Australia and the US are leading the way to more flexible working patterns across the world, according to new research by software company Condeco.

The changes are both to physical office spaces as well as more flexible and remote working. In Australia, 43 per cent of businesses surveyed said they had staff spending time working from home, on the move or from multiple locations. This figure was second only to the US at 52 per cent.

The research also found that workers born between 1983 and 2000 - the so-called millennial generation - have shaped the workplace to meet their needs, leading to more open plan spaces and teams working together in ‘pods’. 

This open-plan arrangement was most common in Australia, with 84 per cent of surveyed businesses working in open plan offices of some kind.  This marks a significant change from previous generations, for example the cubicle office of Generation X or Baby Boomers’ personal offices. 

Condeco’s Product Strategy and Design Director Peter Otto believes the report demonstrates how the modern workplace is changing. “Flexbility and remote working are increasingly important to today’s workers,” he said.

As workplaces shift to more flexible and remote working, greater emphasis will be placed on meetings to coordinate teams, who need to be in close communication despite being spread across a wide area. As a result, the report highlighted, workers were more likely to feel that there are too few meetings, rather than too many.

Use of video conference meetings is also increasing as teams coordinate over long distances. Worldwide, two-fifths of business leaders reported an increase in video conferences – almost double the figure for Australia (28 per cent).

“Meetings have a bad reputation as time-wasters but it’s important that companies understand that this is not necessarily the case,” said Otto. 

“Modern companies must ensure that they commit to providing a variety of spaces to help their teams communicate and collaborate, along with a fast and efficient way to find and reserve space, at any time, on any device.”

Condeco Software’s workspace management products are used by more than 500 companies, including some of the biggest blue chip brands in the world across sectors such as retail, banking, utilities and media.

Condeco’s report, The Modern Workplace 2018: People, Places & Technology, was based on a survey of 500 business leaders and in-depth interviews with senior executives in the UK, the USA, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore.

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