Structural Renovation In The Workplace: From Cubicles to Co-Working
The workplace structure has experienced extreme makeover style remodeling over the last two decades.
In the late 1970s and early 80s, my Dad had remote work as a salesperson. This was pretty rare in those days. He had a home office and we were not allowed to answer the home phone line in the daytime. Ir would have to be answered with his company name. He would occasionally employ my brother and me to collate sales collateral for mailings. (We would sometimes even get paid a penny per page — which was a lot of money for a 10-year-old in 1977.)
Even as late as 2000, remote workers (it was called “telecommuting” in those days) were few and far between.
That building has been completely restructured.
Remote work is becoming more and more mainstream. The brick and mortar, cubicle-based offices are giving way to the home office, coffee shops, and co-working space. We’ve moved into the nomadic age of digital workers, who cross cities and continents with their works. Some because they have to.
Most because they can.
And there is no going back.
Gen Z will constitute 36% of the workforce by 2020.
(This is according to a report from over a year ago. 2020 is less than five months away.)
These folks are digital natives.
They’re not going to sit in a cubicle and make cold calls.