FOCUS INTERIORS
The trick with visits to exhibitions like
Clerkenwell Design Week, the huge
workplace design event which takes
over London’s home of design on 21-23
May, is to focus on the wood as much
as the trees. So as well as identifying
new products, you can also glean the
underlying themes driving the exhibits
and displays. The show is a microcosm
of what is happening in the outside
world, and right now that means the
way in which the physical o ice works in
parallel with digital and cultural space
to decouple work from the constraints
of time and place. Here are a few of the
trends visitors are likely encounter.
THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE
For decades, technology has been the main
38 MAY 2019
driver of workplace change. Change has been
happening at an accelerating rate to bring us to
a point where the distinction between digital
and physical space is increasingly irrelevant.
This is not about videoconferencing systems
or similar which ape physical interactions,
but a new era in which o ices and digital
workplaces overlap and o er their own
advantages and challenges. People will always
need to meet up in person for a number of
reasons, not least the need to collaborate and
develop relationships (and because we like
it). But increasingly people are seeing this is
one aspect of the working day, not its sole
component.
The challenge will be to create o ices that
address the needs of this new era and manage
the creep of digital workspace into the rest of
our lives. Some businesses may be lagging in
this regard, but more are becoming aware of
how to harness digital disruption to their own
advantage.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
A recent poll by Cascade HR (1) named
employee engagement as HR’s biggest
challenge for the second year running. This
is a complex issue, as a recent study from
the Institute for Employment Studies argues
(2). The authors suggest that engagement
is a multifaceted challenge that requires
increasingly sophisticated solutions, including
an openness to agile working methods.
Physical space can shape people’s
behaviour, feelings and attitudes towards
their employer. Organisations must think
about the workplace as an ecosystem of
spaces that allow people to have choice and
control over where and how they work.
THE EXPERIENTIAL WORKPLACE
A report from Gensler (3) has highlighted how
people now judge their experience of an
o ice against how they experience the other
places where they might be working. The
report shows that there is a direct connection
HOT TOPICS Clerkenwell Design Week is a barometer for trends in
the workplace sector, says Beth Harrison, a Director
at Sketch Studios