Office design and the office market are not what you might be led to believe

Over the weekend The Times published an article headlined “The ‘super-prime’ offices designed to lure WFH staff back in”. It described how firms are reshaping offices in the image of upmarket hotels, with enticing features such as gyms, childcare, cinemas, climbing walls, lounges and restaurants (run by Gordon Ramsay natch). These are luxury spaces to make the office worth the commute, as the cliché goes. Although the author concedes that this is largely a London phenomenon in the UK, the implication is that offices everywhere must ape this office design approach to some degree to meet the demands of the post-covid workforce. This is compelling stuff and not the first time you will have heard the argument. But, is it true?

I’m not sure it is and for a couple of reasons. The first is that what I hear from organisations is that the basic function and structure of the post-covid office is very similar to what went before. Things have changed in many ways, and we are still in extremely uncertain times, but even major blue-chip firms tell me that the desk with chair remains the key structure of the workplace. The panelled, staircase in the lobby sweeps you first to an office, not the cocktail lounge. That’s on the 24the floor. The gym is in the basement next to the bike park.

The second is a feature of the office market that endures and predates lockdown. The case studies and talking points you see in the media are not reflected in what people and firms actually buy. The bulk of the market is conservative, unadventurous and price sensitive. At least one of the most successful office furniture makers in the UK (I won’t name anybody. I’ve done that before and regretted it) makes furniture that would have been familiar to me when I was a marketing pup in the industry in the mid-1990s. The most talked about firms are below them in the league table. Some of them are way down.

This is not a zero-sum game and there is no doubt the market is shifting in response to changing demands. The firms that buy L-shaped workstations with fixed pedestals are more likely than they were to have a breakout space, acoustic pods and sit-stand desks. But still. They are not converting their offices into hotels just yet.

Nor should they. However, beguiling it might be to think that the Leadenhall Building is the blueprint for the post-lockdown workplace, what it really creates is a trap. The assumption may lead to decisions taken that do not fit or reflect a company’s culture or one it aspires to and may not even reflect the needs and expectations of the people who work for it. The office-as-hotel might appeal to many, but not everybody. The right office design is what works.

This highlights the great apex fallacy of workplace design and it is one of which we should be very wary, especially those of us in the media. We have the ability to design the workplace in whatever way works best for each circumstance, including having no office at all. So we must never assume that any one idea is a universal solution whether that’s a mundane but perfectly acceptable open plan full of MFC tops and blue carpets or an incongruous facsimile of something extraordinary we are told or believe will make us look a particular way, solve a problem or meet a particular objective.

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Unbelievable – by Colin Newlyn – Decrapify Work