Work has changed ever since the epidemic hit us. For some staying at home has fuelled strong desire to return to the office and In-person connects can be restored and for others who are happy about the time and money saved by avoiding the long commutes to offices.
Many people express loneliness and miss the atmosphere of being among colleagues, the routines and rituals, the predictability of their workdays and more importantly the demarcation of work life from personal life. However, they also seem to enjoy the flexibility of not going to the office every day. They like the opportunity to spend more time with the family, and also focus on their health.
There are quite a few work positions that do not have the luxury of working from home as the basic nature of work requires their physical presence at the place of work. The teachers in schools and the helpers who tend to the elders or the sick, the logistics, maintenance staff, transportation staff, maintenance staff, machine operators, etc., to name a few are typical examples.
The discussion/ debate on when/ what a return to work would mean Focusses primarily on employees who aren't required to be in a centralised place of work and what this might look like. This also depends on the industry and the geography and the local challenges faced therein.
The workplace as we have known until now is decidedly different from the home office, which is purpose-built as a place to get work done. It will be worthwhile examining how we got to design this specialised place to work to better understand as to what the future scenarios could be.
Humans have been going out to work for food, shelter and clothing. They innovated the system of barter and trade and this extended to knowledge work also. As modern work practices evolved, those in administrative roles started gathering in a common place for ease of communication in what we call as an office today while others worked in farms or factories to produce raw materials/ goods, which could be traded/ bartered.
What are the systems of belief, histories of technology and culturally specific practices that have shaped what we think as the office? How would this help us reimagine both the office on how work gets done?
A Social History of modern office
The office has a relatively short and dynamic history. It is a place dedicated to the productivity of those undertaking mental work and handing information.
At the beginning of the 18th centuries, wealthy/ prosperous merchants/ firms/ companies created offices where they could display their status and power, entertain prospects and partners, while civil servants, lawyers, clerks and book-keeping staff started working together in shared spaces. As the business grew in volume and across geographies, the firm/ company felt the need to centralise certain operations and also to store critical records to centralise administering the business. This in many cases, resulted in an entire building to do the work and storing records and gradually took on the pseudonym of Head Office. Further, as an indication of the power wielded, separate rooms/ partitions/ cabins were considered necessary.
Steam-powered machinery, cheap paper from wood pulp, mass production of office equipment led to the expansion of these offices, many times beyond what was required actually.
Along with the developments in material science, management, technology and public policy cam new ways of imagining what a new office might be, how best to manage employees and get maximum productivity and the very definition of an employee. How these forms reflect the personal identity, interpersonal relations, and where and how work gets done will determine and help contextualise the pos-epidemic office.
Contextualizing the Office: How and Where Work Gets Done
Martha Day MITSMR 2020 July
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