Between IFMA’s World Workplace and CoreNet Global, it’s been a busy fall for our team at Condeco and, really, the world of workplace as a whole. Through all this activity, we’ve had the opportunity to gauge the industry’s temperature and see what trends people are gravitating toward this fall.
One of those trends that will transform your workplace into an agile organization is personalization. In fact, many of the other major trends currently sweeping through the industry seem to circle back to customizing individual experiences in the workplace.
Rising Consumer Demand
Personalization reaching a fever pitch in our everyday lives. Companies like Amazon and Google have raised the expectation that the consumer’s world should be a predictive one – determining what they want, when they want it, and what they’re likely to want next, based on how they’ve behaved in the past. Just as Google will autofill search requests based on past queries, or Amazon will recommend new products based on your order history, employees want their offices to already anticipate their needs in booking meeting rooms, designating productive spaces and balancing scheduling based on how they have historically done so already. If we can get predictive services in most other areas of our life, why shouldn’t we expect it at work too?
The Internet of Things
Gartner is predicting that 21 billion 
connected devices will be on the scene by 2020, as consumers and businesses alike benefit from constantly changing, real-time data driving insights on everything from fitness and sleep to utility and resource usage. The workplace is the next space to be transformed by the new data-informed view that it produces. Savvy companies are leveraging technology that allows them to draw on employee behavioral data to track workspace usage and even adapt employee experience in real-time. As connected devices are more smoothly integrated into workspace technology ecosystems every day, next-generation workplaces become more intuitive than ever before.
Contextual Experiences
The next step in personalization, beyond mapping individual behavior and preferences across huge swathes of data, is the rise of contextual experiences. Data-driven insight and artificial intelligence are making personalized experiences and workplace utilization a reality. Just imagine the efficiencies created when, visiting another location, an employee already knows where they need to go, when they have to go and what they need to do there – with just a tap of a card? Implementing more contextual experiences around the office streamlines an employee’s day-to-day routine into something that’s both intuitive and tailored uniquely to their schedule and needs.
Personalization Everywhere
Personalization means a system that knows who you are. As the workplace landscape becomes increasingly complex – whether it’s through investments in BYOD policies or enabling more remote and work-from-home employees on a global scale – having a system that can sort through all of that data, while still distilling your needs in the office in a way targeted specifically for you, is practically essential. It’s no wonder the whole industry wants a piece of it.