Changing Attitudes to Office Space Design

The COVID-19 pandemic has reignited the conversation around flexibility and the balance between open and private office space design. A balance between “me and we” and developing collaborative spaces that support solitude is not something new. The open office is the dominant workplace design because it fosters collaboration, promotes learning and on-the-job coaching, and nurtures a strong culture. Still, to perform highly workers need to spend time equally between focusing and collaboration (45 percent each) and then spend the remaining time equally between learning and socializing.

In an article for the Harvard Business Review by Christine Congdon, Donna Flynn, and Melanie Redman, the authors opine workers need to:

1. Focus alone or in pairs to generate ideas or process information.
2. Come together as a group to build on those ideas or develop a shared point of view.
3. Then they break apart again to take the next steps.

The more demanding the collaboration task is, the more private time individuals need to recharge.

In 1980, Steelcase’s research showed that 85 percent of employees said they needed places to concentrate without distractions, and 52 percent said they lacked such spaces. Employers acted and company real estate developed private spaces for employees. In the 1990s only 23 percent of employees wanted more privacy; 50 percent said they needed more access to other people, and 40 percent wanted more interaction. Again, employers responded by shifting their real estate and the open office became the primary office design around the world.

Since introducing open spaces into company real estate, several generations have joined the workplace. But the COVID-19 pandemic and not age might bring about the biggest change to how we view it. With a lot of workers getting used to working at home and seeing a boost in productivity because of increased focus time, we forecast employees will demand more private spaces.

Currently in the U.S. senior leaders and managers have the highest access to private space within the office. With the COVID-19 pandemic having helped workers understand the importance of focus time and the benefit of productivity and ability to complete tasks, this poses an issue as employees return to work.

A majority of professional, technical, administrative, and support staff find themselves with limited private spaces to use when they need to focus, think, and recharge.

But does this matter? Do people in roles other than leadership need private space within an office and does it affect performance? Research shared before shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers who had more time to focus and effectively balanced in-person and virtual collaboration (i.e. worked in a hybrid model) reported higher rates of job satisfaction and employee experience.

In the U.S. workers surveyed only 2 percent of workspaces are totally private and would want that increased to 13 percent. Most of the current office spaces are open, with 79 percent being a combination of totally open, mostly open, somewhat open, and mostly shared spaces. Of those analyzed, the majority would want these spaces to be slightly more than half the available space (53 percent). With private spaces available in the office increasing by 25 percent.

This trend is repeated in Australian and French workplaces, with workers sharing that they would like to see an increase in private spaces.

Currently, Australian workers have a combined total of 8 percent of totally and mostly private spaces within their offices and would like that increased to 19 percent. French workers currently have a combination of 18 percent and would like it increased to 29 percent. French and Australian workers are working in a workplace that almost aligns to their desired workplace compared to their American counterparts, but there is still some work to be done in developing private spaces for employees.

In his book The Employee Experience Advantage, Jacob Morgan points out that office spaces need to offer the following benefits to workers:

1. Workers can bring in friends or visitors, and there are spaces to host visitors.
2. Offer flexibility, so working from home is an option.
3. The organization’s values are reflected in the various spaces around the office.
4. Workers have options on where to work. There are multiple workspaces within the office depending on the work they are doing.

Beyond helping boost productivity, encouraging collaboration, and improving morale, your office’s physical space could also improve your employer brand. A great office space communicates that you are progressive, interested in adapting to your employee’s needs. And committed to giving them the environment to succeed.

Employee Experience Design is all about creating balance to meet the needs of your employees. While it is impossible to please everyone, HR and leadership departments should use data to help them make the correct decisions.

We are not saying that companies should get rid of open spaces. Especially because the data we have shared before shows that collaboration best happens within an office set up and the benefits of open spaces are many. However, companies need to invest in more private spaces within the office. Individual and private spaces allow employees to focus, recharge, and get work done without interactions.

Companies that do not support hybrid work will need to increase the number of private workstations within the office. Probably working from home does not work for your industry (manufacturing, for example), but your workers will be better off having private spaces.

1. Survey your existing office spaces and see whether there is a need to increase private spaces.
2. Survey your employees and understand how they view their current workspace and what their ideal workspace would look like.
3. Explore how your current real estate can help employees adequately collaborate and focus.