Productivity & Design Part II: Is the Open Office Plan Really the Best?

In case you missed it, my first blog on this topic tackled the most fundamental aspect to worker productivity: the desk. But the ideal workspace should be greater than the some of its parts, so even if each desk is maximally productive, the overall layout and relationship between those desks can still hamper output. In doing my research for this, one theme seemed to connect all successful workspace efforts: fit. If your team’s work is mainly conducted on the phone, it makes sense to have many small spaces to allow for privacy and to keep disruptions to a minimum. If you are a creative agency that feeds off collaboration, then an open design concept will be better. These might seem obvious, but too many organizations simply go with what seems to be the most innovative route without considering how it fits with their culture.

On that note, the most trendy office design today is the “Open” one. You are maybe sitting in an open office while reading this. If you are, it means you are likely hearing myriad conversations and other sounds while you try to concentrate on your screen. This is one of the biggest issues cited with the open office by today’s worker: they are more distracting than they are collaborative. In fact, a recent Harvard study has shown that collaboration — one of the main reasons for this design in the first place — actually decreases by 70% when organizations have shifted to an open office concept.

This might seem counter-intuitive, but it makes sense when you think about basic human psychology. If you are sequestered in your own space, you will crave interaction and use your free time to seek this out. However, if you are constantly in sight of everyone in your office (including your bosses), you will use any means at your disposal to “hide” from them, which means more emailing, Slacking and headphone-wearing.

Open office space isn’t all bad, though. It just needs to be used more judiciously. Almost all organizations benefit from the periodic collaboration and free-wheeling interactions that these spaces were meant to conduce, so having “break out spaces” sprinkled in the office will encourage this activity while not forcing it on the staff. These spaces aren’t the same as conference rooms, which, due to their enclosures, are better for structured conversations.

Now for a little history lesson: Did you know that the official name for the cubicle was the Action Office II? In 1960, the influential furniture manufacturer, Herman Miller, set about on a course of research that would forever change the way we think about the office. Their goal wasn’t to create new furniture, but to create new ways of using it. What they discovered in their research was that the office had remained largely unchanged since the beginning of the 20th Century: rows of neatly arranged desks with executive offices ringing the border. Their first prototype to disrupt this pattern was the Action Office I, which basically combined several heights of desk in a small contained office to accommodate the various tasks that the average worker might complete throughout the day.

The problem was, it was expensive, and not particularly well-suited to large corporations whose workers had singular functions and didn’t need multiple desks at their disposal. The Action Office II turned the walls into a soft felt that absorbed sound, but allowed for vision of the entire space at the standing position and gave the worker the opportunity to personalize the space as they saw fit. And thus the cubicle was born. Of course, companies are always looking to save money, so they began to fill the cubicles (initially meant for one person) with 2–4 desks, which made the space feel more like a felt prison than a workspace. The open office is therefore the worker’s rebellion against the walls.

Really, though, cubicles aren’t so bad when we aren’t turning them into tenements. They do afford a surprising amount of privacy, are fairly cheap to install, and can be arranged in any permutation to fit office space needs. However, their originally intended design was meant to give the worker everything he or she needed to finish their tasks without leaving their space. This functionality should be avoided at all costs!

You might be asking, “Why? Wouldn’t a worker be most productive with all of their tools within reach?” For a short period, certainly. But the workday is long, and one of the most important aspects to successful (and productive) spaces is the encouragement of movement. When bodies rest for too long, the brain follows suit, and begins to stultify. Creating a space that gets your team up and moving every hour will keep their brains humming (not to mention, their bodies more fit as well). The old water-cooler isn’t just a place for gossip, but a place to distance oneself from reports, emails and memos. With each step away from the desk, the mind declutters while simultaneously oxygenating the muscles and joints.

I said at the beginning of this blog that the best office design is the one that fits your culture. While this is true, all offices should try to embody these three aspects I’ve discussed: collaboration, privacy and movement. You can tinker with the percentages depending on need, but to completely deny any one of the three will be costly.

Finally, there is the remote worker. Technology has afforded us the ability to span great distances while creating the simulacrum of intimacy. The effects of this paradigm shift are so far-ranging, that it really deserves its own blog, so that is what I will focus on next time.

Now that you’ve finished reading, perhaps it’s time to get up and get some water!