ISSUE 3 - June 2021
Gannon Office Solutions is a Celbridge based family firm which is to the forefront of bringing ‘the office of the future’ to you and how we will work safely and comfortably both at home and in offices all over the country. They currently work with sole operators, small Irish companies and multinationals employing 12 people but few people know it all started exactly 40 years ago when Barry Gannon started the business on his own as a stationery and furniture shop on the main street of Lucan. Barry’s first employee was his wife Patricia whom he brought into the business whilst on maternity leave from her then job when she had their son Eoin and together, they grew the business to the point where the aforementioned son, Eoin, was handed the reins in a smooth transition two years ago. Importantly for the business Barry made sure that Eoin got plenty of experience elsewhere before allowing him to re-join the company back in 2012 as Operations Manager and the company has since been going from strength to strength and expanding the business into many different sectors around the country.
Currently the company serves clients from one person operations to SMEs with offices typically holding 4 to 50 employees to large multinationals with 2,000 employees and over. Offices in the home and in the larger workplaces have been revolutionised over just the past 3 years as employers strive to retain employees and make their workplaces more homely and welcoming, creating communities which fosters more collaboration and hence more productivity. Now all this is set to change again with the pandemic induced necessity and encouragement of remote working where the employer is duty bound to make sure their employees have everything they need to work safely and comfortably with all the correct ergonomics. So, what will the office of the future look like when we’re allowed to go back on a full or part time basis?
Post pandemic landscape:
The COVID 19 pandemic has become the catalyst to a number of changes that were expected to take place within the workplace over the coming years. Improvements in technology (video conferencing, file sharing etc.) had promised a mechanism for remote working, however, the concept had not been widely tested. A year into the pandemic, these systems have been well and truly tested!! While this sudden change in our working life has been stressful at times, technology has facilitated employees to work productively from home/remote locations.
40 YEARS IN BUSINESS
12
