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CREATING THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OFFICE SMARTER
“The Edge” was developed by the Dutch real estate
developer OVG Real Estate on behalf of the auditing
and consulting company Deloitte, and knowledge wor-
kers can freely choose where they prefer to work: at
an available desk, in an inviting lounge area or even
in a massage chair. Via an in-house smartphone app
you can adjust the immediate office environment accor-
ding to your preferences: it lets you control the lighting
and air-conditioning and you can project presentations
from your notebook directly on a large video screen, In
“The Edge”, it takes but a few clicks to create a perfect
work atmosphere.
This structural freedom does not stop with the office
equipment: employee assessments are exclusively ba-
sed on the quality of their projects and their work. Where
that work has been carried out is completely secondary
– whether it was inside the office building, on the sofa
at home or in the city park of Amsterdam. The result is all
that counts.
At present, most office workers can only dream of such
working con-ditions. Although you can frequently read
about similar concepts in official company or start-up
publications – if you look around in medium-sized
enterprises you will mostly find individually assigned
workplaces in open-plan offices. Instead of an indoor
climate that can be in-
2 | Creating the office of the future
dividually adjusted, there are often heated discussions
among colleagues as to how far or how long a window
may stay open. Will smart work and office co ncepts, as
realized in “The Edge” or in the offices of Google and Fa-
cebook, continue to be the exception to the rule? As
far as the experts at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute of
Labour Econo-mics and Organization (IAO) are
concerned, the answer is, No.“ Medium-sized
companies are just as much affected by the
changing work environment. Given the impact of the
digital shift on all areas of life and work, why should
it stop at the doors of small and medium-sized
companies? “To remain competitive, it is both crucial
and timely to create appropriate structures inside
all companies which enable flexible forms of
work,” says Stefan Rief, Head of the Fraunhofer
IAO Competence Center in Stuttgart.
But how can a medium-sized business create these
agile structures? How can small and mid-sized
companies keep up with office buildings such as “The
Edge”? We want to address these issues on the
following pages. We will be-gin by looking at what
distinguishes smart work concepts such as that
designed for “The Edge” and – against this backdrop –
examine the role of documents in the future office. This
should give you a better idea of where to start making
your work smarter and more flexible – as a mana-ging
director, department head or employee.
If you happen to work in “The Edge” in Amsterdam, NL, you can call yourself happy: it’s one of the world’s most modern office buildings with all workplaces offering maximum comfort.
TAKE A GLIMPSE AT THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE
3 | Creating the office of the future
One thing is clear: We will all (still have to) go to the
office in the future but with one salient difference: com-
pulsory attendance will be dropped, according to Stefan
Rief from Fraunhofer IAO. “Knowledge work will be cha-
racterized by greater flexibility in the future,“ says Rief.
“We will have more choices to decide when and where
we are going to carry out our work– whether in a typical
office, a home office or even at so-called third places
which include co-working centers.”, Rief has been stu-
dying the effects of the digital conversion on the office
and working atmosphere for many years. According to
him, a trusted workplace will also gain in significance,
in addition to trust-based working hours. This assump-
tion is supported by a representative survey conducted
by the trade association BITKOM among 1,500 managing
directors and human resources managers of companies
from all industries. Every fourth enterprise (24%) ex-
pects that the typical office workplace with compulsory
attendance will become less important in the future. At
the same time, almost every third business company
(30%) assumes that home offices will gain in importan-
ce. So how about today? According to a long-term survey
conducted by Fraunhofer IAO, the majority of those in-
terviewed are already working autonomously in terms of
time. More than half of them are allowed to decide when
exactly a particular job shall be carried out. As far as the
choice of workplace is concerned, however, there are
still many restrictions. The Fraunhofer researchers also
found that flexibility and productivity directly correlate
with each other.
According to Fraunhofer IAO, 20% of all those interviewed are very satisfied with their working environment and another 42% are rather satisfied. Source: Fraunhofer IAO
fully agree
rather disagree
somewhat agree partly agree
not agree at all
MORE THAN JUST FANCY OFFICE FURNITURE: THE COMPONENTS OF A SMART OFFICE
Open spaces, modern IT equipment, mobile processes: the office as a place to work is gradually evolving and getting smarter. What matters in this respect is not only stylish office furniture but also a holistically planned and, above all, flexible office setting.
