Flex working, also called ‘the new working’. With flex work you are no longer tied to a fixed workplace, with your own desk and always the same colleagues. Instead, you will be sitting at a different place every day.
In flex working, different spaces are used such as:
- a room where you sit together
- a space for creativity
- a space to relax
- a space for some privacy
- a homely place
- meeting rooms
No longer being limited to a fixed working space in the office, can help you to concentrate better on your work, but also to get in touch with new colleagues. Management members are no longer in a room with each other too, so the physical distance is also reduced. To support this, often an open software is used, to let employees log in with several devices and from different places. This way one can also work from home, for example if it is not convenient to go to the office.
At the same time, the productivity of flexible working is higher than traditional working methods, because you can organize your working time the way you like, as long as a certain task is completed within the agreed term.
There are also a number of drawbacks to flexible working, for example a lack of privacy. Suppose that all the ‘privacy rooms’ your office are occupied, but you have to make an important phone call. Since you don’t have your own, traditional, office place any more, you will be forced to accept a less confidential environment. Extensive personalization of your workplace is also no longer possible, since you have to leave everything neat and tidy at the end of the day, because the next day someone else might sit there. Flex working does not work at every office, as some colleagues still might want to sit together everyday and refuse to distribute themselves over the available office space. This could lead to unintended irritations in the long term and it is doubtful how meaningful the provision of a flexible workplace in that case is.
© All credits correspond to photographer/designer/owner/creator
