3 scenarios of the office life of the future

Before the corona crisis, you could already see that a trend was emerging in terms of location-independent working. More and more companies let their employees work from home every now and then. But while this trend would normally continue for years to come, in March we all suddenly had to work from home. Even among the companies and managers that were anti-working from home. That makes us think about the future of the office.

There is a lot of speculation about what the future of the office will look like. We describe the most common scenarios.

Scenario 1: Office becomes meeting place

The Dutch like working from home : half of them want to continue working from home more or all the time after the corona crisis. Companies are also more open to this, albeit with appropriate conditions. They have now seen that their employees can also be productive at home. But to be honest, the fun is missed a bit. And the opportunity to spar with a colleague, without having to deal with faltering technology or other uncomfortable situations, too.

According to some people, this is the solution: turn the office into a meeting place, we read on the website de Volkskrant . People then start thinking more consciously about why they go to the office. If you have to consult a lot with colleagues, it is useful to travel to the office. Do you have to get a lot done on your own? Then it no longer feels logical to sit in a noisy open-plan office. Many people therefore think that in the future we will only travel to work if we want to brainstorm, meet or have to collaborate.

Office will look different

This is in line with an office trend that we had already seen before the crisis. More and more organizations realized that an open-plan office is not the most efficient workplace, and they provided separate areas for different activities. For example, health insurer Cigna already had concentration rooms, brainstorming rooms, call rooms, meeting rooms and lounge areas. Unilever is also moving to a similar office.

Scenario 2: There is no more office at all

There are companies that take the plunge. For example, a piece has already…