Open offices failed. How can we prevent the work-from-home revolution from having the same fate?
By: Natasha Hawryluk
Tags: WFH, HR, Design, Organizational Culture, Office

Open offices failed. How can we prevent the work-from-home revolution from having the same fate?

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash

November 2020 was for many of us the beginning of the second lockdown. A softer lockdown however, with the lessons learned in March 2020’s lockdown firmly in hand.

This time we had learned: Facetime is not necessary for productivity. Remote work is actually possible for 40% of workers. Digitalization, cloud storage and Zoom calls make the workday possible with less time wasted on commuting and theoretically, more time for everything outside of work.

Or that is what we thought.

In reality, the work day is now 2–3 hours longer than before COVID-19. We have discovered that we are in more Zoom calls than ever before, and that this is tiring, serendipitous encounters happen less frequently when there is no proverbial water-cooler, that juggling home office and childcare does not work as thought, virtual meetings are often “awkward” and we get easily distracted in them.

Some of these grievances sound familiar. That’s because we went through a workplace revolution already. We went from a standard of cubicles and closed doors to 70% of US offices being open space. Just like our transition to remote work as the new standard model, the transition to open-space offices was rife with issues.

Research on office design found that when open space offices were introduced, face to face communication decreased up to 70% while chat and email communication increased. Employees complained that open offices were loud, it was hard to focus and they lacked privacy. Observational data from Denmark found that employees in open offices took 62% more sick days than those in single-person offices. In a review of 100+ studies on office design, open offices were found to negatively affect attention spans, concentration levels, creative thinking, productivity and job satisfaction. Furthermore, employees had higher stress levels.

Open space offices had mostly failed to honor their promised boosts in innovation, creativity and employee satisfaction.

How we can ensure that the remote work does not follow in the footsteps of the failed open space office?

We should look at configuring work from home (WfH) offices like any other design project: Start with a design system and outline must-have design principles. Take for example these inclusive design principles:

Provide comparable experience Consider the situation Be consistent Offer choice Give control Add value Comparable experience

The problem with open space is that many office workers went from single offices to no walls at all. The change was drastic. People hated open offices from the get go.

To avoid a similar sentiment, employers today should ask themselves what is the smallest change that could offer a comparable experience to the office? An easy way to accomplish this is to ask. Ask employees what is missing. Is it a second or third monitor for data-heavy roles? Is it access to securely stored (paper) files for legal roles?

Investigate internally what’s missing, and provide solutions that model a similar experience. For example, a small change is to provide PC users with a wireless mouse to improve comfort.

2. Consider the situation

The examples above outline an important caveat that open space office designers failed to consider: Not all jobs are created equal and can be serviced by the same model. HR roles or legal roles require privacy, hence why open space offices fail them, and in WfM models, they may still require access to secure documents stored on-site. Here’s where the value of hybrid work models come into play to appease the situational factors of our work.

But it’s not just work roles that employers should consider. It is also the roles that people have in their life. For example, years of research has shown that remote work can help mothers balance work and family responsibilities more effectively. For fathers, WfH also helps them get more involved in family responsibilities and housework. To accommodate, I’ve heard from interviewing colleagues that a solution can be as simple as setting team guidelines for when the earliest and latest meetings are to be scheduled.

3. Be consistent

The design principle of consistency refers to the idea that familiar conventions should be applied consistently whenever possible. Consistency is not the hallmark of the open office — take for example the executives who refuse to give up their private offices in trade for an otherwise org-wide hot desking policy or the inconsistent use of meeting room booking systems.

For the WfH future, think about bringing back consistency. If Friday after work was the previously reliable social activity for employees, consider how a similar event could be organised that does not rouse the dread of “yet another Zoom cocktail event” that many employees experience now. In my experience, the key to an engaging Zoom team event is to them somehow personal e.g. create a jeopardy game using fun facts from the team members or asking them to share their favorite memories over the last months about a teammate.

4. Offer choice

Open space offices promised employees choice — where they would work. The problem though is that there were not enough phone booths for private phone calls nor not enough quiet work areas. Similarly few too many offices enacted “office rules” that could have significantly improve the open space experience (e.g. discouraging “sad desk lunches” or outlining that calls must be taken from a phone booth and not a shared desk).

In a WfH future, provide employees with the choice when they come to the office, how they configure their hybrid office system, what they can pick and choose as infrastructure for their home office and so forth. At the same time, make it clear what expectations the organization has for the future of WfH. Is it expected that all calls always have the video on? Is it expected that employees come at least once a week to the office? Outlining these “rules” from the beginning creates a lot less confusion from the beginning and providing choice helps decrease resistance to change.

5. Give control

Similar to offering choice, organizations must give employees the power to choose their preferred way to work.

Some employees will opt to continue working 100% from home, others will prefer to only do one day a week. The younger generation is demanding more and more flexibility to be able to work from anywhere (WfA), not just WfH. Provide the framework to make this a possibility and give employees the control to tailor it to their needs.

6. Add value

At the end of the day, the organization aims to create value for its stakeholders. Its largest stakeholder is the workforce. Employees expect that they are valued in return for their work. In cash strapped organizations, gifts can be seen as inauthentic and counterproductive. The most money-wise way to show someone is valued is to get them in conversation. Try for example, focus groups to improve WfH offices for a variety of roles and geographical locations.

Employees globally are telling us now that the social element is what many miss the most from their previous office-centered work lives. Employers should therefore look at ways to transform the office as the primary place for community building, collaboration and bonding in time for offices to reopen.

I hope you find this framework helpful for thinking about how the future of WfH will look. Do you have an idea for one of the design principles? Share it in the comments.