Why the ‘Nowhere Office’ Is the Future of Work

This author thinks work will no longer be defined by a fixed time and place and that the culture of office presenteeism is over. Julia Hobsbawm, the founder of the Nowhere Office Project, says, <i>“The office of the future is going to be a place that could be anywhere. It's going to be a place that you do not go to all the time. We need to be fully flexible in our outlook about how offices are used and where we work. But at the core of this debate about workers is that everybody wants to understand why they’re being asked to do the work and to do the work fairly in a way that meets the era we’re in. And that era, I call the Nowhere Office, because we need to embrace the fact that we are nowhere where we were and are going to the next phase of work.” </i> The pandemic has changed people’s work habits forever. Many workers now see flexibility as a right, not a privilege. 40% of workers say they wouldn’t take a job without remote or hybrid options. Hobsbawm says we should be campaigning for new ways to value and pay for work, based around set outcomes rather than fixed hours as part of a momentous culture shift she calls ‘the great re-evaluation’. Watch the video to learn more about the Nowhere Office Project.