Collaboration What is the ‘next gen’ workplace?


The idea of a ‘next gen workplace’ is pretty standard, right? Open plan, bookable huddle spaces, meeting rooms with UC links to colleagues and even the car parking and catering reserved remotely?


This has been the predominant trend since the first ‘mod- ern’ office layouts debuted in the 1950s and the supporting technologies emerged in the last 10 years. But have we got it right?


From the dawn of the 20th Century, open plan offices have been a fundamental part of the UK workplace, but the credit for the ideal should probably be attributed to the other side of the Atlantic. In 1906, US architect Frank Lloyd Wright created the first open plan of- fice, creating a space where everyone worked together - just like on the open floor of a facto- ry. Wright designed the Larkin Administration Building in New York, which opened in 1906, to be like an open-plan factory building with few walls. Highly structured designs, with workers sat at lines of desks with managers in offic- es surrounding them, was dis- rupted in Europe in the 1960s, with the development of Buro-


landschaft – office landscap- ing – where staff sat in organic patterns based around lines of communication.


Open plan-plan came to dom- inate as office-based, service jobs assumed a greater impor- tance in the economy and soci- ety. In recent years, workplace design has changed to a point where the desk is no longer seen as the main engine of pro- ductivity. Now, the ‘workplace’ may offer as many as 10 dif- ferent types of spaces to work in – from a fully kitted-out desk or a stand-up bench for quick emails and a chat, to a tele- phone booth for long calls, an office for quiet or confidentiali- ty, meeting pods or a US diner style meeting room.


In the 1980s a further devel-


Framery pods and office phone booths make the workplace happier by reducing noise and distractions, so people can concentrate better and be more productive.


opment saw the introduction of the ‘hot desking’ concept. Allegedly borrowed from the wartime practice of submarine crews sharing their bunks as their watches changed. Move on ten years, and the rise of the ‘office hotel’, where space management is improved cre- ated a wider range of spaces to work in. With advent of col- laborative and meeting room solutions barrier-free or virtual office became a reality.


Productivity


With an estimate 70% (Interna- tional Facility Management As- sociation) of office workers now accommodated in open plan building layouts, the design of the next gen workplace could be considered a done deal. But the purity of the Frank Lloyd Wright concept has been ques- tioned in the light of declining productivity among knowledge workers. The warning shots were fired even before open plan was established as the norm. A British government re- port of 1856 commented: “for the intellectual work, separate rooms are necessary so that a person who works with his head may not be interrupted; but for the more mechanical work, the working in concert of a number of clerks in the same room un- der proper superintendence, is the proper mode of meeting it.” More recent commentators report that open offices don't increase collaboration or make people


more "workers' productive. An


Exeter University study showed they create a 32 percent drop in


well-being" and 15 percent reduction in pro-


ductivity. Furthermore, a study of 10,000 workers funded by Steelcase revealed that "95 percent said working privately was important to them, but only 41 percent said they could do so. 31 percent had to leave the office to get work completed." What are the primary causes of this drop in productivity? Office workers lose an average of 86 minutes per day due to distractions associated with open-plan offices, according to the study funded by Steelcase. A study at Queensland Univer- sity of Technology's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innova- tion found that working in open plan environments "causes high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure, and a high staff turnover," resulting in more sick days. According to The New Yorker, companies with open-plan offices can expect employees to take 62 percent more sick leave.


And in a world where there is a well-entrenched belief that open plan represents a more economical use of expensive office space, it will come as a shock to learn that open plan offices are so detrimental to productivity that they often represent a significant loss. Are these not offset benefits of easy collaboration?


Privacy


The answer here is ‘yes’ but with a number of caveats. The first is the physical flow of vis- itors to the workplace – office workers are often unaware of who they are sharing the work- space with - colleagues, sup- pliers and customers, delivery


Active Noise Cancelling headset – Logitech Zone Wireless uses Easy- Switch technology to connect and switch easily between a smartphone and a computer through Bluetooth or through the Bluetooth dongle


workers or cleaning staff. Next, the lack of privacy often counter- acts the supposed easy collab- oration that open office layouts engender. Some people are shy about public speaking, and oth- ers don’t like asking questions or pitching ideas for fear of provok- ing derision. A study by IPSOS and Steelcase found that privacy is important to 95% of workers. A 2005 study found that the more personal control a person had over their environment, the more content they were with their job.


Despite these issues, open plan workplaces continue to hold sway, with supporters pointing to benefits including: open plan offices offer CAPEX advantag- es’ employers are able to pro-


vide more workspaces and to place more employees in an office:


studies


have shown


that cubicle areas could even be up to 21% smaller with- out affecting productivity; communication is obviously easier between workstations and departments; there is no time wasted between offices because everyone is in the same area; life is easier for supervisors, as everyone is in a single area. On the Opex front, money can be saved on air conditioning and electric- ity. Finally, the office layout can be changed quickly and with minimal effort.


Continued on page 10 AV News July 2019 P13 V News August 2019 P9


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