Bigger than BYOD: The iffy future of the corporate office

Do you really need an office or dedicated workspace at a company site? If you’re a knowledge worker — what we used to call white-collar workers — you probably don’t. Chances are you already work at home multiple days a month, perhaps even once or twice a week. I know many companies that have moved to the concept of hoteling, where most people have no dedicated space but instead reserve a desk when they need or want to come into the office, such as for face-to-face meetings with colleagues or clients. Maybe that’s the direction in which we should be moving. But it’s not solely cake and ice cream.

All the advantages of avoiding the office There are many advantages to not going to an office, starting with saving money on gas and transit, as well as commute time. Most people I know use that time to work more, which companies like, though it raises issues for union workforces, overtime calculations, and other HR/legal matters — areas way behind the reality of work today.

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You also get greater schedule flexibility. Work and personal long ago blended for information workers, despite what companies say about not using your phone or PC on the job for personal reasons beyond emergencies or breaktime activities. Of course, companies don’t ask their employees to refrain from work after hours at home — it’s OK for companies to use your resources, even if you can’t use theirs. Many companies also turn a blind eye to the use of personal technology at home or in the office. In the end, it’s free labor. So most employees who flex on behalf of the compay expect their company to flex in return, and they act accordingly.

The home office is much more focused. My work is collaborative, but not often in a live, in-person way. Being in a room full of people talking and typing and walking is distracting, and it will get worse when my company moves us to a smaller space with lower dividers. Of course, if our work demanded more real-time, face-to-face collaboration, the separation would be a problem and having more shared space would be a positive — what’s an advantage for one employee’s situation may be a disadvantage for another’s.

That flexibility and quiet is well and good for people who are self-directed and trustworthy. The rest shouldn’t be working outside of a supervised environment, though supervision can be electronic and still allow for working offsite such as at a home office or a remote shared workspace (increasingly seen in cities).

I prefer working at home not only for the flexibility and saved commute time — more important, I have better technology at home than I do at the office. My MacBook at the office is four years old and perfectly serviceable, but it’s slow compared to my one-year-old model at home, especially now that IT has installed Symantec antivirus on my work Mac, which has slowed it even more and periodically pesters me with useless notices that can’t be turned off. (My Windows-using friends have welcomed me to their world.) Plus, Symantec uses Java, which is where the latest Trojans came from, so my work Mac is more exposed than my home Mac because its antivirus protection makes me turn on Java — Kafkaesque, isn’t it?

My moderate-speed cable plan (3Mbps) at home is much faster than the Internet access at the office. It’s usually the other way around, and in fact used to be. Who knows the cause? But I do know that at home I can take care of such matters, while at work I’m stuck with whatever’s available.

And that’s the real issue. I choose my broadband service, my computer, my peripherals, my desk and chair, my backup strategy (I save more documents and data at home than the office does, so my home archives are more complete), and so on at home. At work, I get whatever is provided, which is sometimes great and sometimes not. No wonder that the federal government and many companies and local governments encourage work at home, even subsidizing employee purchase of standard tools such as Microsoft Office.

All the disadvantages of avoiding the office Of course, there is no free lunch. My home office costs me. I pay for the equipment, broadband, and so on — including the space I set aside in the house to work in. I get not a dime from the company for it. According to management, the company provides me an office and the equipment I need to do my job, including that laptop I could use at home if I wanted (I don’t). Why should the company pay for it again? Mine doesn’t. Yours probably doesn’t either.

The company allows BYOD for equipment that meets IT’s security policies, but it’s on the employees’ dime — and not everyone has the cash. As a manager, I make a decent salary in the context of my industry. But many employees earn less, so buying a home computer, paying for broadband, paying for a second phone line or upping the cell plan to account for work calls, finding the space in their home to work, and the rest of it can quickly become an insurmountable barrier.

For each person not in the office, companies net anywhere from $500 to $2,000 (or more in big cities) in monthly workspace savings; however, those reductions rarely go to the employee to cover their work-at-home costs. Beyond the issue of who owns the furniture and equipment, there’s a widespread belief in executive offices that the commute savings (time and money) and greater flexibility are sufficient remuneration.

Those hoteling users I mentioned? They tend to be for salespeople, marketers, analysts, consultants, and the like — people whose work is largely self-directed and who are well paid and/or rarely at fixed location. Meanwhile, admins, accountants, and so on typically work at a fixed space in a company office, using whatever they’re given.

Even if there’s no financial issue for the employee, there’s the question of technology management. When you essentially run your own network and provision your own computer equipent, you are your own IT support. A geek like me is fine with that — in fact, I prefer it. But most knowledge workers aren’t geeks; they’re experts in other arcane matters. For many if not most people, a home office is often inferior, limited to a cheap PC, a dangerously unergonomic chair and desk setup (or, worse, kitchen table), basic DSL, difficult-to-use remote access, and nonexistent backup and security practices.

PCs have been around for 30 years, so the home employee’s cluelessness is not quite as dire as some IT support folks would have you believe. But most people are at best passable at handling these issues, so they make do with mediocre work environments. It’s a challenge I hope both HR and IT take on by providing recommendations, ergonomic consulting, and some level of IT support for at least the recommended equipment. (It’s a reality that IT can only go so far given the variety of configurations among employees, as we all know firsthand from the support we get from consumer product companies dealing with infinite variations of customer issues.)

Consumerization and ITization go hand in hand The consumerization label is widely known, but another one that pops up occasionally is ITization, meaning the need for individuals to have some IT expertise for their own computing equipment and services, both what they have at home and what they bring into their work situations. I don’t see ITization as separate; it’s simply a facet of consumerization, which is about technologically empowered users and how they shape technology products, IT’s role, and work processes.

Nonetheless, we need to get our heads around ITization. You can’t have technologically empowered users if they can’t make good technology decisions and support their preferences. BYOD, choose your own device, working on the go, and working at home all involve consumerization and some level of ITization.

And if not having a standard corporate office is the right strategy for you or part of your workforce, ITization — including the costs of space, equipment, and technology — becomes a big issue.

This article, “Bigger than BYOD: The iffy future of the corporate office,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Smart User blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.