Technology Becomes An Enabler In Modern Era Workplaces

Workplaces in the modern era are increasingly getting impacted by a wide variety of factors, including changing ethos and ideologies and other disruptive forces, both negative and positive. Technology is likely one of the greatest factors impacting workplaces and is also one factor that can play a transformative role in workspace evolution. This was something which was extensible debated and unanimously agreed upon during a plenary session on “Technology: How workplaces are thinking beyond business and technology” at the Workplace Trends Conclave organised by Studiokon Ventures (SKV) held on November 15 at Hyatt Regency in New Delhi. 

While moderating the session, Gurjot Bhatia, Management Director-Project Management, CBRE, South Asia, “The affordability of data which then transcends into technology and the impact of technology into the workplace, etc, is happening at the grassroots level. And everybody knows about the success of a venture like Aadhar Card, which is more to do with technology as an enabler in our country and that has doubled since 2014.” 

Sameer Nayar, CEO, Buildsupply, “One of the important things living in Delhi that you want is that you should have very high air quality inside your office space and people care about that. And nobody really thought about this five years ago or 10 years ago. While building a new office, we actually make sure that we had the right filtration in place. And that makes a huge difference in terms of the people who work there and their productivity, and for people who want to be that in the office. It is, therefore, incumbent upon workspace providers to really think about how to address those needs. I would say technology can actually be a huge enabler, and it has been dramatically improving the quality of that workspace.” 

Piyush Gandhi, Executive Director, JLL India, “It is all about the change in the environment, and it is about the change in the needs of individuals. Not so I feel it is also the change in the businesses. (During the) last few years, the kind of, a conversation I've heard on diversity and inclusion, the kind of conversation we have heard on, topics like environment taking a different dimension altogether. Topics like how specially-abled can be brought back to the mainstream. I feel this (shift), towards the humankind, towards the better environment, towards the better work environment, towards the psychological needs towards the mental health.” 

Kelvin Ashby- King, Principal Consultant, T2 Consulting Group, “The number of hours at the workplace has changed because of the (advent of) technologies like Microsoft or Google hangout, which not only allow us to still interact and be part of that office team but also allows people who are situated from home. We're a small company and not a multinational or anything like that, so, but we're training outside too, putting our staff on to Open University programs or free university content, which is available on the internet. I think these are the sorts of things that are impacting and actually enabling our business to go forward in a different way. And of course, as a consultant, we were always trying to stay on the leading edge.” 

Rohit Rajput, CEO, Max Asset Services, “The reality is that people really don’t care about technology as much as they care about the impact (that) the technology has on their working. If you look at the energy levels and how you feel at the start of the day, most people on most of the days, it's a bit of a sliding scale. But if technology can help you work well, when on most days during the end of the day you get similar, if not higher levels of energy. That's when I think technology becomes an enabler.”

Markus Heinrich, Senior Workplace Advisor APAC Haworth, “What I really appreciate especially working for Haworth as the office furniture manufacturer is that companies on a global basis, have started building more space technology. If you have projects,  we could ask much more questions than we could have asked to get involved much early in the process to make sure that people get what they really want rather than what they mean.”