Office Space Advice
The pendulum swings again: the open office space design
Published November 3rd, 2008 by Mike Sullivan
It seems that every so often, experiments in open office designs begin anew. In the past few years, there has been a swing back to looking at how to improve teamwork and morale by using open offices. Some research has been done that suggests that open offices can provide a positive working environment, improving collaboration and communication.
This research has spawned a number of articles and opinions that companies should move this direction, usually without thought to the nuances of company culture, type of work being performed and how current space is being used.
I have my doubts about the utility of open office space for many companies under many scenarios. I think companies should spend significant time thinking about how to arrange their office before making any rash movements to more open or more closed space.
For this reason, I was happy to recently read an article on how to decide on office space for your company that provides a good list of questions your company should ask itself when deciding on making changes. This is a balanced set of advice that can help your firm make better decisions about office space and can help guide a company not to just create open office space for the sake of open space.
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Elizabeth Sanchez November 11th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I’ve read a lot about open offices. I agree that they inspire communication and collaboration. But this isn’t the solution for every type of company. Architecture firms, advertising agencies, graphic design companies — these are the types of businesses where open offices seem to make sense.
I just can’t see it working as well at an accounting firm, for example, where folks are trying to concentrate on number-crunching during high stress tax season or at law firms where client privacy is needed.
Melanie Jones November 13th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I had a thought as I read this post. What would it look like if Google had an Office Lab? How would Google’s innovative minds change the idea of an office. Google probably already has open offices. But their open offices probably incorporate all sorts of gee-whiz technology that makes it just as easy to work from home. For most companies, open offices probably wouldn’t give people enough privacy or quiet to get their jobs done. But maybe Google can solve that problem too!