All companies have always needed a workplace to associate their brand image, company culture, and connect their workers, who felt part of a common project.

The COVID-19 crisis has changed many things in our lives. One of them is how we work. Today many offices are empty or have evolved to adapt to this new situation. Considering the infection rates constantly rising and falling, the year ahead represents a challenge for office managers, who have begun a transformation that leads us to an office of the future that seemed much more distant before the crisis. 

What changes have these working spaces initiated? 

  • Hands-free: Some spaces have been equipped with sensors to avoid touching doors and entrances.
  • Apps: Apps have been developed and connected to buildings allowing us, for example, to select the floor to which we want to go up in the elevator or order a coffee when arriving at the office 
  • Occupancy control: Through sensors, we can also know what occupation the spaces have and thus make their use safer
  • Reservation systems: The use of meeting rooms or car parks today is much more controlled
  • Temperature and health control: Nowadays, temperature control is common. It is a new habit that will make people work trusting in co-worker’s health if it is maintained over time. 
  • Air quality: In general, the ventilation of spaces is much more considered. Investments have also begun to be made to improve air quality. 
  • Access control improvement: Receptions have also been modernized, in many cases sending electronic invitations or digital passes, improving access and control of visits. 

All these changes have been made to ensure that employees and visitors are as safe as possible. 

Society increasingly needs more innovation for our real needs, especially if it is about the new needs created with this pandemic that have a great psychological impact on society. And that’s what proptech is for.

And although today, the owners and managers of large office buildings will surely be wondering who pays for all this, the truth is that many of these changes bring us very close to the idea of the future workspaces that many of us imagined. Safer, more adaptable, digital, and dynamic spaces that, at the same time, will maintain the culture of the company and the motivation of the employees.

What is important is that we take into account how we want the future offices to be and begin to take steps towards that strategy. In other words, take advantage of this crisis to make the first changes towards a company of the future that we already had in mind. In this way, we will not see a meaningless cost, but a necessary investment. 

Obviously, these spaces will have different needs and strategies, depending on the type of site the company needs. A production site will not be the same as a headquarter. 

The next step is walking towards that future office where you really want to go to work, open spaces where people, ideas, and teams flow. Making the workspace the perfect framework for a puzzle where we can grow as experts.

These spaces will be more efficient, healthy, sustainable, innovative, hyper-connected, and inspiring. 

Sheila Gracia

Service´s Director at API