Activity-Based Working

In his book “The Demise of the Office,” Veldhoen describes the concept of Activity-Based Working. The book posits that traditional office environments are becoming outdated due to advancements in digital technology and telecommunications. Veldhoen advocates for workplaces designed to support a variety of tasks and activities rather than assigning fixed desks to employees.

Three of his key ideas include:

• Flexible Workspaces: Offices should provide different settings, such as private offices, open areas, and collaborative spaces, to accommodate various work activities. Employees are encouraged to move between these settings during the course of their day.
• Employee Autonomy: Workers should have the freedom to choose their work environment, promoting self-management and responsibility. Employees can choose to stay at home for focus work or attend the office for different flavors of collaboration.
• Enhanced Productivity: By removing dedicated desks and enabling remote work, companies can boost productivity and employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction was a key metric here, and it was the one element that drove many organizations to adopt ABW.

The adoption of ABW by corporations was quick and revolutionary: they removed the traditional allocations of desks (and the associated clutter) by insisting that employees shared desks and stored their belongings in lockers when not at work. Organizations mandated the use of laptop computers to allow people to move around the workplace and out of the workplace if needed. They removed closed office spaces (much to the dismay of those who saw an office as a status symbol), and the new operating model gave employees the one thing they had never had before — choice. This was a big move: suddenly, an employee could now work wherever they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted — and the net result was a massive cost saving to the employer and a rise in employee satisfaction derived from their newfound freedoms.

The Pushback

Humans are resistant to change, and the incredible irony was that many pushed back on ABW. It was not unusual for those more traditional employees to feel affronted by having their desks taken away. The notion of working from home was a horrifying concept to many whose 30-year routine made it a challenge to adopt the idea of not going into the office. It seems incredible, but this was a genuine concern 10 years ago — and many employees resigned from organizations because they lost their desks.

Through the post-COVID lens through which we view the world today, very few of us feel that working in a "hybrid" arrangement doesn't offer benefits — indeed, it has very quickly become the preferred way of balancing work and life and reducing those time-consuming commutes.

Workplace Resilience

The arrival of mandatory working from home (for those that could) caused by a little microscopic virus in the early part of 2020 highlighted the maturity of organizations relative to their deployment of technology collaboration tools for its knowledge workers. Some organizations simply sent their people home and transferred all meetings to Microsoft Teams or Zoom Rooms; others had to acquire the tools quickly. Thankfully, in 2020, cloud-based collaboration tools were (and still are) easy to spin up when needed: Microsoft Teams, Zoom Rooms, and Webex were all starting to gain traction, but it was really only the large corporations or tech sector firms that had fully adopted the technology.

Many at the time talked about an organization's "resilience," which was a measure of how firms had planned their workplaces to be adaptable and flexible. These resilient companies were largely based in areas where talent was in short supply or property costs were higher. Organizations that valued employee engagement and satisfaction over pure profit were also in this mix. These new and modern work practices, alongside the latest cool tech, attracted young and dynamic people and helped organizations fight the so-called "war for talent."

What’s Next

The latest (and most anticipated) entrant to this arena is Microsoft. The Microsoft Places app will be released to the public at the end of this year and promises to tie all the elements of the intelligent workplace together. Its major selling point is the connection of all Microsoft elements to the Microsoft Places platform: Augmented by Microsoft Copilot AI, the possibility to intelligently and predictively manage the physical workplace with the same efficiency as managing files is something we are all keen to see. Crestron is one of the first partners to be involved with the Microsoft Places app: the new range of desk booking solutions recently released will integrate to the app and expand the already powerful 20-year Crestron and Microsoft partnership further into the physical workplace and beyond.

No matter what’s next, Crestron and workplace technology as a whole will be at the forefront, with tech solutions designed to help organizations collaborate as effectively as possible. At Crestron, we look at what we do as an ongoing conversation between our integrators and clients, a conversation that provides a proper feedback loop to ensure we’re meeting their needs — even as those needs continue to change.

Change is inevitable, and as Winston Churchill said:

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”