5 reasons why 'no office' is better than 'some office'

Two weeks ago I was given a tour around the iconic new London headquarters of a large financial services company. They had considered many aspects of the shared working areas, pop-up meeting spaces, quiet areas and how to subtly influence better collaborative working. 

There is just one problem for this company - and for almost every other large organisation I know that is investing in 'future workplaces'. No matter how many comfy lounges you have and how good the coffee, workers are voting with their feet and leaving offices. 

In fact , a new academic study from Kevin Rockman of George Mason and Michael Pratt of Boston College suggests that offices are dying on their knees. So many colleagues have already chosen to work away from the office (mainly from home but other 'third places' too), that those left behind have a worse experience of being at work since many colleagues are absent. In a spiral, this loss of co-workers makes coming to the office less attractive, driving yet more people to leave the office behind. 

Lucy Kellaway in the Financial Times this week goes further to say that this pattern is corrosive and that long term home workers are often lonely, lose purpose and become morose due to a lack of the human contact of office-based colleagues. She says that for all their flaws, offices remain a far better work experience than remote working. The debate rages on it seems. 

Reflecting on this, what strikes me is that the issue is not that coming to an office or working 'remotely' are either inherently better or worse than each other but that having both as options, damages both the office and the remote working experience.

My own company's story is hopefully illuminating. The Digital Workplace Group, where I am CEO, has a workforce of 60 people, mostly in the UK, US and mainland Europe and in 2011 we shut down the single office we had in London.

Since then the entire company has worked in whatever spot each person finds themselves each day. For me my physical workplace is today at home in the English countryside and last week it included an apartment the company has in London, the Houses of Parliament (a client), various coffee shops, parks and tubes and trains.

This week one day I am visiting my 94 year old mum but thanks to Virgin Trains I can work to and from Manchester well - and before and after I see her for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Where I or anyone is physically now becomes irrelevant, so long as we are all (as we mainly are) digitally present, using Skype, Yammer, Google Docs, Basecamp, intranet, email etc. Everyone else in the Digital Workplace Group has their own mixture - local libraries, home offices, client premises, forms of transport and we even have one colleague who checks in for work at times, while climbing in the Alps.

I was quite nervous when we shut down our office but what is most interesting is that far from making us more fragmented, it has actually brought the company closer together. In the past when we had both an office and remote workers and this duality created a sense of remote workers missing out on the hub of the office.

Now we are all equal. There is no 'office' from which each is of is absent. We are all equally connected using ever faster, clearer and more reliable technology. There is no 'us and them'; no office that some people feel at a distance from. It surprised me that removing our office made us all feel closer and the company more intimate due to the level playing field. But this is perhaps similar to the closeness that online gamers experience when engaged in one shared collective digital environment. 

This way of working has its drawbacks. Sometimes we all feel isolated and miss each other and we put effort into meeting in person while seeing clients, at meetings with our members and on travel for work trips. But it is not perfect and I feel we could do more to just spend more social time together. Also when tricky issues arise, then the virtual nature of how we work can lack the depth that comes from having a catch up over coffee and cake. But the gains outweigh the downsides and no one ever considers having a fixed office again. 

This way of working may not be possible for large organisations yet but while we are only 60 people, Automattic, the company that owns Wordpress has 500 people and no offices - so the approach can scale to some extent already. 

So here are my 5 reasons why 'no office is better than 'some office' 

1. It creates a level playing field 

The issue of the 'guys at HQ' seemingly in their own 'power bubble' evaporates. Once you all share one office - albeit a digital office - everyone has equal access to a collective space. Staff in Australia or The Carribean feel as connected as people in London. A new freelancer carrying out work on one project has equal access to our 'digital office' as everyone else. You can feel part of the company quickly and smoothly. 

2. We gain flexibility and choice 

Where anyone works becomes irrelevant and in an output-focused company like DWG, it is often not important when work gets done, so long as the quality and deadlines are met. When we are working, the expectation is that colleagues will be working in the normal working day for their time-zone but some people have young kids, elderly parents or hobbies they can slot into their day and all this is fine so long as we deliver superb work for our 70 or so global clients and members (which we do!) 

3. Efficient working becomes natural 

Our experience is overall (and there are exceptions) that we work free of office politics, pointless meetings and wasted time. It is far easier to organise your day as you wish with quiet time to write, pre-set meetings using Skype or Webex, phone calls as needed and a steady stream of instant messages that can be responded to with little distraction. The digital workplace is a connected world and that makes grabbing reports, data and contact details easy and fast. My sense generally is that we work far more efficiently than most people working in an office or using a hybrid office/remote combination. 

4. It is environmentally better, saves travel time and allows a company to 'tread lightly' 

Think of the commutes we have avoided for even a 60 person company over three years. Consider the office maintenance and power we have not needed. Yes we need to be warm and powered wherever we work but the extra energy needed is far less than that required by a 3,000 square foot office in central London or New York City. We consume what we need, waste little and that feels like a way of working suited to this century. 

5. This is a future office, enabled by the digital renaissance of work 

No matter what the study above shows or the preferences of FT journalists, work has always been defined by location - from hunter gatherers, to agricultural workers, to factories and shops - and now is being defined by its new found mobility. We require a fixed location less and less. Work has left the office and become mobile, no matter whether we like that fact or not.

Work will happen wherever people can work and their choices will define location more and more. So the trajectory for grand newly designed offices is not good. Through this century, the likelihood is that they will become white elephants for the companies that inhabit them. My view is that DWG is just one of the early adopters and experimenters in this new way of working. 

Paul Miller is CEO and Founder of the Digital Workplace Group (DWG). His latest book 'The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future' (co-authored with Elizabeth Marsh, DWG Director of Research) is published by Gower.

For five years Paul was the host of the monthly online show IBF Live and then Digital Workplace Live, as well as five years of the biennial online event, Digital Workplace 24 (DW24).

Paul's previous book is titled 'The Digital Workplace: How Technology is Liberating Work" and helped to popularize and explain the term 'digital workplace'. Paul has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and other business publications and has given keynote addresses at Microsoft, Google, Adobe and Oxford University on the digital future of work.

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