Knoll Workplace Research

Five Trends that Are Dramatically Changing Work and the Workplace

By Joe Aki Ouye, Ph.D. Co-Founder and Partner New Ways of Working, LLC

The Changing Nature of Work
My wife, a manager at Hewlett-Packard, usually has a two minute commute—a thirty foot walk from the kitchen up to her office. She goes “to the central office” about once every other week, more to keep in touch socially rather than to formally collaborate. Although she only meets face-to-face with her globally-based team members about once per year, she has an audio conference with them weekly. As HP’s work force grows and becomes more global, she is a highly sought after manager. She has learned how to work with her distributed team, setting clear directions, communicating often and clearly, and, most importantly, creating activities to engender team trust and cohesion. Most workers today do not work like my wife; most still commute to and from traditional, centralized offices and work with teams in close proximity. Nevertheless, more and more of us are—or will be—working in both non-traditional ways and places, ranging from relying on adaptable furniture and hoteling desks at the central office, to satellite offices, offshore offices, and telework from home. According to a recent benchmarking study by our research consortium, The New Ways of Working, many organizations are formalizing “Alternative Workplace” programs that combine nontraditional work practices, settings and locations.1 Almost half of the surveyed organizations have started an alternative workplace program within the past two years and a large majority within the past five years. This is 2 Many organizations are formalizing striking as these programs have been around since the early 1980s. The same study indicates that the adoption of such programs has accelerated during the recent Great “Alternative Workplace”