The typical office setting is largely being replaced by a more modern workplace environment as many organizations switch from an old-fashioned office construct to a more efficient one.
But what are the benefits of re-imagining and implementing a modern workplace, and what does that entail?
Top talent are looking for more than just shared workspaces, ping-pong tables, and cereal bars; they want a modern workplace offering fulfillment inside and outside the office.
It’s time to understand what these new demands are and create an inspiring environment where your workforce and business can truly flourish.
How Is the Modern Workplace Changing?
Today’s workplace is no longer just a place of work; it has become a more collaborative space that pushes innovation to the fullest.
Businesses are looking to bolster the work experience, productivity, and collaboration tools in ways that have positive impacts on the individual and the bottom line.
What Are the Benefits of a Modern Workplace?
Modern workplace solutions embody a connected system that always provides accessibility of real-time data to everyone, yielding a facilitated way of working and happier workers.
Seamless connection of processes, systems, and teams improve work culture by knitting your team together despite location.
What Is the Difference Between a Modern Office and a Traditional Office?
While traditional office designs are closed-plan, closed-door spaces, the modern workplace design has shifted to open plans with interiors that speak to the now of inclusion, community, and collaboration.
1. What a Modern Workplace Design Looks Like
The modern workplace can be designed around an activity-based work model. Using this approach, it’s possible to create a far more open plan with designated spaces that cater to specific activities.
This departure from a typical layout with quiet offices in locked-down spaces affords a better experience.
But modern workplace solutions are more than just modern-technology-riddled open spaces that cater to the physical and mental health needs of a team.
These spaces house many tools that help teams work together and separately.
The modern workplace empowers employees, boosts productivity, provides for remote workers, and enables employees to do their best by giving them the right resources to operate and flourish in this move to digital workspaces.
Designs That Match Activity Needs
Ensure your workforce performs their best in a dynamic workplace that promotes creativity, employee productivity, and seamless communication, and celebrates the company culture in a truly positive way.
Activities-based workspaces can be adapted to meet ever-changing workday needs, but how do you design and create a modern workspace? Is there a way to stimulate collaboration in a floor plan?
Allowing employees to select a space that best fits their needs might mean providing standing desks, huddle rooms for meetings, soundproof booths for important phone calls, and lots of other tools that enhance productivity.
Open workstations may be transformed into quiet spaces like libraries while the enclosed spaces can still be conversational or collaborative.
Designs to Promote Productivity and Well Being
The key to improving productivity and well-being within the modern workplace design comes down to two things: comfort and flexibility.
Install an artistic reception space, cozy lounges that allow for private conversations, comfortable meeting rooms, conference rooms that promote open communication, and other features offering flexible work arrangements.
Little things that might seem inconsequential, like the distance of screens or ergonomic chairs, boost the level of overall workplace comfort and wellness.
Limiting employee use of the entire workspace stifles efficiency and the potential of the employees and the workplace.
Many different spaces within the modern workplace that all employees can use, depending on the task at hand empower employees to move, think, work, and boost productivity. It’s an efficient solution to retaining employees and raising the bar on the satisfaction level of the employee experience.
2. Effective and Easy Collaboration
The importance of collaboration in establishing successful companies has done nothing but grow with modern workplaces.
Collaboration is now far easier than it has ever been.
Employees communicate using a plethora of workplace collaboration tools designed to allow the users to be fully remote or have a hybrid work schedule.
These digital tools make communication and collaboration between individuals easier, faster, and far more dynamic than ever, providing a company’s workforce with a supportive environment for anyone desiring a hybrid work model.
Having a personal life is no longer the problem it used to be when you can access the office directly from your phone.
The modern workplace leans into remote work and mobile work, promoting a healthy work-life balance in a way never before possible.
If you currently don’t allow remote work but are thinking about offering it, there are a few things to make sure you have set up before you begin.
Collaboration tools allowing users to stay connected 24/7 even when they are not physically together have become the norm, providing employees with options.
The talent you want to bring on board and keep wants a choice when it comes to work location. Digital collaboration and productivity tools are some of the biggest benefitsthe modern workplace can offer.
With a single sign-on, your employees can work securely to complete tasks. Make sure to choose programs that are right for you.
A modern workplace offers flexibility which can be valuable in a variety of ways.
This flexibility lets employees work within their schedules and helps organizations attract and retain desired talent.
That yearning for freedom has pushed the modern workplace into one that depends on technologies that support digital collaboration, enabling its workforce to access tasks from anywhere.
They can pick up and put down tasks, work with colleagues abroad, access their projects from computers, phones, and tablets, and be in the same office building or on the other side of the world working on the same task.
The immense power of more seamless communication within a flexible work arrangement is something to be harnessed to your advantage.
5. Increased Employee Satisfaction
Companies can improve employee productivity and efficiency alongside their satisfaction by empowering their team with the technologies necessary for effective, collaborative work.
Employee happiness can increase morale, reduce turnover, and improve customer loyalty to the employer.
The top reasons people returned to the workplace after the pandemic were the need for physical collaboration, meeting with clients and colleagues, training, or the opportunity for career growth. That tells a business a lot about its workforce.
How Can You Boost Employee Satisfaction?
One easy way businesses can invest in employee satisfaction is by modernizing their benefit packages.
Edenred offers solutions that embrace the individuality of the modern workplace:
- Simplify the daily commute to your business.
- Reduce HR administration time.
- Encourage green commuting to the workplace.
- Offer best-in-class Lifestyle Spending Accounts (LSA).
- Enhance your employer brand.
- Boost overall employee retention.
Provide benefits employees want to use and harness the full power of the modern workplace by having those benefits easily accessible on employee phones.
Digital and mobile are the way of the future.
6. Stimulate a Healthy Workplace Environment
The right workplace can increase job productivity and decrease turnover, but what are employees looking for?
Modern organizations should be aware that training programs are incredibly important for employees, improving overall employee motivation.
This focuses on changing organizational cultures while focusing on trust among employees.
The employer has the responsibility to give employees the ability to decide which decisions are beneficial for their working day.
Micromanagement or restricted employee access to specific locations will inhibit efficiency and diminish both employee and employer productivity.
These changes might be culturally influenced in the workplace where a multiple-generational community exists.
The Modern Workplace Culture and Multi-Generational Needs
Working efficiently with Millennials and Gen Zs requires avoiding the assumption that seniority necessarily equates to competence.
Employers must focus on actual performance and provide equal opportunities to grow and improve the entire workplace.
Thanks in part to the pandemic, the modern workplace from Gen Z up has reconnected with what it means to live in the now and is demanding these qualities be knitted into their work environment.
The modern workplace has changed with its focus squarely on positive culture, technologies supporting hybrid or remote work, and an encouraging environment that promotes growth on all levels.
For a business to be truly successful, it needs to comprehend these new requirements to make sure that the individual and community within the company are as important as shareholder value.
Schedule a meeting with Edenred today to learn more about modernizing your employee benefits.
