Collaborative workplaces have become the new standard for companies and are synonymous with high performance and innovation. In office design, collaborative workplace cultures are supported by an open office layout that encourages employee interaction. But is that layout right for every organization, and does it always produce beneficial results?
Collaborative Design Isn't That Simple
As defined by Webster, collaboration is “work[ing] jointly with others, especially in an intellectual endeavor,” and goes hand-in-hand with the exchange of ideas and communication. For most 21st-century organizations, collaboration and communication are necessary, even essential, components of a company culture, especially one that values entrepreneurship, innovation, progress, and success. (There are always questions about whether a competitive organizational culture is more effective than one that is collaborative, but we will save that for another blog.)
So the question isn’t whether these values are important but how they are accommodated in today’s open office layout. It would seem that the easy answer for an organization that wants to encourage collaboration among its employees is to implement an office layout that is as open as possible, with few or no private offices and cubicles and plenty of spaces that emphasize the culture of working together and internal mobility.
But I don’t think collaboration or open office design is that simple. Available office layouts create an obligation to collaborate based entirely on management expectations rather than employee practices and preferences. This obligation may not provide the best environment and solutions for the organization.
Let me rephrase it if I’ve made anyone gasp out loud with that last statement (especially my fellow architects who are avidly embracing the new open office designs). An open office layout without the appropriate balance of collaborative and concentrative spaces creates an unreasonable obligation that could stifle productivity and lower employee morale.
It Worked for Me
Most of us, including me, aren’t geniuses. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve developed many brilliant ideas throughout my career. But some (okay, most) of my best ideas have resulted from collaboration with my co-workers. I recall sitting alone in my college dorm room, working on architectural challenges, bouncing my thoughts off my fellow students in the design studio lounge, and refining and polishing my work.
This process played out repeatedly as I moved through the various stages of my career. Architectural ideas individually generated in my enclosed office were refined collaboratively with electrical and mechanical engineers in the drafting room. This pattern worked very well for me: concentration balanced with an opportunity for collaboration (not to mention the added benefit of producing brilliant ideas).
The Value of Providing an Opportunity for Collaboration in an Office Layout
When designing collaboration-oriented open office layouts for clients, I always consider the potential for the layout to contribute to positive employee interaction – providing an opportunity for both planned and spontaneous collaboration.
Neil Howe notes some positive aspects of the collaborative open office layout in a Forbes online article:
Many consider open offices a less stuffy alternative to cubicle life. In theory, this design promotes transparency and fairness: Fewer walls and doors make management seem more approachable and encourage information to flow freely. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg famously applied this model to City Hall, creating “the Bullpen” to promote openness and communication. Meanwhile, the ubiquity of open offices among Silicon Valley titans—Google, Facebook, eBay, and Yahoo! among them—has made the design shorthand for free-wheeling, innovative enterprises where ideas can be exchanged on the fly.
A recent article in Fortune magazine paints an even more idyllic outcome, “By tearing down literal barriers, the thought was that creativity and productivity would skyrocket.”
But despite these benefits, I still have some questions. Are these spaces that will be filled with people and bustling with activity also suitable for concentration? Could I generate a good idea in the middle of this space? What if I had no private space at all?
Most importantly, does the space make collaboration an opportunity or an obligation?
Organizations … and Individuals … are Different
I don’t necessarily agree with the recent backlash against open offices, although if you follow design trends, there’s no shortage of criticism. My favorite quote about why open offices are bad is from a December 2014 article in the Washington Post titled Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace. The author writes, “Our new, modern office was beautifully airy yet remarkably oppressive. Nothing was private. On the first day, I sat at the table assigned to our department next to a nice woman whom I suspect was an air horn in a former life.”
Another favorite quote is from a 2015 article in Bloomberg that described working in the open office as “being forced to listen to phone calls about the veterinary issues of your co-workers’ cats.” (I’ll have to remember Most Memorable Overheard Office Phone Conversations as a topic for a future blog.)
Organizations differ. Their goals and objectives vary. Their corporate cultures and ways of doing business differ. The work practices of their employees differ. Why, then, shouldn’t their office environments also differ?
Some organizations require a high degree of face-to-face collaboration to achieve success. Some require more individually focused efforts to produce results. Others have highly mobile employees who don’t need dedicated offices because they aren’t in the office much. Still, other organizations where employees aren’t as mobile require just the opposite regarding private spaces.
It’s equally important to remember that just as organizations are different, so are employees. Individuals have, well, individual preferences about how they prefer to work and what type of office layout environment is best suited to maximize their productivity and effectiveness.
Where to Start
So, what do you think the answer is? How do you effectively balance the management objective of encouraging collaboration while respecting the needs of individual employees and the organization's culture, especially with the appeal of the many sexy designs and layouts that have been splashed across the pages of architectural publications in recent years? The answer to that question can be summarized in one word – balance.
There is an effective way to identify the right blend of office layout spaces that provides an appropriate workspace balance for a specific organization. However, to avoid forced collaboration, where an impressive new design results in employees feeling as though they are obligated to work together, the solution is the right balance of spaces that accommodates both collaboration and concentration. (That and not calling the vet during work hours or within earshot of your co-workers.) We will present a method to balance collaborative and concentrative spaces in the future.
