The Office Of Tomorrow :: Technology Predicting Business Office Essays

The Office of TomorrowIn an increasing number of companies, traditional office space is large-mindedway to community areas and empty chairs as employees work from home, from theircars or from virtually anywhere. Advanced technologies and progressive HRstrategies make these alternative offices possible.Imagine its 2 oclock on a Wednesday afternoon. Inside the dining roomof many nationwide offices, Joe Smith, manager of HR, is downing a sandwich andsoda while wading through band and E-mail messages. In front of him is acomputerequipped with a fax-modemis plugged into a special port on the diningtable. The contents of his briefcase are spread on the table. As he siftsthrough a stack of paperwork and types responses into the computer, heperiodi pressy picks up a cordless phone and places a call to a colleague orassociate. As he talks, he sometimes wanders across the room.To be sure, this isnt your ordinary corporate environment. Smithdoesnt have a perpetual desk or workspace, nor hi s own telephone. When heenters the ad agencys building, he checks out a portable Macintosh computer anda cordless phone and heads off to any(prenominal) nook or cranny he chooses. It mightbe the company library, or a common area under a bright window. It could nevertheless bethe dining room or Student Union, which houses punching bags, televisions and apool table. Wherever he goes, a network forwards mail and phone pages to him anda computer routes calls, faxes and E-mail messages to his assigned extension. Hesimply logs onto the firms computer system and accesses his security-protectedfiles.He is not tethered to a specific work area nor obligate to function in anypredefined way. Joe Smith spends mornings, and even sometimes an entire day,connected from home via sophisticated voicemail and E-mail systems, as well as apager. His work is process and task-oriented. As long as he gets everything done,thats what counts. Ultimately, his productivity is greater and his suppose-satisfact ion level is higher. And for somebody trying to get in clue with him,its easy. Nobody can tell that Joe might be in his car or sitting at homereading a stack of resumes in his pajamas. The call gets forwarded to himwherever hes working.Youve just entered the vast frontier of the virtual officea universein which leading-edge technology and new concepts redefine work and jobfunctions by enabling employees to work from virtually anywhere. The conceptallows a growing number of companies to change their workplaces in ways neverconsidered just a few years ago. Theyre scrapping assigned desks and