The office plays a key role in supporting a companies’ culture through support of behaviors, processes and norms. As we move forward, the role of the office will change, either incrementally or drastically depending on the organization.

-       Will it be the center of your culture, being the place where you express your corporate values that becomes an affirmation to every employee about why they choose to work there? The place where personal bonds are formed and supported?

-       Will it be a collaboration place, where teams come together to create, share, learn and drive the business?

-       Will it have a completely different definition and office becomes a myriad of places where an employee can work, learn, and share depending on their choice?

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You have a unique opportunity to assess how people are working and how those behaviors and norms are evolving. An important question to ask is how those behaviors are supporting the business. Are they creating a strong foundation for the future?

-       What behaviors will be critical in the future?

-       Who is exhibiting those behaviors now?

-       How do we spread those behaviors and stop others?

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A suggestion would be to appoint a temporary ExperienceManager to do analysis and evaluation of the current state.

-       How are people really working?

-       How do they interact?

-       Where are they working?

-       How are networks being formed?

-       Which teams are highly effective, and why?

-       What technology do they rely on?

-       Where is technology deficient, and why?

-       How are they communicating with others?

-       How are others communicating with them?

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Follow up with asking how do they feel about the answers they provided?

Once you have a design of how your employees will work individually and in teams, you can design your options of where they work, helping to answer the question of the role of the office.

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