Paint Your Office Green

This article declares that the office environment of the future will have office personnel organized around processes rather than functions, with work activities largely done by teams rather than by individuals. The goals of office design will be to provide efficient space that incorporates current and emerging technologies at a time when change comes at a frantic and ever-quickening pace. In the transitional near future, this means that offices must go beyond the usual lighting, HVAC and power requirements to include consideration of robust data networks, WiFi, smart phone systems and communications technologies and how to ensure that they are linked to every workstation.

Tomorrow’s office will be focused on helping workers capture and organize information more efficiently. The file cabinets once used for document and information storage will be gone, and in their place will be found digital document machines that make digital photos of text and graphics that can be edited, faxed, photocopied, transmitted via network or Internet or simply stored as digital images for future reference. The price of hard drives and servers will be so low that the last physical and psychological barriers to the paperless office will disappear. Among the additional technological advances to expect:

• No more standalone instruments – All high tech tools will work together, linked to a computer.
• Video teleconferencing will link companies, staff, customers and suppliers, allowing more insight and input from all.
• Wireless communications tools will combine the functions of many pieces of hardware, including pc, phone, fax, scanner, camera and organizer.

The article advises managers that planning for the future must be coordinated so that all areas of the company work as a team. With tomorrow’s technology in a near constant state of flux, the best one can hope to do is plan three to five years ahead — rather than the ten years attempted by this article. A daunting task, notes the author, but far better than not planning at all.

Source: Victoria Everman, Office Solutions (Mt. Airy); Apr, 2009