One of the consequences of the corona virus pandemic was the further osmosis between work and living spaces: if before home design was becoming an increasingly widespread feature in offices, today, after the experience of remote working during the lockdown, office has entered the home on a technological and design level. During the webinar organized by All Around Work, Lorenzo Maresca (Sedus), Marco Predari (Universal Selecta) and Michelangiolo Bernabei (Xoffice) which impact this new phenomenon will have in the “Office contract and post-emergency distribution”. We have included the most interesting ideas in our WOWbinar section.
“The expectations of employees today are to continue working from home, at least in large part. Immediately, at Sedus, based on our 150 years’ experience in manufacturing chairs for the office, we have published Work a sutra, a small document with advice on the ergonomics, on how to work from home, and in which way was better to deal with working activities. If the home environment was already entering the office sector, today it is quite the opposite. So, we invented also products for working at home, such as an 80x50cm desk, and other ergonomic products that are suitable for small spaces “.
With these words, Lorenzo Maresca, Sedus managing director, presented the company’s effort to cope with new trends brought about by the post-pandemic situation.
“I truly believe in retail that is active, able to give knowledge and answers to its customers, based on the expression of a need and a relationship of trust“.
“It is obvious that we have new competitors such as e-commerce or Ikea, but we are making agreements with companies, based on trust relationship we have built during the years. And trust is truly the key to everything. We made products for the home, packed them in boxes and delivered them to the employees’ homes. We also invented a small augmented reality app to see how the office product would look in your home: it is not always easy to bring office products into the apartments, it depends on everyone’s style” Maresca continued.
An experience similar to Google‘s one: the American company, forefront of several changes in contemporary ways of working, has given a budget to its employees in order to allow them to buy a kit for working at home. In Italy, what is missing, according to Marco Predari, co-creator of All Around Work, is still this incentive, namely “a home-workplace bonus that would give a boost to the sector as well as greater wellbeing for those who work from home”.
The role of technology, as the Wowbinar Condeco has already shown, is fundamental in managing the increasingly symbiotic relationship between work and living spaces. As Michelangiolo Bernabei, CEO of Xoffice, said:
“We will have a total reset of our approach to work and that is why we must have an adequate technology: we are working with some companies on facial recognition or QR code for flow management and tracking within the spaces, despite the very strict privacy protocols.
Technology also helps to identify which environments have to be sanitized: as in biochemistry laboratories, also in the office, there will be clean and dirty areas”.
Today, however, the time has come to find a new osmotic balance between the workplace and the home environment: it is not just a question of returning from home to the office, but also back to agile working, with functional furnishings and adequate technologies.
“The greatest diffusion of home working is registered in England, where most people no longer want to go to the office and especially in London where there is a real problem of public transport to get to the centre: there are even companies that they say they will reopen in February, ” Maresca concluded.
“British companies are equipping employees with monitors and ergonomic chairs. The minimum. You don’t mess with your eyes or your back. “
Text by Gabriele Masi.
