Workspaces That Move People: Key Questions And Literature Review

Brief summary of the article

This report sets its target on discussing the various aspects of the global business environments that are changing over the days and the new turns that it has taken over the last few years. In this report, the few things that have been considered as the most important changing aspects in the recent times will be discussed so that one can understand the ways the business concepts are evolving and the changes that the modern day business organizations have to adjust to.  The business organizations are getting reshaped in the 21^st century business environment. This radical transformation is the key to evolution of the globalization of the businesses. When a business organization goes through some radical changes to adjust to the scenario, it has to innovate new ways to cope up with the situation and introduce some transformative measures in their workplaces as well. Here, some of these changes are have to be highlighted in accordance to the core article that has to be selected.

The article that has been chosen to discuss about the new trends in the global business environment in the modern day is the ‘Workspaces that Move People’ from the Harvard Business Review (Waber, Magnolfi and Lindsay 2014).  The article concentrates about the facts that the modern business organizations have taken place in order to evolve in the frequently changing scenario. The article talks about some famous companies like Face book, Telenor and others have implied these changes so that they can gain the competitive advantage over their rival companies (Wagner and Hollenbeck 2014). All of them realized the hard fact it is of no use to be caged within the narrow mindset of the traditional business operations. The main target is to be globalized obviously and they want to achieve it by applying some of the strategies in their offices (Rothaermel 2015).

All the organizations are looking for the ways to develop the skills of their employees and provide them with motivational leadership (Arbak and Villeval 2013). This will lead to the betterment of the performance of the employees and the company will get more productivity in the future. Keeping these aspects in the mind, they have applied some functional measures to achieve their desired outcome.  

In the literature review segment, the above mentioned key questions are going to be discussed in brief.

One of the major changes that have taken place in the modern day business organizations is the unassigned seating or ‘hot-desking’ in the business organizations and their workplaces (Ditchbum 2014). It is a very innovative aspect in the aspect of the business changes. It has become quite a common and popular aspect in the offices for reducing the cost of providing assigned seats for every employee. The Telenor Company from Norway had adapted this procedure long way back when they thought of reducing their costs by not providing every employee with their own assigned seats in their office.

Literature review

The idea was that the employees would have to share their seats with others (Ditchbum 2014). It would save the space that so many chairs or desks occupied and also it would cut down the budget of the organization. In the traditional workplaces the seats are arranged in order of the importance of designation held by the employees. In this structure, employees would share their seats and have to sit in different chairs on different days. These traditional seating arrangements had cost a lot of money for the organizations. This created a very formal atmosphere within the office. It was a good idea to use that money to invest in increasing the resources of the organization. The hot-desking created an informal ambience and helped to develop a friendly relation and understanding between the employees (Ditchbum 2014). The unassigned seating would help to help to reduce the sense of inequality between the workers as all the seats looked alike and the hierarchy got good production (Ditchbum 2014). 

The importance of setting coffee machines in the office premises is very much because the employees get tired of working very often and they tend to relax from the work pressures for some time. The headquarters of Telenor, located at Oslo, is a large office and it serves more as a communication tool rather than a working space. It has improved the communication between people and provided a much stronger decision making power for the organization (Zsambok and Klein 2014). There are some activities that need to be promoted in order to get a positive outcome from the organizations. If positive outcomes are wanted all the time, organizations should engage in communication improvement between the employees (Mone and London 2014). The teams must interact more if they want good results in every work they might undertake. It is an obvious fact that the interaction level between the employees does not depend on open space working places but in an office where the teams can sit together in adjacent sitting arrangements and work in collaborating groups.

The employees should be engaged in more interaction between them so that they can exchange their ideas and it would bore fruitful results (Mone and London 2014). The companies could stop investing more in coffee machines and engage only one machine for at least 120 people. This would surely lead to employees of different departments get together and talk about the ways the organization can improve. This smooth communication would surely bring positive outcomes. 

Digital communication has become an inseparable part of the era of digital disruption (McQuivey 2013). No person can co-ordinate with his team members and colleagues without the use of the digital communication. Various digital communication devices have been innovated and they have designed to bridge the gap between the employees and the authorities (Lee and Messerschmitt 2012). Instead of the telephones that were used in the earlier times, the use of smart phones, tablets and laptops have increased a lot. This is the reason that the communication has become faster and smoother. It is not a difficult task to communicate between the branches of the same multinational in other countries.  A simple email would do the same in few seconds. The organization their clients through the digital communication and can get immediate feedback as well. The installation of Wi-Fi systems has made the communication systems faster (Grant and Meadows 2013). It is very important to reach to the clients with just a single click to be a successful global organization. 

Co-working of the employees in the organization is a very important aspect in the global aspect of the organizations (Kojo and Nenonen 2014). The biggest strength of co-working is that it increases the team working abilities in the employees. Different employees can come from different family and educational backgrounds and can bear different point of views about different things. Once all these point of views are put at the same point, the best ones can be sorted out and the outcome will be the supreme one that will be able to benefit the organization at its fullest. Co-working between the employees can increase their rapport and they will be motivated together by an inspirational leadership (Miner 2015). The employees can sit together and discuss about the working matters between themselves. There will be some competition between them but that competition will be a healthy one if they can work together. This will directly impact on the productivity of the organization and both the employees and the organization will be benefitted from it (West 2012). Another aspect of co-working in the organizations is that the employees will be feeling free to express themselves and they will be ready to help each other in difficult situation. The problem of jealousy between the employees will go away and they will be able to work as an integrated team.

Conclusion 

In the concluding part of this report, it can be said that the new trends in the global business environments are shaping the business organizations in new ways and these new innovative processes have been taking the place of the old ones. The world has become a global village in the modern days and the need for a positive change is very essential in both organizational and social context. If the organizations do not adapt to these changes, they may die down one day. It is time to be faster and making connections with everything on a global basis.   

References

Arbak, E. and Villeval, M.C., 2013. Voluntary leadership: motivation and influence. Social Choice and Welfare, pp.1-28.

Ditchburn, G.J., 2014. The rise and fall of the hot desk: Say hello to activity-based working. The Conversation, 27.

Grant, A.E. and Meadows, J.H. eds., 2013. Communication technology update and fundamentals. Taylor & Francis.

Kojo, I. and Nenonen, S., 2014. Evolution of co-working places: drivers and possibilities. Intelligent Buildings International, pp.1-12.

Lee, E.A. and Messerschmitt, D.G., 2012. Digital communication. Springer Science & Business Media.

McQuivey, J., 2013. Digital disruption: Unleashing the next wave of innovation.

Miner, J.B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

Mone, E.M. and London, M., 2014. Employee engagement through effective performance management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.

Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Waber, B., Magnolfi, J. and Lindsay, G., 2014. Workspaces that move people. Harvard Business Review, 92(10), pp.68-77.

Wagner III, J.A. and Hollenbeck, J.R., 2014. Organizational behavior: Securing competitive advantage. Routledge.

West, M.A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. John Wiley & Sons.

Zsambok, C.E. and Klein, G., 2014. Naturalistic decision making. Psychology Press.