Office Space: The Next Generation

Filing cabinets with important documents may be what you'd expect to see at an agency like Insurance and Risk Management Services, which boasts more than 4,000 clients. Instead, the Naples-based business has eliminated rows of floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets and stacks of paper, moving into the future by storing data electronically. No Post-It notes or pink "while you were out" phone message slips are needed-they can be created on the computer.

Chief executive officer George C. Schmelzle even envisions that one day mail will be scanned in and routed via e-mail to the appropriate person for follow up, instead of being passed out to employees.

"I preach this system to everybody because so many operational problems are tied to dealing with information-organizing it, finding it, saving it," he says. "We were spending hours and hours and hours on filing."

The paperless office is just one of many ways corporate executives, small business owners, architects and furn iture designers, futurists and others believe offices will look like in the future. Already, some companies are taking video communication to new levels. Office furniture is becoming more modular and less cluttered; one visionary has developed a line of desks, chair and related accouterments that suspend to the ceiling by cables. And data security is growing more important, with retina scanners and other high-tech measures.

A study called Office of the Future 2020 conducted by OfficeTeam, the world's largest specialized temporary staffing service for administrative professionals, asked workplace experts, futurists and 150 Fortune 1000 executives about future trends. Two key findings in the research by OfficeTeam, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., with offices in more than 300 locations including Fort Myers, were that telecommuting and worker mobility are going to become even more popular. Wireless technology will allow workers to do their jobs away from the office, but it may make it harder to get away from work. In the study, 86 percent of Fortune 1000 executives said they will expect in 10 to 15 years for employees to stay more or less connected with the office while on vacation.

Other trends in the next 10 to 20 years: Companies will depend more on virtual conferencing, with larger screens and more screens around the office; the workforce will be dispersed around the globe; and wireless technology will make offices more streamlined and less cluttered. And with employees working from a variety of locations, security will become a bigger issue, causing some to use finger and retina scanners to access information. (The OfficeTeam study can be accessed at www.officeofthefuture2020.com.)

Some area companies may already be considering going paperless, as IRMS has, in the near future. Other ideas-from video communication to futuristic furniture-may seem far-fetched now, but could be the standard in the offices of tomorrow.

A face-to-face-even from afar

Video communications products already used by some companies allow colleagues to approach a computer screen and chat with someone in a different office-the idea is referred to as a "virtual watercooler."

"You just pop in on people like you would in the same office building. They can be in Oslo, they can be in California," says Toni Lee Rudnicki, chief marketing officer of Tandberg, a global provider of video systems and services with dual headquarters in New York and Oslo, Norway. "It's very much like being there."

Standard voice phones may be replaced by videophones. Computer screens can double as a video conferencing devise. And as today's teens enter the workforce, their demand for the technology is expected to dramatically change how offices operate. Michael Brandofino, chief technology officer with New Jersey-based GlowPoint, an IP broadband video communications technology provider, recently connected two classrooms at his twin sons' school via video for a Career Day presentation. He expected the kids to be floored by the technology. Instead, they asked him whether snow days would end once schools and families had access to video conferencing. "The generation coming up expects this technology to be available," he says.

The vision of companies like GlowPoint, which is

working with Sony to develop technology, is to personalize and make video communication easier by enabling it to exist on a desktop or laptop application. "We need to get it out of the conference room so that more people are comfortable with it," Brandofino says. "The home of the future, and probably the office of the future, are going to have these products imbedded in something you already have."

Today, video communication units are not typically found on every desk in a workplace. The prices are still on the higher end: A unit Rudnicki took with her on vacation was about $3,000. The expense will decrease, especially as video communication becomes connected with IP broadband technology and businesses don't have to pay for the calls.

Tandberg's clients are high-end businesses in the manufacturing, financial, education and telemedicine industries. A bank in California is using Tandberg equipment to allow loan officers, retirement experts and others available at any time to talk to a client about a loan, even if they aren't located in the same branch. Rudnicki says the ease of using video communication and the opportunity to use the applications to do business around the world outweighs the cost of the equipment.

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Swapping paper and seclusion for efficiency and teamwork

IRMS-like other businesses around the country-went paperless because they needed more space. The company was adding people and trying to deal with a limited amount of room and an ongoing flow of paper. Schmelzle heard about a system called transactional filing and decided to try it in a limited way on the personal insurance line.

The system allows employees to organize all documentation and information relating to clients, vendors and companies-including policies, fax, e-mail, image, spreadsheet or notes from a phone call or meeting-in an electronic filing system. The main cost was purchasing a $30,000 scanner-for a small agency that started from scratch and was investing in people, that was a big investment, Schmelzle says.

The challenges were creating the procedures for electronic filing, not to mention the psychological hurdle of giving up the paper. Employees could no longer keep files at their desk, and all documents had to be filed in a timely manner so they would end up in chronological order. After expanding to other lines and storing all documents electronically, they ultimately shredded the original paper documents.

Only one small fireproof and waterproof cabinet now is used to hold work that isn't completed during the day-usually those are underwriting files in a temporary stage before becoming an electronic file. Another benefit is that the office looks professional and clean, Schmelzle says, because it's void of stacks of paper on desks, cabinets and corners of the office. Less clutter and wires and better use of space will likely be the trademarks of office design and furniture in the future.

Companies such as Herman Miller are looking ahead to determine what capabilities and style businesses will want and need in the future. The office furniture company already has a line of sleek space-efficient workstations called the Resolve System. The desks and screens can be rearranged to encourage collaboration and teamwork. "The Resolve System came about because the workers were feeling too closed in," says James Skolmutch with Workplace Resource of Southwest Florida, a Herman Miller dealer. "The day where you sat in your cubicle and did your work, we're not seeing that anymore. Two or three people are working together."

Furniture designers are also anticipating that it will become more common for employees, including senior executives, who work away from the office most of the time to not have a designed workspace. Instead they may just hook up to a workstation when they come to the office, he says.

While Skolmutch says Southwest Florida is more conservative in regards to the style of office furniture you'll find in workplaces, one concern is with the environment. The Mirra chair from Herman Miller, for example, is 96 percent recyclable. "People are going to be more concerned about green products," he says.

And if a company is concerned about space, suspending the desks from the ceiling may be the solution. Robert Bernstein's suspended environments are created by quarter-inch cables that can hold 8,000 to 9,000 pounds and keep the furniture from swaying or vibrating. Bernstein says the concept may attract companies interested in saving space, using fewer materials and sending a message to clients that they are thinking ahead of their competitors. "I think it is something still to be done," he says. "If you walk into an office where everything's astonishing to you, you may say, 'This is a place that can come up with astonishing results for me.'"