The Article That Questioned The Open Plan Office.
What I really think.
I was recently sent this article by a member of our cowork space in Exeter. It sparked something that made me question weather what we’re doing at The Generator is helping our communities well-beings or having a detrimental effect.
Before you continue reading, if you’d like a little more background then check out the link above to see the original article by Susan Devancy.
The article references a study by the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health that questions the satisfaction of employees in open plan offices. The study concludes that there is a negative relationship between the number of co-workers sharing an office and an employees’ job satisfaction.
I wasn’t sure how to tackle my thoughts about the article so I started by questioning weather our coworking office actually falls under the open plan umbrella. Which, in short, I think it does. The difference however from a traditional open plan office is that our space houses of a mixture of personalities all working towards different goals.
I think that having different goals is what enables our office to work so well.
I’ve been a part of The Generator for 3 months now and I have spoken to many people about how they feel the office works and, in retrospect, doesn’t work for them. Each individual knows exactly what the office provides them with and why they choose to use the space. I think that choosing to be surrounded by people working in a similar way to you gives you the support network to grow.
A particular quote in the article made me feel great about being part of a coworking community.
‘In 2017, a BT futurologist, Dr Nicole Millard said that large open-plan offices are inefficient and would soon die out. Instead, we would all carry our office in our backpacks and work in small teams in coffee shops.
“The trouble with open-plan offices is they are a one-size-fits-all model which actually fits nobody,” Millard said.’
Unlike the traditional open plan offices the article is referring to I think coworking spaces offer the entire opposite of this. Many users have the choice to carry their offices around in backpacks but they choose to use the space. It increases productivity and enables remote workers to feel a part of a community while still working alone or in small groups.
And as for the ‘one size fits all’ mantra, not all open plan offices are a copy and paste of the next. Coworking allows workers to be flexible with their space, here at The Generator we welcome creativity and change. If you want to bring in your comfiest chair then you can, if you want some quiet time out then hop into one of our meeting rooms. If you’re not feeling productive but want to bounce some ideas of us then go for it. We’re here to help and we’ll do our best to ensure that our community is killing it.
I maybe a little bias as I work for The Generator but I really do think coworking is the way forward!
Looking into other blogs and articles about open plan offices I found that nearly every article spoke about them negatively but I wonder if these people have ever tried coworking in one. I’m really interested to see what you think about this topic. Have you spent time in an open plan office? How did it make you feel? Have you tried coworking? Maybe you’re a home bird and would never step foot in an office.
Let me know what you think by commenting down below or getting in touch directly at tamzin@the-generator.org
