OFFICE SHOCK

Johansen, Press, and Bullen’s sweeping treatise on how a contemporary workplace crisis has created new ways to transform office life.

According to Johansen, Press, and Bullen, a “time of global turmoil” culminating in the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in “office shock,” a crescendo of employee discontent. The sting of obvious inequity, lack of diversity, absence of a positive office culture, and low job satisfaction has brought about a crisis in work culture. However, the co-authors claim that this crisis has also paved the way for the “Great Opportunity,” which is a chance to formulate a brighter vision of office life. The co-authors envision this future broadly—they are interested in the entire sphere of work-life that goes beyond the traditional office to the “officeverse” and the “archipelago of anytime/anyplace mixes of media—including office buildings—that you will be able to choose among to determine where, when, and how you work.” To assist with the decision-making process that determines what the offices of the future will look like—they will be “tailor-made, and personalized” to maximize the happiness of their employees—the authors provide an “office shock mixing board,” a practical tool indicative of the book’s pragmatic orientation. For example, a “spectrum of purpose” swings from individual to collective goods, while a “spectrum of belonging” covers the space between the value of difference in the workspace and the comforts of familiar ways of doing business. Also, the authors sketch a concise and edifying history of office life, from the traditional “hierarchical” kind to its modern “networked” improvement. Yet despite the book’s celebrations of visionary thinking, most of what’s offered here consists of familiar formulas with the now commonplace peppering of the “latest neuroscience findings,” which are too general to count as substantive evidence. Characteristic of the book’s genre, the co-authors spout plenty of neologisms and corporate jargon: “Full-spectrum thinking is about recognizing patterns across gradients of possibility.” But if one can push past the deluge of corporate-speak, this guide to workplace contentment may offer a practical way to transcend traditional creativity-stifling office work.  

A potentially useful collection of solid, common-sense advice but not the prophetic vision it claims to be.