The world as we know it has changed!
Workspaces are changing to cater to the evolving needs of the workforce of the future and the employees that are coming back to the workspaces. Neetish Sarda, the founder of India’s largest managed workspace platform, Smartworks, shares that we are moving in the direction of reimagining the future of workspaces by creating employee-centric offices, equipped with interactive designs, tech-enabled spaces, a bundle of amenities, and much more.
Smartworks is strategically located with a footprint of approx. 7 million sq. ft. across 38 locations in 11 cities and caters to more than 500 organisations across Forbes 2000 companies, large enterprises, and established unicorns/startups. Neetish Sarda shares that Smartworks has been investing in technology since its inception, which has enabled them to respond faster to pandemic-induced changes.
Embrace the change
Neetish Sarda shares that, post-pandemic, companies are re-evaluating their space needs, and employees have a newfound perspective towards their workspaces. Organizations must consider the new footprint and design of the workplace of the future, which will result from a hybrid work paradigm. Organizations need to make sure that their physical space is in line with the goals of the people using it because in-person work will appear very different. The pre-pandemic cubicle settings might be a thing of the past, giving place to spaces for community development, innovation, and cooperation.
Employee first Workspaces
Neetish Sarda shares that enterprises are all set to recall their employees back to offices, and along with that, it is crucial to make sure that the spaces are safe and seamless. Employees are willing to come back to their physical spaces and collaborate in person, with an assurance of their safety. Apart from this, the pandemic forced the whole world to shift to working from home, which pushed employees to pick up some new hobbies, and ways of working, more flexibly. Employees are now looking up to employers to create a workspace that can cater to their professional as well as personal growth.
To enable this transition, Smartworks has included amenities such as playing zones, breakout zones, sleeping pods, gyms, a creche, and much more. To top it all off, all the Smartworks centers are tech-enabled, enabling members and employees to have office experience.
Also know about: Ghanshyam Sarda
Designed for new needs
There is one office design trend from before 2020, in, that seems particularly ill-suited to the changes taking place. Call it the Work-as-Lifestyle Office, complete with movie theatres, ping-pong tables, nap rooms, and meditation spaces for adults. The link between the private workplace and the public realm requires fresh approaches. The rise-and-grind labor culture's spatial rhetoric seems less and less appealing today. This does not imply that we should go back to the lifeless, fluorescent-lit sterility of the past. but for a workforce that is more productive, healthy, and content.
Neetish Sarda shares that although offices were never one size fits all the time has come to make sure that offices have collab spaces, as well as isolated spaces where employees can concentrate and pour ideas into reality. Smartworks is changing the way we design offices, by creating spaces that cater to all the needs of employees, from effective communication to ample collaboration, and work-life balance.
Organizations must make considerable investments in assisting individuals in navigating their vision for the hybrid workplace and any modifications to the physical workspace because of how employees and the workplace have changed. Employees can balance productivity, well-being, and a sense of connection by doing this in the ever-evolving workplace of the future.
