The future office trends you should know about for 2024

I see you’re looking to some future office trends to get ahead of the curve? You’re in the right place.

The world of work is always evolving. Even just five years ago, things were very different – if you had suggested to anyone that a bad cough would spread around the world, force governments all over into lockdowns of their citizens, and that we’d barely leave home for a year or two, you would have been laughed out of the room as some sort of conspiracy theorist. Back then, the thought of video calls as the default way of doing meetings, and working from home as an option for office workers, would have been unthinkable. Yet look at what happened.

It wasn’t just COVID that changed things either. Within only the last two years, we have seen the rise of AI. ChatGPT is of course the most widely used and obvious example, as its broad range of applications mean it can be used by all sorts of people to give help or information on whatever they need.

It’s been a game-changer – whether it’s coding, writing, generation of ideas, you name it, ChatGPT can likely do it. However, a human ‘touch’ has proven to be needed (luckily), but we are excited to see how this will evolve in 2024.

So, what are the next future office trends we should be looking out for? We can never be 100% sure about what will be a hit, and what will be a miss, but here we will list some future office trends you should look out for in 2024.

Future office trend 1: Increasing employee wellbeing in 2024

The idea of office workers staying in from 9 to 5 in a tired office environment is going out of fashion. All the rage these days is about employee wellbeing – firms more than ever are considering factors such as employee mental health and work/life balance to avoid employee burnout and to improve productivity.

If you are a business owner and haven’t incorporated something to ensure employee wellbeing, you should probably start now, otherwise in the future you may find yourself left behind.

What employee would choose an old-fashioned employer with a hard stance on work when they can get benefits elsewhere?

Future office trend 2: Hybrid working

As mentioned earlier, COVID highlighted that an office isn’t exactly necessary for work to be done, considering modern communications technology. Video conferencing is as easy as ever, and there are a variety of messaging platforms too to keep up with progress.

As a result, business owners will have less geographic restriction on the people they can employ – instead of having to interview only the people who can easily commute to the office, and picking the best candidates of that limited selection, businesses can now hire the best people from anywhere.

This means that there will be much more competition for roles – however, there are drawbacks to working from home… That’s why we keep seeing hybrid working as a future office trend in 2024, it gives employees the best of both works, and more flexibility.

Future office trend 3: Greater focus on data within the work environment

Data is a prized commodity within the business world – it is objective and provides accurate and impersonal information on what is going well, and what isn’t so much.

Employees in the future will be expected to have some knowledge of data tools in the office, as well as knowing when and how to use them.
It’s nothing to be scared about, a lot of them are very usable, and all it does is represent a step up in analysis from previously acceptable basic Excel skills.

Office trend 4: Focus on AI in 2024

It has emerged over recent years that AI is not just a helpful tool that makes a lot of everyday tasks easier, but that it is actually the future; those who fail to learn how to use it will be left behind by the job market until they get up to scratch.

ChatGPT receives semi-regular updates with new features and improvements, plus there are new branches of AI becoming available that are able to perform more specific tasks. We expect employees using AI in 2024 more than ever before, this can apply to any industry.

Current workers, and indeed their employers, should make it a habit of keeping on top of AI trends and new uses for it; that way, they can make their work more efficient by making use of whatever new features become available.

The fast pace of innovations in AI will make it very easy to be left behind.

Well, these are our most educated guesses, anyway. At the time of writing, what is being said here looks like the likely direction of 2024; however, don’t stop here.

We think that you should always be on the lookout for future office trends that may come up; if there’s anything we’ve learnt, many of the recent big events that have impacted office life have been unforeseen, react quickly to such new trends when they emerge, and we’re sure you will be on top of all the trends in 2024.

For more office tips and trends, such as the benefits of coworking, why not check out the rest of our blog space here? Have a look at our co-working spaces in Chiswick Park and White City…