4 | Creating the office of the future
As Rief recalls, “Our study showed that self-sufficient wor-
king conditions do have a positive effect on many areas of
working and private life. If you can individually design your
job profile, you will improve your work-life balance and ex-
perience a higher motivation and better performance.” At
the same time, Rief points out that this won’t signal the
end of the typical office. Examples like “The Edge” de-
monstrate that – depending on the situation and the pro-
ject – the employees working there still need a place whe-
re they can directly communicate with their colleagues or
work together in a focused manner. These are conditions
you won’t find at your kitchen table at home or at any other
alternative location. Therefore, home offices and the like
will not replace the office as we know it. Instead, these so-
lutions will provide employees with new opportunities to
interlink work and everyday life – i.e. they extend the office
as a place to work. The way you structure the office environ-
ment is therefore a significant lever to improve productivity
and employee satisfaction.
However, according to the same study, there is potential for
improvement in many companies: Only about 20% of the
employees interviewed are really satisfied with their cur-
rent office environment. As far as the structural design of
their working and office environment is concerned,
nearly 40% of them still see enormous potential for
optimisation.
“The Edge” in Amsterdam is considered to be the most advanced office building in the world (OVG Real Estate).
5 | Creating the office of the future
These findings are also backed by the study “Employee
Commitment and Workplaces of the World” for which
Steelcase and Ipsos have interviewed 12,480 office wor-
kers from 17 countries. The result: on a global scale,
only 13% of the employees are highly motivated.
Especially for mid-sized businesses it would be worth
investing more in an appe-aling working and office
environment in order to attract and retain qualified
employees.
Making office work more flexible, however, implies
more than just purchasing fancy office furniture. As Rief
points out, flexibility relies on the seamless interaction
of three factors. “Really making office work smart
involves an ideal interplay between spatial
conditions, appropriate technologies and the
company’s mindset.” Establishing flexible working
methods must therefore become part of the
corporate culture which means the right mindset must
evolve. This is no small objective since changing a
proven method is never easy, even though it can be very
worthwhile.So what are the opportunities for you as an
employee or manager to make your working environment
smarter? When confronting your superior with the idea of
acquiring lounge furniture in order to intensify informal
exchanges, the matter of costs is likely to come up. That
said, you can still say goodbye to traditional working me-
thods – even if these are only small steps at first.
Start with the processes in your sphere of influence and
question them: Are the established processes in your de-
partment really up-to-date? Do they allow flexible, colla-
borative ways of working? Would new solutions be more
cost-efficient? Whether you’re the manager or an emplo-
yee – you won’t be able to change the corporate culture
all on your own or within a month, nor can you motivate
changes by by making them compulsory. But if you jointly
start questioning existing processes and attitudes, you
will automatically change your working method and
thus, inch by inch, the corporate culture as well…
and not necessarily for the worse!
“To make office work smart involves the interaction of spatial conditions, appropriate technologies and the company’s mindset.”Stefan Rief, head of the Fraunhofer IAO Competence Center in Stuttgart
6 | Creating the office of the future
Hardly a working day goes by without being occupied
with e-mails. Whether it’s on the move on your mobile, on
a tablet or in front of your computer – e-mails seem to be
our communication media of choice, especially in ever-
yday business. The technology-focused market research
company The Radicati Group estimates that ca. 205.6 bil-
lion e-mails are being sent and received per day. Even
if you deduct the enormous amount of unwanted spam
mails from this number (between 80% and 90%), each
person receives several e-mails every day. We become
particularly aware of this when we return from a holiday
to a totally clogged-up inbox. But how could e-mail beco-
me so incredibly successful? Obviously because what we
want to communicate reaches business partners within
seconds – no matter where that person may be. Often
we even get a read confirmation. An e-mail is sent out
fast, easily and for free. Yet it is not really an ideal com-
munication medium to help establish flexible and smart
working methods. In fact, e-mail communication has se-
vere drawbacks including security issues. If an e-mail is
sent out unencrypted, it has the same security level of a
postcard. What’s more, due to the flood of e-mails, it is
very likely that business-critical statements or figures are
discovered too late or not at all. This can easily create
problems, especially in a location-independent working
world. Let’s assume you’re sharing a project with a col-
league who’s in the office while you’re working in your
home office: it can be truly discouraging if that colleague
doesn’t immediately respond to an e-mail you consider
urgent. Communication is vital for greater job flexibility.
Collaboration tools or workflow solutions provide an ef-
ficient remedy to this problem, enabling a clean separa-
tion line between official business communication and a
quick exchange among colleagues. They offer functions
we know from messenger services, providing a faster and
more direct exchange with colleagues than by e-mail. Yet
e-mails are just one example that shows how collabora-
tion in companies can be improved. Let’s look at working
on a client project: whether it concerns product require-
ments or orders, status reports, delivery documents or
contracts – during a project, numerous documents are
created which have to be passed around, edited by va-
rious persons and finally filed in a way that they can be
quickly retrieved from anywhere. In a flexible working en-
vironment, your inbox or a random file on a server may
not be the most appropriate place.
