Egzamin B2 VWP – Reading

Text. Part 1.

Do you find it isolating, working from home? Looking for a place to get your work done for an hour or two without spending a lot of money? The office-in-a-pod concept might just be for you. BEM’s Michael Gaylord ventures downtown to check out the booths that are available.

It is no secret that one of the most startling business developments of the COVID pandemic has been increasingly vacant office space, especially in business districts of large urban centres. This phenomenon has happened quickly, and it has hit property owners hard. After several months people are returning to the office, but only very slowly. Business organisations are reconfiguring their office space and some professionals appear to be reconsidering their work habits for the long term, it seems. Nevertheless, there is a new trend that may be catching on. At the very least, it is getting some workers off their sofas and makeshift dining-room table-offices back into something resembling a real office – the key word here being “resembling”. It’s the office pod.

What’s in a Pod?

First created by the Singaporean company Switch, the capsules vary in size and design and typically have partially glass walls, aimed at allowing a feeling of openness in an otherwise claustrophobic, compact space. For the most part, they are quite simple in design, with a basic office chair and desk, but the wi-fi is said to be reliable, and some have air conditioning or fans. Normally well-lit, they offer a grey and white colour scheme, effective in preventing distractions. The cubicles are located in either a public place such as a shopping mall or a subway station, or private ones such as office buildings and hotel lobbies. Users can pay-by-the-minute, -hour, or -day (a typical hourly cost is USD 3). In North America for instance, they offer the following payment plans: a weekly or monthly payment plan paid in advance and the pay-as-you-go choice.

Benefits

Working from home is not always as easy as it might, on the surface, sound. Although there is no commute, it’s still too easy to get distracted by chores, or perhaps children. That being said, many find it necessary to carve out a space that is dedicated solely to getting work done. A selling point of these pods is that, in spite of their simple decor, it is not one’s living room. As Switch’s founder Dominic Penaloza stresses “ [pods allow] psychological separation that is created by a physical separation between work and home”. Evidently, there are mental and physical benefits to getting out of our home environments, and it seems that these conditions are optimal for increasing productivity.

Aside from the potential psychological benefits, the pods are relatively easy to secure. Users log on to a simple reservation system via a mobile app, and have a fairly frictionless experience. What’s more, people only pay for what they use, and can use the spaces where and when they need to. With this on-demand flexibility, it’s difficult to dispute, at the very least, their novelty, if not their practicality.

Drawbacks

However, the concept of renting a small enclosure that is used by many different people is, apparently, not without its challenges. Some users have reported difficulty in actually getting to the location of the pods. And, for those longing for that familiar office social interaction – circa 2019 – it’s not completely like the old days – wearing a mask is still mandatory. Then there are the potential hygiene issues of sharing a public space. Although food or drink are not officially permitted in the booths, users are expected to wipe down surfaces before departing. These are not unsolvable problems, but they all require some solutions, it seems.

(source: Gaylord, Michael. “Workplace On-Demand ”in Business English Magazine. NR 84/2021 )

Several companies are getting in on the action. Although the Switch pods referred to earlier in this article, which are located in offices and shopping malls, have a uniformity to their design, for those who want to be close to home – but actually not physically in their normal living space – there are prefabricated home office units that can be set in a yard. These pre-built modules can be delivered and installed in a day or two, making them quick and convenient – not to mention cool looking. The cabin from the Hello Wood design studio in Hungary is octagonal in shape – and surprise, it’s made from wood! It has eye-catching angles and looks like a futuristic spacecraft. Demand for them has grown substantially since last year, the company’s co-founder, David Raday, told Treehugger Media. “Our idea is to give those working from home a more secluded option, and, as a bonus, it has a minimal environmental impact on the site,” he said. Another company, MobSquab in the United States, builds individual cabins and also helps US tech firms locate international workers who are struggling to get US work visas and are, consequently, working remotely from elsewhere. It is believed the booths could create an additional layer of flexibility for such organisations, who often rely on putting the workers in creative work spaces.

What do the pods represent for the future of office work?

Could the pods be an ideal solution not only for ultimately attracting workers back to the office, but also an option for recession-weary landlords looking to bring tenants back to their properties? A majority of employers will permanently adopt a hybrid working model when the pandemic does finally end, according to recent surveys from around the globe. Switch, which is observing overseas expansion, thinks that the pods may offer a solution, as some of its corporate clients already allow their employees to charge the cost of a space to the company. The booths take the concept of splitting office time and work-from-home time, not to mention working remotely from another country, to the next phase, by creating the opportunity for workers who want to work from anywhere to do so.

The pods have been popular in Asia for quite some time, and they seem to be gaining some traction in North America. But could they really take off in Europe, where many workers are used to fairly sizeable working spaces? Well, on the plus side, they do offer a cheap alternative to working from home; they offer privacy and convenience; and, thanks to recent expansion of the industry, some firms offer compartments that can be adapted to fit different space configurations and environments. True, for long-term professional office workers accustomed to working in wide-open, carpeted areas that offered an ease of movement across the floor of a building, and were hoping to return to that level of comfort, the highly compact space could be a difficult idea to accept. On the other hand, for the sake of adapting to a new post-COVID hybrid working model – which, arguably, is appearing more and more likely to become the norm of the future – those concerns about size and space may be quickly outweighed by the values of functionality and mobility. Get ready for a new kind of space.

(source: Gaylord, Michael. “Workplace On-Demand ”in Business English Magazine. NR 84/2021 )

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