IN DEPTH
Shift happens – the future office / library in a connected world
The impact of the pandemic on office life has been dramatic, but as we learn to live with Covid-19 what will the future hold. Luis Suarez, Neil Usher and Rob Cottrill join CILIP President Paul Corney for this issue’s President’s Musings.
OVER the last 18 months, people and organisations have shown remark- able adaptability and resilience. Daily routines have changed dramatically for many and, in the main, those who have been able to work from home have found the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Yet there are those who, perhaps unable to exert the same level of control in a distributed work envi- ronment, can’t wait to get their staff back to the office. In August, the Daily Mail reported that one unnamed cabinet minister had suggested those who refused to come back to their desks should forfeit some pay. “People who have been working from home aren’t paying their commuting costs, so they have had a de facto pay rise, so that is unfair on those who are going into work.”
The minister added: “If people aren’t go- ing into work, they don’t deserve the terms and conditions they get if they are going into work.”
This seems a long way away from February when the Financial Times ran a piece in its New Workplace series that noted, inter alia, that many organisations were reviewing their working practices.
Deutsche Bank said plans were being developed “towards the implementation of a hybrid future working model, combining the benefits of flexible working with the benefits of spending time together in the office”. Aon, the insurance broker, said it would undertake “an in-depth analysis of what the ‘future of work’ will look like...
24 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Paul Corney is President of CILIP.
which will involve a hybrid of working from offices, from home and other locations”. In previous columns, I suggested that, until humans develop virtual peripheral vision and the ability to replicate the serendipitous exchange that comes from proximity, organisations would find it difficult to resist a return to previous ways of working.
Seth Godin in a recent blog noted: “As social creatures, many people very much need a place to go, a community to be part of, a sense of belonging and meaning. But it’s not at all clear that the 1957 office build- ing is the best way to solve those problems.” Is the genie out of the bottle? Have we come too far in the last 18 months to go back to the old model of working? What will work look like in 18 months’ time? What will the place of work look like then and what, if anything, will the impact be on urban centres if the shift away from mass
September 2021
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