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The Future of Workplace Design – Trends and Innovations
As businesses face enormous pressure to maximise sustainability throughout their practices, being able to facilitate effective hybrid work is likely to play a significant part in the future of workplace design.
As we near 2030, targets for achieving Net Zero will heavily influence business operations - and due to the sustainability benefits that hybrid work naturally generates, it’s sure to play an enormous role in the future of workplace design.
Trends that are likely to arise from these benefits include:
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- A less centralised workforce means less reliance on physical resources, such as paper documentation and usage of buildings costs like heating and energy.
- While some positions are not compatible with a hybrid format, many roles are – meaning that, so long as your security measures are sufficient, there will be less requirement for office space, allowing you to downsize to conserve costs.
- Less need for staff travel will put greater focus on a hot-desking format, meaning increased reliance on digital booking systems to ensure emissions aren’t generated unnecessarily.
While these trends aren’t necessarily widespread as of yet, it’s a safe bet that they’ll become commonplace by the time 2030 rolls around. So how do you address these trends, and benefit from them most effectively?
Cyber Secure Hybrid Workforce
With workforces predicted to become increasingly remote, strong cyber security measures should become top priority – since unprotected ‘smart’ devices connected to home routers are a potential entryway for hackers to access your company networks. You can actually start protecting yourself against this now, and a great first step is starting your transition to Windows 11.
However, ongoing security patches aren’t the only benefit to moving to Windows 11-compatible devices: by making use of built-in security such as TPM 2.0, the new OS is able to detect any remote tampering on your devices and block access to your networks accordingly. This is just one layer of protection we can provide, so get in contact with us today to find out what else is on offer.
Automation-Powered Information Flow
If teams become less anchored to the same building, how do you make sure they’re are all on the same page? The answer, in short, is by ensuring that information updates quickly and easily throughout the relevant channels and databases, even when delivered via physical mail. To that end, outsourcing a Digital Mailroom is invaluable – especially if you’re still relying on an on-site mailroom, and are looking for opportunities to repurpose some building space.
With your inbound physical mail routed and scanned through a Digital Mailroom service, important data is extracted with Digital Capture software and automatically updated to the relevant databases and CRM systems. This has the potential to benefit many areas of your business – with natural applications in customer service, HR departments, and finance & accounting, to name but a few.
High-Quality Digital Comms
The various benefits of hybrid work have already resulted in teams more commonly being spread out over a wide area – meaning communication must be as clear as possible in order to ensure collaboration is consistently effective. While physical phone lines should be completely phased out in the UK by 2027, there’s no reason to wait until then to trial digital-based alternatives – and the more familiar your staff become with them now, the earlier you can start reaping the many benefits of digital telecoms.
Internal collaboration can be further facilitated with the help of a Meeting Room Equipment service, which allows your on-site staff to communicate with remote workers as if they were all in the same room, thanks to sophisticated audio-visual equipment.
Outsourced Print, Mail, and Storage
While more focus on sustainability will naturally mean a decrease in paper, it’s unlikely to be phased completely out of use. However, outsourcing the handling of physical documentation to specialist providers may become a more commonplace business practice.
By outsourcing print, outbound mail, and records management through a responsible provider, businesses are free to devote more focus to key business areas - rather than attempting to oversee the resources and data compliance practices of multiple areas at once. This will enable you to design your workplaces to be as fit for purpose as possible, while keeping in-line with rapidly evolving regulations – as opposed to trying to manage everything in-house, to varying levels of success.
In conclusion, sustainability will become a key business priority the closer we get to 2030, and that means hybrid working will rise to even greater prominence. Supporting its effectiveness will lead to increased reliance on digital solutions that enhance remote security, communication, and collaboration – as well as outsourcing suppliers for more specialist tasks.
For more information on how we can help you realise the future of your workplace design, contact us today by using the form below.
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