Scaling Back. Large offices are seen by many as excessive extravagance which clients don't want to pay for. This is quite prevalent in the law firm world where the market for high-end legal services is shrinking. Law firms leasing large amounts of space will not be able to be sustained in many cases.
In general, law firms have occupied two to three times as much space per employee as other industries such as technology, insurance or banking. Law firms are embracing new office designs. The trend is smaller, flexible and collaborative. The thinking is that this will promote cooperation and teamwork.
Efficiency will rule across all industries. Firms are already designing progressive layouts with no assigned offices. This type of layout may not work for certain industries where privacy is important such as non-profit organizations however even in those cases the design trend is a hybrid of "traditional" and "collaborative".
Another issue that is surfacing is that younger employees, owners and executives want to work from home or on the road much of the time whereas their older counterparts enjoy having their own office although many "older" people myself included have warmed up to the open progressive way of doing business. That attitude is crucial if you want to be perceived as relevant and not obsolete.
Quantifying Sustainability. The public has long expected corporations to make efforts to go green. But the way companies show compliance has begun to change.
Not that long ago, companies were very visible with their conservation efforts such as boasting solar panels, LEED certification plaques and other signs of sustainability. But what we know today is that renovated buildings outperform new buildings on energy savings in every category. The practice of greening up old buildings is seen by the experts as a sign of greenness.
Research suggests that preserving and upgrading a building is far more energy and carbon efficient than knocking it down and building new. Calling the new building "green" when it replaces an existing building is not accurate since it takes so much energy to build
Rethinking Open Office Design. Although the International Facility Management Association reports that approximately 70% of offices in the United States have build-outs that are more open in there layouts, current headlines suggest how far the the "open plan" craze has fallen out of favor: "Google got it wrong: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace" (Washington Post); "Offices for all! Why open-office layouts are bad for employees, bosses and productivity" (Fast Company); "Ending the tyranny of the open-plan office" (Businessweek).
Open floorplans allow bosses to keep a closer eye on employees and are said to foster collaboration, but as it turns out, they don't actually improve productivity. Research on open-plan offices determined that the environment and its inevitable distractions worsen workers' attention spans, productivity, creativity and job satisfaction. Furthermore, one study found that employees without their own closed offices take more sick days.
Still, open offices have staying power because the shared spaces save money. In addition, millennials who will dominate the workforce tend not to mind collaborative workspaces.
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