Don’t Blink

Everything you thought you knew about work and workplace is about to change

by Peter Andrew, MCRh, M Planning & Design (Facilities) — The following article is excerpted from CBRE’s presentation titled “Workplace 2030,” which was delivered during CoreNet Global’s North American Summit in Washington, DC October 2014

In 2014 CBRE undertook a global research study for Chinese developer Genesis to explore work and workplace in 2030, in particular exploring Asia and China in a global context. Two-hundred-twenty CEOs, talent specialists, corporate real estate (CRE) executives, developers, futurists and young workers in 11 countries around the world shared their views on what is happening today and their aspirations and predictions for 2030. What we found surprised even us.

We are in the midst of profound attitudinal shifts. Increasingly, experience is being valued over consumption. Purpose, meaning and fulfilment are key drivers. Creativity, community and culture are integral. Value systems around the world are being turned on their heads. New attitudes are reshaping corporations, as well as the processes and places of work—and that’s before we even start to consider the impact of technology.

Corporations in 2030 will be lean, agile and authentic. Artificial intelligence, where computers can learn how to do some or all parts of jobs, is a game changer that will rip apart corporations as we know them today. Fifty percent of today’s occupations will not exist by 2025; anything repetitive will be automated. Don’t blink, or your role won’t exist anymore. We will be on a lifelong journey of creating new occupations. The best workers in 2030 will combine creative intelligence, social intelligence and the ability to leverage artificial intelligence. For many, artificial intelligence will be a tool to undertake tasks of a scale and complexity that were once unimaginable but which will be eminently possible and hugely rewarding.

The rise of artificial intelligence will also see the emergence of ‘small big’ companies. These 10- to 40-person companies will compete in niche markets on the global stage with major corporations. In his book Accelerate, renowned change management writer John Kotter predicts that “corporations will attempt to mirror the speed and agility of these emerging competitors by creating new structures that overlay network structures with traditional hierarchical structure. We are crossing a line into a territory with unpredictable turmoil and exponentially growing change—change for which we are not prepared.”

Work will be broken down into small, autonomous projects. Middle managers will be mostly irrelevant and supplanted by a smaller group of ‘middle mentors.’ Individuals who were interviewed for the global research study talked of micro-innovation, intrapreneurialism and nano-storming. The high levels of autonomy and creativity will fulfill the desire of workers for purpose, meaning and the ability to get jobs done in the best way they can.

Eighty-one percent of interviewees imagine that corporate wealth and value creation will be different in 2030. The following comments are testimony to the changes already happening around us:

“Measurement of wealth and value will not be about its profit but on how much it has contributed to the people and environment. Revenue alone will not be recognized as the only value and wealth creator within the corporation.” 2

“Social innovation and social enterprises will be the name of the game for the evolution of corporations—there will be serious constructive destruction—it is happening right now and the MNCs are finding it very hard to compete.” 3

To survive and thrive in 2030, corporations need to not only be lean and agile, but also authentic—to both employees and customers.

Asia — Rapidly Transforming and Taking Its Own Path

Nowhere was change more apparent than in Asia.

Are you surprised by that 78 percent of youth indicated that happiness was as important as financial success and that the majority of Asian parents feel happiness for their children is more important than educational and financial success (70 percent in Korea!)4 ? Did you know that one of the fastest-emerging areas of enterprise in China and India relates to social entrepreneurialism? 5

The search for purpose, meaning and fulfilment is as strong in Asia as in the rest of the world. In 2030 traditional hierarchical structures in Asia will mostly vanish and innovation will be dominated by the exchange of ideas within Asian countries.

Figure 1 — In Asia since 2012 the Financial Services Sector in Asia has rapidly adopted desk sharing and Activity Based Working.
2012—9,300p, 2015—63,000p, 2018—122,000p
Source: CBRE

Young workers in Asia want to take the best of the West but shape it within their own culture. Whereas 33 percent of interviewees see convergence to a common global workplace solution, 58 percent see a divergence. Through focus groups we assessed the appetite for workplace change amongst young workers and found another surprise—the appetite for change in Shanghai, Beijing and Japan rivals that of Amsterdam, San Francisco and Sydney (figure 2).

