A New Kind of Work Facility
With industry experts, Eneref Institute will develop guidelines and workspace requirements needed for employers to benefit from CloudCommuter employees.
Despite numerous studies demonstrating increased, not decreased, productivity for telecommuting workers, management’s inherent distrust of employees who don’t “punch in” stands as an obstacle to cloud commuting. And while some employees may have sufficient space and technology in their homes, most do not. Further, for many tasks, an office environment is more productive and convenient.
A more persuasive solution for the business community than asking them to imagine their workforce tapping on keyboards in a spare bedroom, would be to invent a new kind of multi-tenant, shared work facility, that is built much closer to employee’s homes. A building with convertible, multi-use workspaces, technologically equipped, purpose-build for cloud collaboration. A community building, where neighbor encounters neighbor, while working for different employers based in different parts of the country.
Throughout America, commercial properties stand vacant, well suited for cloud collaboration retrofits. Repurposing forsaken local libraries, or abandoned big box stores, into a cloud community building, could revitalize areas where local employment is scarce.
What is needed is a profitable model for developers to build or retrofit a pool of cloud community buildings, with secure technology, that can universally communicate with each other making multi-person conferences as easy as using a telephone. And, to assure we’re not jumping out of the pan and into the fire, cloud community buildings must be triple net zero—energy, waste, and water—lest we risk pulling workers from efficient high-performance buildings into inefficient ones, negating the green benefit. Lastly, we will need to design a new type of facility so that multiple employers can profitably share spaces without security breaches or concerns for intellectual property loss.