Friday, March 12, 2021

Where is My Office?: Reimagining the Workplace for the 21st Century (Chris Kane)

Advances in technology have made it easier for many workers and their employers to operate in a remote environment. While some employers were early adopters of flexible working, many others were cool to the concept and clung fiercely to the idea of a fixed-desk, fixed-office location. COVID-19 has changed the paradigm of many working arrangements and has shown that remote and flexible working arrangements can be a successful, if not essential, part of workplace office strategy.

Author Chris Kane dives into office life in his book, Where Is My Office?, coming from 30 years of experience in corporate real estate with Disney and the BBC in England. He pulls from his personal experiences with blending technology in the workplace and provides models of how office life can merge flexibility, remote capability, and the security of a fixed suite (for those who need it). In doing this, he shows that the modern workplace needs to be adaptable, take up a smaller footprint to save costs, and be more efficient to serve a plethora of work styles and arrangements.

Kane divides the book into two parts. Part one discusses corporate real estate and provides a technical, high-level background into how corporate real estate works for many. Part two dives into his experiences in revamping how the BBC operated as it modernized its operations and transitioned its broadcasting to digital. Kane discusses the logistics and the challenges that needed to be resolved in order to execute the modernization.

Where Is My Office? is a useful book for those in C-level, operations, or facilities leadership who are thinking about how their companies should operate in the post-COVID landscape and just how the office of the near future should look, feel, and operate.

MY RATING - 3.5