FLEXIBLE VS. FIXED: ENCOURAGING COLLABORATION
The office of the future is above all flexible. However, how people communicate and accessibility to information are central to establishing flexible working methods. This is why you should challenge established technologies and procedures because they don’t always help you in reaching your goal, as the following e-mail example illustrates.
7 | Creating the office of the future
Workflow solutions or digital customer files which im-
prove responsiveness are clearly a better solution. They
enable you to safely and centrally file and administrate
business-relevant information: with electronic busi-
ness partner files, sales employees, customer or ser-
vice staff can evaluate a client-relevant situation and
provide specific information within a very short time.
These two examples show which issues can be addres-
sed by companies if they want to design smarter wor-
king methods.
Cooperation with colleagues or external agencies, ser-
vice providers or customers is becoming more import-
ant in a hyper-flexible working environment. Ask your-
self: Do the currently implemented solutions ensure an
efficient exchange between all the persons involved in
the process? And do the tools and processes that are
applied actually meet the requirements of the respecti-
ve department with regard to an advanced information
management? Is all vital information always available?
Since most of the business-critical processes in your
company are based on documents, managing docu-
ment processes offers a high potential for making work
more flexible. KYOCERA offers you the possibility to
carry out a self-check and find out just how good your
information processes are. Within 15 minutes you will
get an assessment report outlining where there is room
for improvement in your department or your company.
More teamwork – collaboration will characterize work in the future
The Building Research Establishment (BREEAM) (agency
for sustainable real estate) awarded “The Edge” with a
98.36% positive rating. The highest mark ever rewarded
an office bu ilding. Lo cated directly on the Amsterdam
beltway, “The Edge” was designed by Dutch real estate
developer and investor OVG Real Estate for the corpora-
te consulting company Deloitte. They worked closely to-
gether to achieve the best results. The south side of the
building is equipped with highly efficient so lar pa nels
which produce more energy than needed for the more
than 1,000 employees working there.
Furthermore, it’s the first o ffice bui lding in the wor ld
equipped with the innovative office lighting system “Po-
wer-over-Ethernet“ (PoE) from Philips. This networked
system combines comprehensive light management
software with intelligent, PoE-compatible LED luminaires
which are integrated into the IT network. What’s more,
the building is able to continually document and adjust
its energy consumption according to individual user
needs by means of efficient technologies. However, even
if “The Edge” sets new standards in terms of eco-friend-
liness – hard to achieve by medium-sized businesses
– one thing becomes crystal clear: Environmental sus-
tainability will definitely be an issue in the office of the
future. Another Fraunhofer IAO study on “Green Offices”,
issued in 2014, reports that most companies and, above
all their executives, are well aware of this topic and wil-
ling to take eco-friendly measures, although there is still
a lot to be done on a nation-wide basis. But especially
small and medium-sized businesses have the opportuni-
ty to considerably push their economic efficiency with
8 | Creating the office of the future
appropriate concepts and heighten their
attractiveness in the eyes of their staff as well as job
applicants. There are several approaches worth
mentioning here. In addtion to commuting to work in an
ecofriendly manner using things like job tickets or
parking lots reserved for car-sharing, it is also possible
to create reward systems to limit the use of energy and
resources as well as nurturing en-vironmentally
responsible behaviour through communi-cation.
Another aspect which is frequently addressed in any
discussion about “green” office structures is how to
cut paper consumption. The “Green Offices” study
also revealed that most companies have already taken
steps aimed at reducing paper consumption. While this
seems to be common practice, today’s offices st ill ca
n’t func-tion completely paperless. Nonetheless, a
few compa-nies have managed to go pretty far in their
transition to digital working methods. One of those is
Connox GmbH in Hannover, Germany. As managing
director, Thilo Haas recalls, “The conversion of
processes takes time and ac-tually starts in the
preparation phase. We started by analysing all
existing paper-based document management
processes.
You have to critically examine the situations where
prin-ting something is unavoidable. We were really
surprised just how many individual work steps are
involved in, let’s say, an incoming invoice. This is
necessary, however, if you want to identify at which
points you can save paper.”
GREEN IS ACTUALLY SMARTER: THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE IS ECO-FRIENDLY TOO
“The Edge” in Amsterdam is not only an office building with the latest technology. It is also the world’s most sustainable one. This high-tech complex spans over 40,000 square meters and proves that the topic of environmental friendliness extends beyond energy savings to also provide users an attractive workplace.
