The late ‘80s, early ‘90s vision of free-range workplaces didn’t work quite the way the era’s design visionaries expected. Employees eventually learned, once the novelty wore off, that they still wanted privacy for certain activities.
“Over the past 20 years, we moved from private offices to tall cubicle panels to low divider walls to benching and tables,” said Katie Ostreko, director of marketing and product development at izzy+. “And we’re seeing employees pushing back against the ‘theory’ that totally open spaces will improve collaboration and, therefore, work will become more efficient and innovative and people will feel more engaged.”
As research and news reports consistently show, this ‘theory’ falls flat. People work in different ways. While some like the noise and chaos of open spaces, others need private, quiet areas to concentrate. But they don’t want to sacrifice one for the other. They want it all. And companies are trying to give that to them while also looking toward the future.
“The pendulum tends to swing back and forth to settle into a happy, medium ground,” noted Jon Strassner, Humanscale’s director of workplace strategy. “This is where the hybrid approach fits in.”
The fervent open-office trend from 20 to 25 years ago did break down the sanctity of the private office and set into motion today’s concept of this hybrid workplace – one where private spaces for confidential and quiet work effortlessly combine with collaboratively-focused areas. Today’s offices focus on workers’ needs, giving them areas where they can have both “me” and “we” time. And, as designers say, this choice will only become more important in the future – 2018 and beyond.
The recent Capital One Work Environment Survey of 500 professional office workers in five major markets (Chicago, Dallas, New York City, San Francisco and Washington) touches on this point in its findings. 44% of respondents to the survey administered by Wakefield Research said their current companies offer relaxation and social spaces as a main benefit, while 32% said quiet, reflective spaces were a main workplace benefit.
As Sean Wayne, AIA, IIDA, LEED AP, principal and director of interior design at Hickcok Cole in Washington, sees it, companies expect today’s workplace to perform at high levels and do more than ever in less space. This is a trend that will continue to expand over time.
“The workplace is being asked to reduce real estate costs, increase communication and connection within the organization, support their employees’ mental, physical and emotional health, stimulate innovation and creativity, and even help them lose weight,” he says.
And it comes down to focusing on the needs of the individual and accommodating choice and variety within the office’s overall landscape. Each workplace has different employees with different work styles and needs.
“It really is more about choice,” said Andie Moeder, WELL AP, regional leader for consulting in HOK’s New York office. “Today’s office design isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.. “Companies are appropriating less space to the individual and more to collaborative areas to create activity-based environments.”
Neither of these work areas is going away. Instead furniture manufacturers and designers are seeing increasing customer demand for spaces outside the individual offices where people can be alone to concentrate or come together to collaborate.
Respondents in the Capital One survey stressed the idea of flexible workspaces more than once in the study. 85% of those professionals said they believe flexible workplace design is a must. 82% indicated they get their “best ideas” when flexible space options are available to them.
But, as experts point out, while reducing private offices in favor of increasing these flexible, open spaces, you also still need to account for privacy and acoustics. In the old open office model, noise levels drove employees wanting to focus out of the office to work – perhaps to a conference room inside the workplace or offsite to a coffee house, or even home because the space didn’t give them the right environment to engage and do productive work.
Inadequate acoustics and distractions received commentary from respondents in Stegmeier Consulting Group’s State of the Open Office Research Study, launched at NeoCon 2015 and concluding in January 2016. The global base of nearly 500 participants across a variety of business sectors had hesitations about the idea of an open office format. While 21% had “no concerns” about this workplace design, 33% worried about audible distractions, 25% cited concerns about lack of audible privacy, and 8% indicated worries about lack of visual privacy.
“The need for visual and acoustic privacy is one of the driving factors in the design of the workplace,” Mr. Wayne noted. “This is accomplished by providing both open and closed spaces, as well as spaces of various sizes and function.”
As Mr. Strasser at Humanscale sees it, the open space approach works only when it’s properly applied.
“Every open office that fails, fails because the application has been incomplete,” he said. “Employees can acclimate to open-office design as long as you provide them with areas to have private conversations and account for the noise level that will be reached with everyone talking in the same open office.”
It’s about user experience, or in tech speak: UX.
To achieve a perfect UX that addresses acoustic and visual privacy with spaces for groupthink and connecting, human-centric solutions that step away from what Ms. Moeder calls “corporatality” are the things that make spaces unique for workers and customers.
“You want them to have a reason to come into the office,” she said. “Think of a house. It has a living room, office, kitchen and different sets of furniture. That’s how companies are driving individual creativity and spark. Furniture manufacturers are bringing in different solutions that are residential-minded but still follow the codes and guidelines to perform in a corporate environment.”
So, the answer to the question isn’t necessarily private vs. open or benching vs. workstations vs. closed-door offices, but more about creating inviting new hybrid environments that make inhabitants want to be there and to do their best work in a way that works for them. The most successful designs are not 100% open but are exceptionally flexible. The need for flexibility and choice will only grow in the corporate interiors sector.
“Employees want to be nimble,” said Mr. Strasser. “They don’t want to be tied into cubicles or offices where they feel alone. Furniture needs to accommodate the user, not the other way around. People want furniture that can help them move around and reconfigure their teams.”
Today’s desking arrangements feature panels high enough to provide seating privacy but low enough to encourage visual connection when inhabitants stand. As Ms. Ostreko at Izzy+ noted, customers are offering one-person spaces that workers can use if they need to do heads-down work. And, they are increasingly softening private and shared spaces, adding increased personalization and customization that appeals at an individual level rather than a corporate one.
“[They] will need to let go of the control, standards and cost-optimization that comes from thinking in the one-size-fits-all mentality for individual workstations,” said Ms. Ostreko. “Why not allow people to create an individual space that works for them and have other spaces throughout a facility they can utilize to increase overall engagement, collaboration and productivity?”
In the future, smaller footprints, increased real estate costs and technology will continue to shape the people-driven workplace.
Mobile technology and data have changed how people want to work, and they should also drive office designs of the future. Designers and furniture manufacturers need to keep thinking about how they can make workplaces more nimble for the way people work now and how they likely will want to work tomorrow, anticipating new technologies and new corporate culture trends.
People will continue to want to work more remotely, at least part of the time, and not always be tied to a workstation. This push will continue to reduce the need for private offices and instead make the concept of shared offices and hoteling with online reservation systems even more of a reality.
Less space devoted to the traditional large private office means more opportunities to create spaces people can share in different ways.
“We need to create spaces that allow for two vital beings to coexist: technology and people,” Mr. Strassner said. “You can provide all the pretty furniture imaginable, with sofas and neat lounges, but if you aren’t facilitating the relationships between employees and technologies, you are failing to design for work. This hybrid approach gives employees a choice.”
Cleveland-based writer Robin Linn has been covering A&D and commercial facilities trends and news for nearly 25 years.