Reflection on 'Why work doesn't happen at work'

As an assignment for school I watched the Ted talk by Jason Fried called 'Why work doesn't happen at work' and frankly I'm happy I did because it was a very interesting video.

Jason's speach really got me thinking straight away. What I immediately found interesting was the concept of offices. The norm that people should do their work in the office feels dated and I wonder if it's still relevant today? What benefits could there be to base more of our time working in places other than the office?

In my opinion, yes the office still has a role to play in the way we conduct business. With that being said, I don't think there is a reason for it's role to be as prominent as it is today. With virtual meetings on Skype and other software, advanced web platforms and a lot of the work being e-mail or phone based, there's nothing tying you to your desk anymore. In past jobs I've had more to do with people in other continents than I have with people in my office. Obviously this is not true for all positions in a company or even for all companies, though, and sometimes having people around you as support is important if not necessary. This is especially true when you are new to a company or new to your position within the company.

An immediate thought when thinking about doing work outside of the office is obviously the company saving on having to provide space for the worker in the office. If the company can cut down on the size of the office it will save money on rent or even earn money by renting out parts of the office if they own the building. Combine that with Jason's point about managers and other employees disturbing and slowing down other employees work and you can see a motive for moving more work outside of the office building.

I am also curious of the effect someone working outside the office a couple of times a week would have on morale. Could the employee who is working out of office come back with a higher level of excitement for work and more energy to spread to the group? I also think having a few days every week where you don't see your coworkers could give you time to come up with ideas and solutions that could later be cultivated and improved upon by discussing them with your coworkers.

When he went on to talk about meetings and their role in businesses I plainly couldn't agree more. I've worked in the office at Volvo in Arendal, and for the people who have done the same you know that Volvo is obsessed with meetings. In my experience, most of these meetings were a waste of the managers and the employees time and frankly they slowed the whole day down. We could sit for hours without me understanding what was being said, partly down to me being inexperienced, but also because what was being said had no relevance to my position within the company. I always felt like what was being said in these meetings could have been addressed in short one on one interactions around the office with the person who it concerned.

Going from being an organisation that values meetings to one that values getting the information to the right person can in my opinion only be a good thing. This would in my mind make the office and in turn the business run smoother and should be the way forward.