Enable Workplaces Of The Future, Now!

If you haven't heard the latest office gossip, you might want to figure out why. As workers increasingly work from home, a coffee shop, a public library, the train, or one of the new coworking spaces, it becomes harder to hear the office chatter. In many companies, employees working on the corporate campus are not sitting in the same desk day after day, with the same neighbor in the next office over. Drop-in centers or "touchdown" rooms increase the anonymity of the corporate campus. At the same time, cost pressures drive corporate and government real estate rationalization. The objective is clearly less real estate, but the need to provide employees with productive working environments remains. Employers must enable workers to continue to collaborate, to socialize, and even to gossip. Those interactions increase productivity and spark innovation. This report discusses the factors driving workplace diversity and provides guidance for revisiting workplace strategies.