‘Alternative Workplace’ Will Soon be the Norm

Today’s typical workplace, for the majority of people, is dull and demotivating and does not effectively support either collaborative or concentrated knowledge work. The mindless rows of desks, a few offices for senior employees and the dearth of places to have formal and informal meetings is at best an economical solution to accommodating a traditional idea of work as process. In 2030 it won’t be that that these old workplaces are no longer effective, but that the old kind of work will no longer exist.

Figure 2

So what will they look like?

There are many great, emerging examples of workplaces and our research indicated that more than 50 percent of new workplaces by leading design firms for MNCs are high-performance workplaces — either the collaborative workplace (Everyone owns a desk but uses mobility to access and work in a breadth of collaborative and social places.), or the activity-based workplace (Almost nobody owns a desk, the workplace is a diversity of collaborative and quiet settings and people and teams are free to choose how and where they work.).

But in the rush to implement new ideas the need to save money (i.e., shared desks) is often obscuring and detracting from the ability of these spaces to enhance the experience of work and drive business performance. Poor execution is a real risk for the reputation of new workplaces. For instance, there is a tendency to see high-performance workplaces as being almost entirely about collaboration and interaction. This vision does not reflect the reality of work as described by young workers in focus groups.

Young workers were clearly able to articulate their future workplaces. Instead of individual desks supported by collaborative spaces being the primary place of work, they see the primary place of work as a collaborative table or tables (typically round or curved; they don’t really like benches and they intensely dislike cubicles). Close to this work area, young workers want ready access to places where they can concentrate. Typical, open-plan workplaces have never adequately addressed the need for quiet and focus. This has to change. Expect to see a lot more offices — albeit shared — in future workplaces. Beyond these two principal places of work activity, young workers see work as something that can happen almost anywhere, both inside and outside the corporate workplace — and had no shortage of imagination and expectation as to what other amenities and places to work employers should provide!

In 2030, organizations that are serious about creating an optimal work experience for employees will have a Chief of Work — a person working with the CEO and business leaders to bring together all the parts of an organization that support the experience of work— Technology, People, Real Estate and other support services.

What Will be the Impact on Other Workplace Stakeholders?

With new technologies and new attitudes, some real estate providers are actively reinventing and challenging the profession. Corporate real estate is entering the sharing economy — a socio-economic system built around the sharing of human and physical resources. The shared economy reflects changing attitudes about ownership and collaborative consumption and it is fueled by technology that allows people to rapidly match supply and demand. This will not only affect how we choose where to work, but who we work for.

To read the 80-page CBRE/Genesis report in its entirety, please visit CoreNet Global‘s Knowledge Center or www.cbre.com/futureofwork. The report was launched on October 29, 2014 at the CoreNet Global Summit in Washington DC.

Emerging aggregators will facilitate new ways to make ‘places of work’ available and create an engine for new space providers to come to market: co-working centers, third places, corporations shedding excess space, and hotels and retailers. This evolution will occur in parallel with the significant shrinking and restructuring of corporations, the emergence of ‘small big’ companies and the increase in contingent workers. No one knows the endgame in this arena, but it is rapidly evolving right now and by 2030 will have reshaped CRE.

Ultimately, work and workplaces are about people. Health and wellness will be fundamental— WELL-certified buildings will be the norm in 2030. Understanding and creating meaningful and rich experiences for users will be integral to success for providers. Key to this will be the creation of community, something that will require a whole new mindset and skill set from those who build, own and operate places where people work.

Perhaps not everything will change; much of what we will see in work and workplace in 2030 already exists today in some form. But what will likely surprise us is the speed and scale of transformation, driven by a young generation with an appetite for change—globally!

Sources

1 Kotter, J n.d., ‘Accelerate: the organisational structure we use today is over 100 years old. It was not built to be fast and agile’, Kotter International, viewed 24 September 2014.

2 CBRE/Genesis Research study interviewee

3 CBRE/Genesis Research study interviewee

4 Generation Asia, the worlds largest attitudinal a study of Asians by Y&R/VML. The total size of the study in 2013 and 2014 was 32,000 people across 10 countries.

5 Definition: Making money by helping other people

About the Author

Peter Andrew, MCRh, B. Arch, M. Planning & Design (Facilities) is a workplace strategist for CBRE with 25 years’ experience. Mr. Andrew leads CBRE’s Workplace Strategy line of business in six countries across Asia Pacific. He has created global solutions for major corporations and delivered workplace strategies and change management in 20 countries, mostly in Asia Pacific.