#18 The evolution of the office

I asked myself this question this week: Why now? Why did the pandemic initiate a transformation within the workplaces and where did we come from? The World Wide Web is 33 years old since the beginning of March this year (Web foundation) and Zoom is turning 11. This newsletter will be about the evolution of our workplaces as we know them (& potentially giving some more insights into why some generations might be more prone to remote work than others if you calculate routine into the whole matter)

Let's go back 60years

The office in which many Boomers started their professional journeys:

Surrounded by people smoking and sipping Martini, dressed in tailored suits, being surrounded by a lot of ladies that performed the jobs of switchboard operators or secretaries – a lot of clicking and clacking, no mute to silence the ringing phones or the option to click delete if you wrote something wrong on those sheer mounts of pieces of papers (Sarts at 60, 2018).

The 70s – the first-ever spreadsheet

In April 1976 the Apple I was released (Wikipedia). Continuing with Apple, in 1979 and Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston built the first-ever spreadsheet for the Apple II. As they viewed it as a "visual calculator", the name for today's spreadsheet back then was VisiCalc (Business Insider).

And how long are women already fighting for Equal Pay? Astonishing 52 years!! The Equal Pay Act already came into place back in 1970:

"Women noticed men were being paid 15% more for doing the same work." – Cooper, 2018

Cube-crazy 80s

Generation X is joining the Baby Boomers.

Wanting to reduce the noise in the open-air rooms but not being able to tuck the growing population of the workplaces in four-walled rooms, the middle hybrid version was created: Cubicles (Lowbrow, 2014), and own desks with pot plants including PCs becoming the norm. Additionally, the first mobile phones came to use. This is the time were people were working the most: 43hours on average per week.

Diskette–Fax-Heavy 90s

Today Germany consumes 80% of the world's tax (fun fact), but back in the 90s, it was a norm for office life (Glassdoor). As the U.S. economy grew by an average of 4 percent per year between 1992 and 1999, it was the time of the Wolf of Wall Streets – roaring hours on the phone, motivating each other to close those deals (Daily Beast). Women are joining the workforce more than ever before and the World Wide Web is born.

.COM Millenia

Financial Crisis, Dot Com bubble, and high-speed connectivity became prevalent. This was the opportunity for the first co-working spaces to arise whilst Millenials are starting to join the workforce – this is very important to recognize:

Millennials, as well as Gen Z, had the option to work from home ever since their first day as professionals!

Why is that so? Let's look at some apps that made all of this possible:

• Wikipedia (2001)
• LinkedIn (2002)
• Skype (2003)
• Facebook (2004)
• YouTube (2005)
• Twitter (2006)
• WhatsApp (2009)

Ever since the 2000s people can work more independently, with Apps that enable instant communication with their peers at different locations as well as on-demand solutions to problems that occur by just simply browsing the web or tapping into the cloud, which emerged during the 2000s as well.

2010s

The 2010s started with BlackBerrys and the iPhone4 – digital nomading with ease becomes possible. Millennial women are bringing their friends to their startup employees and start driving collaboration. Communication is becoming the norm and the first companies emerge that push towards a more remote workforce, such as Zapier which was founded in 2011. As Gen Z slowly starts to join the workforce by the end of the decade, together with Gen Y, the for-value and -equality striving generations are transforming organizations into less hierarchical and place a greater focus on being a company that actually does good for society.

The new 20's and beyond

Now the question becomes: What will the workforce look like as we have started the new decade with a pandemic and continue to experience the fatal effects of climate change.

Firstly, we have come a far way that we can be proud of: a more equitable, balanced, free, and meaningful work. This goes without saying, there is still a lot of room for improvement:

I believe as we are able to rely more on automation and atomization, the real value will be in exploiting technological advances coupled with our powerful humane nature: Being able to analyze and solve a problem creatively, changing directions quickly in an inclusive manner, and continuing to innovate. As we learn to couple all the human capabilities within organizations, and access that on-demand through technology to learn quickly and make the right decisions, a time lies ahead that will spark the greatest sides of what human beings have to offer.

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See you next week!

Franzi