The Changing Reality of Office: A must-have Utility or a Luxury?

To try and define what is an ‘Office’ today, one will need actually to look at what is ‘Work’. Can work be considered a physical or mental output of the combined efforts of a group of people? Can these groups of people effectively work together without physically interacting with each other?

A lot has been written about the redundancy of the office – that people will work from home, and that they do not need to return back to the office. This would put the office in the category of being a necessary evil in the past. But let’s look at how office space can be considered as another place where one lives.

The most critical component of the office today is meeting of the minds. If we consider office as a brain box, companies will need to look at ways to nurture this brain box. Employees will look forward to sharing ideas and views.

Office also gives employees a break from the ‘usual’. Can you imagine how it is to be cooped up at home 24/7? Look at how offices give employees an opportunity to change the immediate environment, by giving them an alternate reality – albeit a few hours a day. 

‘Me’ time is crucial, more so in today’s day and age, and the office gives the employees the space to have some time for themselves. You may even consider that office is a space to provide you with downtime from home.

Rarely does one think of the office as a place for physical exercise, but consider the fact that there is a lot of physical activity when you are in office. Most people will comfortably clock up 5,000 – 7,000 steps every day by just attending office. Consider coffee breaks, lunchtime, meeting room attendance, chatting up with colleagues, and even a little bit of walking from your office building to your unit. All these add up – invisibly. So, can the office be a hidden gem?

You would be wondering why I have not mentioned work. That is because most of the work can be done anywhere, and the office is only one of the many locations to do that.

Companies need to change their perspectives on why they need the office, and the points I have expressed above are some of the things that they may consider. These are unique to the office – the combination of all of them is difficult to find in any other defined physical space.

If you look through the prism of mental well being, you will see that an office is a place for people to rejuvenate their mind and body – every day, consistently. What better way can a firm increase its effectiveness and productivity by providing its employees with a chance to make their lives better. Companies debate that having an office involves cost, but the fact is that office expenses are a minuscule fraction of the overall expenses. They should instead consider it as the cost of happiness for their people.

So, do you need an office?