Are Smart Offices a Good Idea

Many organisations, partly in response to financial constraints, have had to re-think the way in which they run their offices. The concept of 'open offices' has been around since the end of World War 2, when the old German regimented way of doing things, with a strict sense of hierarchy, went out of the window. The idea had been to allow increased opportunities for employee engagement, with a view to generating bigger and better ideas, like an informal brainstorming session.

The success of this way of working has however been mixed, where in an open office where the tendency to discuss last night's football results or the latest X-factor winner, provides a compelling distraction from daily work activities. In addition to this, the attendant background noise can negatively impact on the employee's ability to get down to the daily grind. Likewise, in a sales office for example, long periods of silence can be deafening. A certain background hum is necessary to avoid the embarrassment of conversations being overheard; some companies overcome this by the addition of ‘pink noise’.     

A 2009 report also found that the effects of open office working increases the prevalence of work related stress and high blood pressure. It is interesting to note, that despite an open office environment, it is still senior managers who hog the private corner office, with pleasant views overlooking the nearby park. Perks of the job you might say.

With the influx of immigrants arriving in the UK in the 1970s, and whilst working in Wolverhampton, I became used to the concept of ‘hot beds’, where there was a revolving door policy of shared mattresses in houses with up to 30 occupants; much like bunks on a naval ship.

Welcome to the 21^st century, and the concept of ‘hot desks’, which do allow for more cost effective, flexible working spaces, and increased working from home. The key question for management is how agreeable the environment is. There is also the issue of a shortage of daylight, whether or not the air conditioning or heating should be turned up, policies relating to eating food at the desk, even the sound of the telephone ring tone.

Whilst, cost driven, open plan offices and ‘hot desks’ are now the norm here and the USA, on the continent there has recently been a move away from open offices, with each German worker enjoying an average of 28.2sq.m. of personal space. I would argue that it is more a question of having control over your environment, and not a forced compromise between private and public space. Rather successfully in Switzerland employees are offered a choice of sofas, coffee table areas, libraries and even recliners in which to work. Personally, when working at home I much prefer to sit in bed with my laptop, rather than upright in my office, hence when the postman arrives mid morning and I’m still in my pyjamas, he thinks I’ve only just woken up, not working since 6am.  

Recent research has shown that people want to be able to ‘own’ their workspace; not knowing where you are going to be sitting from one day to the next can be unsettling. In addition to which, if everyone decides to come into work that day, there may well be nowhere to sit. Time to go home then?