While many are pondering the future of the office space, Tangram's Mark Coxon has a vision of how the workplace will change permanently. He expects a blended work schedule to be the future of office. That means a mash-up of remote work and in-office work.
"The new work environment will likely entail a transition from 40 or 50 hours of work done each week outside the office to a blend with perhaps 20 or 30 hours inside the office," Coxon, the technology sales director at Tangram, tells GlobeSt.com. "We still need those spaces for deep focus work, especially for people like millennials and Gen Z who may not have a dedicated home working space and where they have roommates or other distractions."
This change in work schedules is going to change a lot about the workplace, but meeting formats are going to see the biggest overhaul. "There are three reasons to have a meeting: to build a team, to form consensus, or to make a decision," says Coxon. "Organizations must examine how they are we using spaces to achieve one of those goals."
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Currently, most companies are relying on virtual modes of communication, like Zoom, to host meetings; however, Coxon says that these virtual sessions have drawbacks. "Consensus can be hard to build in a digital forum," he says. "If people are talking simultaneously, it may take a couple of seconds to pick up on what another person is trying to say. Since we're not fully looking at each other, we don't get cues when someone may want to interject or have something to contribute."
These all-virtual meeting formats can hamper employee communication and hamper collaboration. "A digital space may not encourage the mindset that everyone has an equal share in the interchange, that it's OK for them to find a spot and jump in," adds Coxon.
He also believes that people have a chemical reaction when meeting in person, and that can trigger better quality and more effective work. "Is team building as effective for people that have never met in person, only virtually? There's also a reciprocity and accountability that happens when you have met someone. You most likely don't want to disappoint them," he says.
Coxon recommends that workplaces start by addressing the pillars he outlined of meetings: teambuilding, forming a consensus and decision-making. "Workplaces should be based on addressing the three basic outcomes as the essential reasons to build them," he says. "We need to create environments and processes that, although they may seem disruptive, will support those goals with a maximum degree of flexibility because, as someone astutely noted, 'Aha moments are rarely scheduled."'
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Kelsi Maree Borland