9 | Creating the office of the future
Again, if you intend to scale back paper
consumption, you will have to question established
procedures. The ex-ample of Connox shows that
paperless work can only be achieved by making
structural changes to existing proces-ses. This means
that if saving on paper is all you want to accomplish,
you will very likely fail – just like setting up a table
soccer on a department floor won’t really heighten the
feel-good factor in the office. This is confirmed by Thilo
Haas as well, “The most important step in the
conversion process was one of a psychological nature.
We had to raise the awareness of our employees first.
The concept of truly reflecting reflect is a document
really needs to be printed has to “click” in the mind of
every colleague.” Of course, Connox is not an isolated
example of advancing digital document processes. AIIM
research showed that for some organizations (40%)
there are a number of paper-free processes already in
place and they are looking to do more, with 14% of our
respondents saying they are actively looking at every
process for ways to eliminate or at least minimize
paper use. A small group (3%), indicate they are close
to reaching their limit of paper-free process
candidates. This could be interpreted as they are really
good at eliminating paper and truly are paper-free, or
that they have run out of ways to assess and identify
new opportunities. In either case, these projects
should be seen as a foundation for further
improvement, and even though there may in fact be a
diminished number of candidates remaining, there is
always opportunity to further improve upon those that
have been transformed. As an example, there may be
opportunity to capture information earlier in a process
and closer to its first touch point.
Sample size of 199 members of the AIIM Community: Source AIIM Market Intelligence - Paper Free - Are we there yet?
How would you describe progress towards eliminating paper from your business processes?
They mostly work OK with paper, so we
leave them that way, 9%
We have evaluated removing
paper from some of
processes, 23%
We have a number of paper-free
processes and will do more,
40%
We ac˜vely look at every
process to drive out paper, 14%
We are close to the limit for suitable
paper-free candidates, 3%
We have one or two of the most
obvious processes paper-free,
12%
Compulsory rules are certainly the wrong approach to
bring about change. However well-intentioned, a spe-
cific measure such as our example above of the table
soccer idea can create pressure which inevitably leads
to resistance and denial. The road to the office of the fu-
ture will only be successful if it can be co-designed by
all. This may sound trivial but introducing a new, colla-
borative and flexible working environment is nothing
short of changing the corporate culture. The bad news
is that this cannot be achieved overnight. It takes time
and patience from all those involved – no matter if it’s a
manager or employee. But the good news is that culture
is then created by the entire staff. Therefore, everybody
has a chance to make an impact. But how can you im-
plement this change in individual departments or across
an entire company? The easiest way is probably to set up
a cross-functional team of employees from different de-
partments. Individual team members should see them-
selves as an ambassador of their department and jointly
discuss all existing processes: How are single workflows
initiated? Are the tools and solutions that are used the
right ones? Where is room for improvement
regarding communication, collaboration and
organisation? In sum-mary: Which changes does the
company need, and how can these changes be implem-
10 | Creating the office of the future
ented? It’s not just the current employees who will
benefit. In view of the demo-graphic and digital shift,
companies in the “traditional” part of the economy will
have to address the issues of a better work-life
balance, flexible work concepts and operating scopes
in order to meet the expectations of skilled
employees. The issue of the workplace of the future is
not just about trendy feel-good strategies. Rather, it is a
matter of making all processes and structures as well
as the corporate culture future-proof. Should you crui-
se the Amsterdam beltway anytime soon and pass the
glistening facade of “The Edge”, just remember that the
office of the future involves more than just an attractively
designed exterior or interior. Instead, it’s about the tri-
ad of architecture, technology and mindset. The office
of the future is a long term objective that will take
time to develop. But many offices are already well on
their way to getting smarter. And don’t forget that you
can indeed contribute to making your working
environment more agile, more flexible and more
sustainable. For more information about creating a
smarter office, you can also check our e-books “How to
make your business processes more agile with digital
workflows” and “How much DMS do you need?
Information management on the test bench”.
IT STARTS WITH A CHANGE IN MINDSET: NEW APPROACHES PAVE THE WAY TO THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE
This applies to executives as well as to employees. It is very easy to champion change but incomparably more complex to get it done. So how can you succeed in bringing your colleagues and superiors further on the path to the office of the future?
11 | Creating the office of the future
Kyocera Document Solutions headquartered in Osaka, Japan is a leading manufacturer of document imaging solutions
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ABOUT KYOCERA DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS
CONTACT KYOCERA TO DISCOVER YOUR BUSINESS SOLUTION
KYOCERA Document Solutions Australia Phone: 13 59 62 www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.com.au
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