office space the workplace
The use and abuse of office space:
The key role of identity realisation It is easy and misleading to show savings and efficiencies by planning workers into tighter, leaner and cleaner spaces. What never seem to be calculated are the increased costs of absenteeism and staff turnover and how much profit will be lost. Craig Knight & S. Alexander Haslam report.
to know that, after programmes have been broadcast, owners of homes featuring in television makeover shows tend to revert to ‘pre-show’ decoration styles, whereas those on Grand Designs, developed by home owners rather than various external parties, continue to develop? No matter where we are, we like to
T
put down our own marker. One of the main reasons for being ‘home sick’ is that we miss the familiar stamps of our identity. Being surrounded by strangers and strangeness can be uncomfortable and alienating. This feeling is only alleviated when we are able to make our mark on new territory, to realise something of our own identity in our new
hink of your home for a moment. Consider how you have decorated it and the idiosyncratic touches that reflect your identity and show that it is ‘your place’. Would it come as a big surprise
space. The more of our identity we can display, the more comfortable we feel.
Identity realisation
This sense of identity realisation is just as crucial in the office. Yet for many it is ignored. When managers implement a Spartan space or a ‘fun’ zone (maybe one with waterfalls or one where success is celebrated with whistles and pizza) they expect their actions to benefit their employees’ work patterns and, by extension, enhance the business’s bottom line. Yet results from our own recent research suggest that this does not typically happen (Knight & Haslam, 2010 a&b). Let us begin with the lean office which
dominates so much low-status office space today. Lean is based on the guiding principles of 5Ss drawn directly from the successes of Japanese manufacturing. Here the office is Sorted (only items
If all workers can realise something of their
identities in the space in which they work this is good for everyone.
essential to the job are retained), Set in order (everything has a demarcated space), made to Shine (all is clutter free), Standardised (the same protocols apply to everybody), and Sustained (the changes made must be carried on). Practitioners present lean as a radical departure for space management (eg, Tapping & Dunn, 2006). Closer examination, however, shows that Japanese manufacturing follows its roots back to the prescriptive theory of Scientific Management popularized by Frederick Taylor in the early years of the last century. Like Taylorism, Lean defines “one best way” for organising workers and Taylor explains every one of Lean’s 5Ss in his book published in 1911. The clean desk the fundamental component of a ‘shining’ office was popularised by the Steelcase Modern Efficiency Desk in 1915. Given unchanging methodology, it should not come as a shock that the
www.pm-select.co.uk l september 2010 l Property Management Select l 19
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