It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Rob Day, chairman and founder of Blueprint Interiors.
For 2023 I think we will see the evolution of the challenge which started off as Covid retreated and we saw the general return to the workplace.
Businesses were asking what the office is for but a year on, they now have strong evidence that these physical spaces need to provide the core resource to encourage and support the cultural behaviours that give great organizations the competitive edge in terms of recruitment, retention and a fully engaged workforce.
Last year, my colleague, Chloe, predicted that business owners will be questioning how much office space they are going to need and identifying how their people will want to work, as the work-from-home trend becomes widely accepted.
This is resolving into the recognition that the simplistic notion of offices as “accommodation at desks” is not now (and never really was), the best use of office space. We are focussed with our clients on providing much more activity-based workplaces to deliver the required levels of both visual and acoustic privacy, IT support, welfare and social facilities – all of which delivers cultural enrichment and efficiencies that inevitably lead to measurable business improvement.
The integration of collaborative technology continues apace – everyone knows how to use Teams, but importantly, they now know its limitations.
Using the right tools at the right time and in the appropriate place allows for great flexibility and indeed, better opportunities to tackle business objectives.
The workplace is becoming understood as an environment for people – real human beings to thrive, rather than something for employees to survive. I rather like the image of the old-fashioned office as a daily assault course to be endured. Let’s see the end of that!
The realisation that a well-designed workplace delivers a far wider range of resources in terms of physical and mental well-being is a trend to be welcomed in the New Year.
