An Office for the Future

As we continued to grow, it was clear we needed to renovate our head office located in NOIDA - the Indian National Capital Region. In the process, our architects (Studio Archohm) asked us to prepare an initial design brief for them. This forced us to think about some things we hadn’t thought about for a while - what kind of spaces we require, and how they needed to function in the new office.

As we processed these ideas, taking inputs from the team and translating our workflows into design requirements - it slowly dawned on us that the design thinking of the past no longer works for an office meant for the future.

‍ 
‍“Office” has changed – for the better

Working from office has changed fundamentally in the past few years. Offices no longer need to be the “cubicle farms” that they were in the past. Video calls, digital technology, the work-from-home mode have all profoundly altered and reshaped work culture across the world. As many young folks very reasonably ask - when it is so very convenient to work even more productively from home, why would one take the trouble of commuting to office every day?  

That being said, we don’t believe work-from-office is dead, but as with so many things, just needed to adapt.

So as we set about renovating our own office, we knew the office of the future now needs to add enough value to make the effort of commuting to office really worthwhile for people.

We knew people still like to come to a physical office –it’s just that the purpose and experience they seek has changed. Based on our research and employee surveys, three primary reasons emerged as to why most people would prefer working out of a physical office in the future:
‍

1. Human contact: The need for connection with colleagues, mentors and teammates - for the mutual learning and growth it brings - and the desire to share experiences with each other.
   ‍
2. Facilities: An office environment provides more facilities, space and conveniences that may not be so easily available at home.
   ‍
3. Professional meetings: The office offers an ideal place to welcome customers, suppliers, vendors and partners - and all others with whom it is important to meet.

We feel it will be broadly around these requirements that most offices around the world, will be designed in the future.

Setting about building Enerdyne’s office of the future

Once these requirements became clear, it was not too difficult for us to have the office designed for meeting the demands of the future.  

It meant creating many more spaces for meeting and collaborating – including a nice roof top café with glass walls.                              

 To facilitate those micro-meetings, we developed several small huddle rooms.

And a large open space for relaxed seating – to enable youto reflect over your problems together with a colleague – perhaps with a mug of coffee in hand!

All these collaborative spaces brought together many more options for meeting, training and working together.

We also focussed on adding more connectivity options, by designing in lots of LCD TV panels to facilitate video calls since so many of the important meetings today happen online, free from the barriers of geography.

And yes, despite the need for social spaces, we know that one would need privacy (and silence!) to get work done. For this, we have micro work-pods.

Since the office also serves as a welcoming space for important guests, this Director’s Lounge was designed for holding meetings with key visitors in comfort and privacy.

Welcome back!

It has been an intense period of 10 weeks since our team has been working from home or the field, while the office went through a facelift. And now, we’re opening the doors again – to welcome our colleagues,customers and partners!