The Built Environment and Working Relationships

It seems to have become widely accepted in recent years that open plan offices are the best bet when it comes to building strong team relationships. It is assumed that when everyone in the organisation is seated together in an open environment relationships will naturally improve through greater interaction and the removal of hierarchies.

In September the British Council of Offices (BCO) reported that a growing number of London based businesses were opting for open plan offices to encourage ‘staff interaction and knowledge sharing’. According to Matt Oakley, chair of the BCO research committee, this trend “is a reflection that the whole point of the office and the workplace is about sharing ideas and trying to create new products and new ideas and ways of doing things ... and you don’t get that by shutting people away”.

In my opinion, you don’t get that by shoe-horning sixty people in to one big room either.

Lost in Space
While I wouldn’t advocate any employee being ‘shut away’, organisations need to understand that simply placing people together physically doesn’t make them a team - one big happy family, united in a common goal, with creativity flowing seamlessly around the organisation as working relationships flourish and productivity goes through the roof.

I find when working with clients that the challenges around working relationships are often linked to the physical environment within which they work. Increasingly, the open plan office seems to be the culprit. Employees may be ‘in the buzz‘ but despair at being constantly interrupted by colleagues and so struggling to get anything done. Being constantly ‘on-show’ puts a premium on looking busy. People arrive early or stay late to get the space to concentrate and for self-protection many use headphones and other physical barriers to shut themselves off.

Glass meeting rooms - a dominant feature of the open plan office - create added challenges. Flip charts and PowerPoint presentations with sensitive ideas or confidential information are on view to anyone passing while employee confidentiality may be compromised when private meetings, such as those with managers or HR, take place for all to see. Equally, without any malice intended, certain individuals may want to meet without another colleague present. This becomes virtually impossible without causing unintended offence and creates an unnecessary feeling of exclusion rather than inclusion.

Fit for purpose
All these factors create stress and of course go completely against the open plan’s promise of delivering strong team relationships and a more productive workforce.
Interestingly, attitudes towards best practice when it comes to office design and the associated challenges seem to have come full circle.

In the early 20th century the influence of ‘Taylorism’ saw the emergence of large office spaces with serried ranks of employees doing repetitive work - think Fred McMurray in the 1940s film noir ‘Double Indemnity’ - a pattern that persisted in many a typing pool. This morphed into ‘Burolandschaft’ and into the ‘action office’ concept of renowned designer Robert Propst that favoured a modular layout with people seated in functional clusters and paving the way for the ‘80s style cubicle offices, made famous by the Dilbert cartoon strip.

It seems that with the current emphasis on open plan working we have completed the loop and returned to the ‘Taylorism’ days, although the technology deployed and the nature of work itself has changed significantly.

A 2005 study by CABE (the former Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) explored the notion of a mismatch between an organisation’s purpose and its office environment. The research found that most office moves or refurbishments emphasised design in terms of appearance rather than functionality, with the consequences that the business and its requirements had to be made to fit. The report concluded that instead the design process should start with the business drivers and priorities and evolve from that.

Ain’t nobody here but us chickens
Clearly the cost of office space is a significant issue but to be ‘fit for purpose’ we must not lose sight of the kind of strong working relationships that we need to build. If we treat people like battery hens, they may peck at each other rather than laying the golden eggs.

Fretting about office design might seem like small beer in the day-to-day activities of most companies. However, in a 2003 study by Management Today, 97% of respondents said they regarded their place of work as a symbol of whether or not they were valued by their employer, but only 37% felt their office had been designed ‘with people in mind’.

While home working with its reduced noise and disruption is attractive for some, a YouGov poll of 1000 office workers for BCO published in November found that some 79% of employees still greatly valued the social benefits of working in a communal space – being able to meet colleagues face to face and interact with other employees. However, the research also found that two-thirds voted their personal workspace as a vital element of workplace design, one which had a positive impact on their ability to work efficiently. This comes as organisations increasingly opt to erode desk ownership through open plan office models.

It is ‘business basics’ to most organisations that when people feel valued they are more productive. And the link between productivity and profitability is certainly not an area to be ignored.

Jo Ouston
December 2011

photo: www.officemuseum.com