The Ideal Office, Your Office Agent

This week’s office of the future is focused on Deloitte’s officing philosophy and how they view the term work as something you do and not a place to go.  Over the past 20 years Deloitte have moved their office environment from a fixed space where everyone came to and had the right to their own walled office to a place which facilitates the work that needs to be done.  There is an important distinction here as generally companies allow their employees to have rights to a desk plot without thought for the amount of time the space is occupied or its use.

Deloitte solved this problem back in the 1990’s when they introduced reverse hoteling and hotdesking.  The primary goal at inception was for their staff to be efficient from the moment they arrived and to be able to work immediately without waste.   Today Deloitte have 40% of all their desk space  reserved for hoteling and the remainder is all allocated to the concept of reverse hoteling where employees give up their desks when they are not in the office.  What is even more staggering are their plans to increase the hoteling side of the equation to 70% as soon as they can. This will bring their square foot usage from 150 to half this number when all the office space moons align.

In Your Office Agent we just love when efficiency meets better work life balance and this company tick that box in a big way.  It also ticks most of the sustainability boxes too.  Mobile and home working are encouraged, less travel is needed, fewer buildings need to be build, less fit out is required in the space that is occupied and in general the seed of waste being good is not planted.  The other staggering aspect to this is the sheer scale of the task.  Deloitte have tens of thousands of employees in hundreds of offices all around the world.  They manage the efficiency of the work platform by implementing real-time technology such as onboard and phone switching along with empowering their team members to direct the hoteling movement like traffic cops in rush hour.  This team keeps desks clear, supplies at the ready, helps people find desks and manage the smooth running of the hoteling policy.  They don’t miss a beat.

Deloitte also point out that communication with the internal clients (their staff) is also vital and They train their managers to excel in this new environment and have a hoteling survey which goes out every quarter along with pre and post move surveys every time they implement or change a process.

Your Office Agent scorecard.

Our Ideal Office scorecard is always based on six criteria out of a maximum score of five points for each criteria. We adapt our criteria based on your feedback and the latest needs for office users, so please keep giving us your views so we can stay on track.

• Lease flexibility  and Space Agility – 4 (we do not know the lease terms yet but agility has to be a maximum with such a fluid workforce)
• Personal employee growth – 5 (surrounded by different people daily)
• Community collaboration  – 5 (this is only because it is managed so well)
• Premises look and feel – 4 (the concept has been adapted to older buildings too)
• Desire to be here  – 4 (not everyone loves hoteling but its well overdue)
• Employee work      life balance - 5 (you get to choose where you work from)

27 out of 30 is our best score yet and will be hard to beat.  Deloitte may not have the prettiest desks or the brightest colors or table football for all their employees but they have one important concept which trumps all the rest.  Do what you need to do as efficiently and quickly as you can so you can get on with the rest of your life.  Maybe they are on to something..