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Mohan Mathew

Reinventing the New Work Normal With Flex Offices


New Work Normal With Flex Offices

We are currently in an era of new world order in work culture. The pandemic has facilitated these changes reinventing work normalcy around the globe. Flexible office spaces are changing the way offices and real estate are marketed. With employees leading the work culture, work-life balance and flexible work hours are chosen.


Flexibility and agility will continue to shape the new world of work. Based on trends and developments in the past two years, a few changes appear to be here to stay for a while. Flex offices have been an open choice to work from. With more companies opting for a flexible hybrid work model, the influx in remote workspaces in tier 1 and 2 cities has facilitated this change.


Conventional Vs Flexible Offices

A flexible office is merely an alternative to a traditional office space. Both spaces are primarily places of business operations. The hybrid work models have led to a proliferation of flexible office settings, redefining work culture.


Lease Terms and Maintenance Costs

The flexible office holds the advantage of short term monthly leases, making it an easy option for organisations moving to the hybrid work culture. In addition, a flexible office reduces maintenance and overheads costs compared to a conventional office. The contractual terms of a traditional office will have a lock-in period which a flexible office will not. This allows the flexibility of change and choice for the organisation.


Talent Movement

In big organisations, a traditional office set in a cosmopolitan city would require the migration of employees for their roles. However, the adaptation of hybrid work models has organisations set up flexible offices in smaller cities, thus making it easier for them to access their employees closer to their hometowns. The new normal for work requires a lot of agility and flexibility that a flex office can provide to its customers.


Setting Up

A traditional office requires immense set-up costs and licenses and compliance, while a flexible office comparatively requires little investment. It acts as a paid service that an organisation can use to its needs.


The Mindset To Remote Working

A nine to five work culture with unquantifiable screen fatigue and continuous work hours

is no longer an accepted norm among millennial employees. Instead, they want to choose where they work from and when and this mindset is here to stay. Flexible office trends have not been limited to the tech sector; the legal, financial, and pharmaceutical industries have also migrated to this trend. The employee mindset is the future, and companies have prioritised their needs with the pandemic. Flex offices have seen increased demand over the past two years. The main attributes that companies have to keep in mind are flexibility, technology and employee wellness. Let us understand the reasons why organisations have collectively done so.


Flexibility

Flex offices allow organisations to scale up or down based on their business requirements. This is of high importance, with the pandemic inducing major resets in work culture. As a result, the industry has seen a major shift and has created a stronghold for marketplace aggregators and value-added services in this sector.


With a hybrid workplace, employees are able to balance their needs while also being productive in shared office spaces from time to time. This culture has been welcomed by the millennials largely. With flexible work options and policies, the employee deliverables and productivity are dependent on the employee’s schedule.


Technology

The increase in digitisation has been accelerated as organisations choose the hybrid ways of working. Growing work culture in flex offices have seen a significant change in cloud-based platforms, AI, and automation in robust technology. Gartner estimates that by 2025, 60% of organisations will make use of privacy-enhancing computational techniques in analytics or cloud computing in its Gartner Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 ebook. Based on Cisco’s Embracing The Hybrid Workplace ebook, May 2021, 96% of employees want to enhance their work environments with intelligent technology at the workplace.


Flexible offices need to modify environments to support communication, security and AI technologies to make processes easy for organisations. Video conferencing devices play a huge role in connecting different teams and offices within any organisation. AI technologies are in demand in meeting and common areas to deliver zero-touch experiences. Organisations are highly dependent on technology to keep businesses going.


Employee Wellness

The pandemic has changed the focus of work to the employee, for better or for worse. Today’s ways of working today are different, not by chance but by choice. The pandemic has thrown new challenges and uncertainty to both organisations and employees. Organisations have shown adaptability over the last two years, putting employees at the forefront for the future. The competition for talent hunting has been high over these years. The most critical processes for each primary business unit, geography, and function should be identified and completely redesigned, often with employee input.


With organisations restructuring themselves and the roles carried out, each employee segment has been defined by the role and value they bring while working remotely.

The shift to hybrid or flexible workspaces can help organizations integrate needs and create a new culture of performance that is inclusive and respectful, as well as breaking away from traditional work models.


The pandemic is redefining how we work in the future, and flexible offices are proving to be helpful to companies with geographically distributed workforces. Companies like Mikro Grafeio specialise in workspace solutions. They create customised workspaces for organisations and set up flexible offices with state of the art infrastructure with integrated IT support and administrative services across India. Visit Mikro Grafeio’s website for more details.

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