymond, ‘as we balance multi-tasking with uni-tasking, and the joy of mucking in, or JOMI, with JOOU, or the joy of opting out, and using silence, focus and dis-engagement to rebuild our work capabilities in entirely different ways.’
In tandem with this, businesses will also place community at the heart of newly Communal Workplaces, with human-centric design inspiring conviviality among an increasingly fluid, diverse and multi-generational workforce, enabling workers to come together and collaborate creatively.
‘The future of the workplace is a social and interactive one,’ says professor Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design at the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and director of WORKTECH Academy, a global online knowledge network exploring the future of work. ‘Offices will become places where people go to have conversations, share ideas, collaborate with others and to be trained and mentored – it’s very much a human landscape.’
In this report, we explore the social, cultural and technological forces that are shaping the future of the workplace, revealing the characteristics and approaches of future working environments that will satisfy and inspire the workforce of 2030.
Through this analysis, we have identified the emerging trends that will shape the workplace over the next decade, inspiring new levels of conviviality, learning and productivity among tomorrow’s workforce.
read The full Report
