ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the evolution of the modern office workplace. It explores the factors driving and enabling the change in the way employees work. The chapter examines what employees can do to drive and manage that change and unlock the organisations human capital value. It also explores what future workplace could look like and how it can benefit employees and their projects. The Middle Ages saw the emergence of mediaeval chancery, a development of the Roman administrative office as a place for drawing up of government letters, proclamations and copying of laws on to parchment. The industrial revolution saw the first modern commercial offices appear. Technological advances in the 1940s and 1950s helped make the office even more efficient and regimented. Modern open-plan offices are often noisy environments and, although encouraging more collaboration and interaction, are not conducive to more quiet contemplative work.