Workplaces, and the reinvention of humans

In 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes invented the modern typewriter. Today, almost any device we use for work offers a convenient way to type our commands.

In the 1920s, Philo Farnsworth invented the television. In 1959, IBM and General Motors developed the first computer-aided design (CAD) system. Today, video conferencing is easily available almost anywhere on the planet.

In the 1950s, Martin Heit created the first whiteboard. Since the 1990s, it’s been a common collaboration tool in every office.

The message is clear: we have overhauled our tools, environment, level of speed, comfort, and precision in everything we do. We have even restructured our relationships with others in many ways. All this, in our quest for continuous development.

Just two years ago, we were working in our offices, using all the modern types of machinery, thinking about the future in terms of the 5G internet, reinforcing social justice and cultural values, improving collaboration and increasing productivity.

Soon after, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic massively impacted our environment, and saw us develop new habits: sitting apart from colleagues, struggling with the VPN connections while working from home, rediscovering the joys of staying-in though we missed social interactions with other.

Change has been a two-way street. The pandemic not only created a parallel world to our perception of the environment, but shed light on the changes taking place in our work environment, emphasising the importance of change itself.

So much attention has been paid to the technical apparatus that help us carry out our daily tasks with more care, speed, and sophistication. As important as it is to have the right software, network access, and IT skillsets to complete any specific task, it is also important where our laptops are placed, our sitting/standing positions, ensuring good light and air quality in the room, having healthy levels of white noise around us, and many other contextual conditions to check off our daily To Do lists.

A nurturing workplace addresses the core of this carefully. An office worker and his or her work environment enjoy a symbiotic relationship: the development of one is intertwined with the conditions of the other. One implies the other, and only the genetic makeup of the office worker and the building design for the work environment are pre-determined.  The rest is a mutual act and influence that cuts through the emergent interface between the two.

That is why the shift towards hybrid working has become crucial in understanding how the psychology of work is evolving for today’s working professionals — both in the individual and collective (cultural) stance.