Work is changing its face: designing the office of the future.

Are access, security, and entry control still essential in designing the offices of tomorrow? At a time when smart working and new models of shared workspaces seem to be increasingly reducing the importance of physical infrastructures, is it still useful to invest in office layout? The reality, as often, goes beyond the numbers and proves to be much more complex than it appears. The evolution of work requires radically rethinking not only organizational models but also company spaces.

The numbers of co-working and smartworking

We do not yet know the levels of growth that teleworking and co-working have already experienced elsewhere. Just consider that in the United States, between 2005 and 2015, the number of people teleworking increased by 115%.

The reality is reflected in lower growth values but ones that are expected to increase in the coming years. For example, if in 2016 only 36% of large companies had introduced smartworking experiences, by 2017, the figure had already risen to one in two companies. The same can be said for co-working, which has grown from just a few dozen locations to 660 shared workspaces throughout Italy.

In any case, faced with such rapid growth rates, one might think that the traditional office will disappear or at least be reduced.

In which direction will workspace design evolve?

It is clear that in a scenario where companies will increasingly aim to decentralize workplaces, the use of space will take on a decisive role, especially within companies. Not only in terms of costs but, above all, from the perspective of greater well-being for their workers. After all, we are talking about a place, the office, where workers will spend at least a third of their working day.

For this reason, not only will current workspaces need to be remodeled, but also those that will be shared, with a view to optimizing resources.

On the one hand, the traditional office will need to be rethought in a flexible way. Notably so that it can adapt to phases of expansion and also contraction. In this case, the design that will inspire the office of tomorrow will play a fundamental role. It is about imagining spaces in which, for example, there will no longer be empty offices that could have a negative impact on workers' motivation. Nor unused spaces. Instead, it will be necessary to redesign, favoring as much as possible access to natural light sources, the creation of shared spaces among workers. The goal will not only be the well-being and productivity of workers.

A different design of workplaces will be one of the factors that external investors will increasingly consider to assess a company's competitiveness and growth prospects.

Working beyond the office: the evolution of access to the workplace

In the future of work, there will not only be offices to reprogram but new places, designed precisely to meet the needs of tomorrow's workers.

Flexibility will notably require open and dynamic workspaces, with digitized access, strict but automated security systems, fast entry procedures, and complete digitization of infrastructures.

Access, workplace security, everything will have to meet highly innovative criteria. Access control, for example, is integrated into a new ecosystem, in which digital systems that are managed and controlled remotely will prevail.

The ongoing technological revolution in the world of work therefore does not eliminate spaces but, on the contrary, requires that they be rethought from a totally new perspective in order to increase their value and strategic importance within the organization.