Some may think this question is a daft question. They’ll argue that of course people matter when we design workplaces. Granted, there are those for whom the human experience of the built environment is really important.  They demonstrate this it in their attitudes and actions. However, based on some of the attitudes and actions I have observed over the years, I would suggest that the belief that people really matter when some designers design workplaces for them is quite frankly all too often skin deep. How do we know this? And if we accept that it is true, it then begs the secondary question of why this should be the case. Is it entirely our fault? What might we do to address the issues? In part, we know that people haven’t really mattered enough in design because of mistakes of the past. Meanwhile, society is facing many pressing challenges, ranging from health to housing, work to economy and climate change to resource depletion.

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A skim through workplace features in the media and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the traditional office is no longer with us. According to the narrative, we’re all now 20-somethings, working in open-plan warehouses, with table football, bean bags and comfy sofas to lounge on, while drinking our custom-made soya lattes. When in actual fact, while more relaxed, fun and funky offices tend to make the headlines, the majority of people still work in a relatively traditional way, with their PC or laptop, a desk and an ergonomic task chair. What’s more, with an ageing workforce, we certainly aren’t all 20-somethings, with DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) figures revealing that the employment rate for people aged 50 to 64 has risen by 14 per cent in the last 30 years, and doubled for over 65s. So designing with just the youngsters in mind simply doesn’t add up. Recent research by the Senator Group, backs up this view.

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A lot has been said about the future of work, but no one knows for sure what things will really look like. The best companies have constantly evolving strategies that incorporate talent management, human resources, and analytics. To start a conversation about the future of work, consulting giant PwC, led by Toni Cusumano, created three different scenarios for the future of work, which they broke down into worlds. These visions aren't to say that one scenario is better than the other, but rather to encourage organizations to consider what they would do if the workforce looked different and how they would adjust their strategies to stay relevant and successful.

The first world is the orange world, where small is beautiful. This world is run by companies that are broken down into collaborative networks of smaller organizations. Instead of huge conglomerates, the orange world is run by specialized smaller companies that operate on a low impact/high technology model with a goal to maximize flexibility and minimize cost. In the orange world, big businesses and corporations start to decline and are replaced by smaller, flexible organizations that provide workers with autonomy and a variety of ways to work. Instead of employees taking traditional career paths and staying with the same company for years, the orange world is ruled by a large contract workforce. This world is supported by PwC's research that found that two out of five people believe traditional employment won't be around in the future. The orange world is also reflective of the growing amount of Millennials in the workplace.

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Perhaps the most pervasive and enduring myth about the office is that it is somehow dying off. It’s a blast of guff originally farted out at the dawn of the technological revolution in the early 1990s, which has somehow lingered and been stinking the place out ever since. The essential premise behind the idea of the death of the office is that mobile technology makes it possible for us to work from ‘anywhere’ and so that must mean ‘somewhere’ is no longer needed. It’s an alluring idea, partly because it seems reasonable enough so is especially attractive if you’re looking to make some bold statement about office design based on very little evidence or if you have a vested interest in getting more people to buy into the idea that it’s a goner. That is why you’ll hear it most from PR people, journalists who haven’t the time or inclination to look into the subject properly – and technology and telecoms companies.

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It is said that if you want to get the same results, keep doing things the same way. By inference, if you want new or better results, something has to change. There has to be a shift in one’s thinking, a change in approach, a revision of well-worn strategies.

Such is the case for high performance corporations doing business in the context of the emerging global economy – who recognize the value of the workplace as a strategic asset and also that the traditional workplace does not capture the potential of the knowledge workers who use ideas and information to create organizational value. A well-designed workplace creates a framework for creativity and collaboration; it allows an organization to realize its full potential for innovation.

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