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| My company's "Workplace of the Future" office layout |
Last week I was on a conference call via my computer headset at my desk, a common “multi-tasking” activity that allows me to continue working when the conversation doesn’t involve me. However, my office that day was particularly boisterous and a client on the call asked if I could shut my conference room door. Embarrassed, I immediately muted my speaker and continued to listen in. Yet, I found it increasingly difficult to follow the conversation because of the noise of several other conversations going on in the office. I cupped my hands around my ears to press the headphones closer and drown out the noise, but it was no use. A few minutes later, our Human Resources Manager stopped by to introduce a new hire, but I pointed to my headphones and mouthed that I was on a call so that she understood why I couldn’t answer. Between the distractions and the noise, I became frustrated and upset by my inability to do this simple task, a phone call, from my desk and cursed our “Workplace of the Future” open office environment for draining my ability to pay attention.
Few years ago the company I work for, an Architecture and Engineering firm, rolled out a new design concept for re-thinking our office space which it called “Workplace of the Future.” Following the lead of tech companies, this concept involved a more visually open workplace where employees sat next to each other in a bench arrangement rather than being cordoned off into offices or cubicles. Our individual work stations also got smaller in size which was justified by providing more collaboration space such as formal and informal meeting rooms. The intent was that by reducing physical barriers and personal space, employees would be encouraged to collaborate more and exchange ideas. However, this environment also has serious repercussions related to employee’s directed attention and overall morale.
Directed Attention is the mental effort exerted to focus attention and manage our thoughts. The opposite of Voluntary Fascination which is intrinsic and automatic, directed attention requires real energy and mental resources which are depleted as they are used. Our modern workplace requires directed attention whenever we do something that isn’t inherently fascinating, which unfortunately is more often than not the bulk of one’s time. Especially when you consider that modern workplaces require us to be productive for an almost continuous 9 hours a day (depending on whether you are the minority that takes lunch breaks), this is a seriously draining environment for our mental processes.
However, I argue that the open workplace exacerbates the level of effort needed to achieve even the most basic tasks, as it creates more distractions by limiting barriers to noise and encouraging casual conversations. Without having a private office door, it also limits the ability for individuals to signal to others when they are available to talk and when they aren’t. Thus, it is all too easy for a colleague to stop by your desk when they happen to be walking by, or even just make a passing comment about something on your computer screen, and create a distraction that mentally pulls one away from their work. Introverts or those with attention disorders likely find this environment particularly taxing. Short of working exclusively from a conference room, one is forced to deal with an onslaught of audible and visual stimuli beckoning your attention away from the task that already involves considerable effort to focus on. The brain must use considerable effort to suppress this stimulus by inhibiting the brain’s attention mechanisms. The result of overusing this mental effort is Directed Attention Fatigue (DAF) where one is unable to focus and performance drops while irritability and frustration increases. All of which are undesirable consequences for employee productivity and morale.
In summary, while the open “Workplace of the Future” model has admirable goals for improving employee collaboration, it has inadvertently hurt worker productivity by creating an environment that taxes the ability for employees to focus. Thus, a new model for workplace design should incorporate the findings of Behavioral Psychology to provide quiet, private places for employees to focus on tasks while still providing the option to seek out areas for collaboration. I can only hope that my “Workplace of the Future” has a very short future before the next evolution of design thinking catches up to science.
Your post made me ask myself: do I even like to work with people in group settings? What is there to enjoy about working in collaborative "open" workplaces? In terms of technical assignments, from an efficiency standpoint, I do most of my focused work in a solitary, quiet, well-lit environment. My focused activities, such as writing, statistics, and grading, are significantly hindered in group environments. For example, the blog response I currently write in my room, could not be written in tandem with another person. The open-workplace adds an assumption onto work, which is that we are more inclined to exchange ideas, create friendships, and add a social component to the workplace. Though these aspirations increase morale, and are admittedly enjoyable, they are not necessary or even efficient. Work environments are for work, and I think it is necessary to create a hard binary to emphasize that when we are not "at work" we are meant to detach from the stress of working. So, I agree with your observations about the drawbacks of the open-office in terms of DAF to suppress the involuntary fascination of others, though I am open to hearing evidence in support of the phenomenon.
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree that open workplace can increase the demands for direct attention. There are so many involuntary fascinations out there that we need to really focus on what we are doing. Otherwise, we will be attracted by those fascinating stimuli. As we know now, directed attention is like a kind of resource. It is finite and fatigable. When we overuse it to inhibit competing activities, the capacity to direct attention may fatigue. As a result, we may function unsuccessfully even we are just doing a simple task like a phone call. That is, open workplace unnecessarily cost a lot of directed attention, which makes it an unfavorable working environment.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on the other side, it may provide some restorative opportunities for us. ART (Attention Restoration Theory) indicates that restoration can occur in a setting that evokes fascination. For example, ordinary natural settings could evoke soft fascination and entertainment or sports settings can evoke hard fascination. Open workplace may be more likely to evoke those two fascinations for employees compared to private cubic working place. As showed in the picture, the open workplace has large windows. Between tasks, we can only look outside for a while. It can be a good experience for the recovery of directed attention and/or the opportunity for serious reflection. Besides, when we operate in such an open workplace, it is just like an entertainment environment. It is fun to look at what your partners are doing. Or you may be inspired by the collaboration happening in that environment.
I do not want to draw a conclusion that open office environment is good or bad. What I want to say is that sometimes we can just change a little to make a difference. For example, in this case, we can take advantage of it for restorative experience and at the same time try to avoid unnecessary cost of direct attention resource by adding some plants in the settings as a barrier against noise or interruption.
It is great to see diverse views regarding the open office plan. In my opinion, choosing one solution might not be practical because work activities in an office building usually vary between some that require individual work anther involve group work. Each has different environmental requirements; such as the acoustical needs, and when the existing environment does not match the activity, it results in more consumption of direct attention.
ReplyDeleteBlesser et al. in their book “Spaces Speak, Are You listening?” defined a term called “acoustic arena” as the “the region where listeners are part of community shares the ability to hear a sonic event”. Then he mentioned that there are two types of arenas; public and private acoustic arenas. An example is when you set in your office with the door or window open, so you can hear what is happening in the next room. In this case, you are in the public acoustic arena, and when you close the door and the window you are in the private arena.
Connecting this with the activity requirement, a person will need to be in the private arena while working in an individual task, and in the public arena while brainstorming with colleagues. To achieve that, a flexible work space can be designed to respond to the activity requirement.
An example is the edge office building in Australia in which there is no designated office area for each employee. The work space contains different work environments that range from private offices to open spaces, and each employee is assigned to a different space daily or weekly depending on the daily tasks. The following video shows of how the system works:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-23/see-the-world-s-greenest-office-building-the-edge
References:
Blesser, B., Salter, L. (2006). Spaces speak, are you listening?: experiencing aural architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
I agree with Alaa that there is not a unique design that fits every type of office environment and i think the open office setup has some merits for particular types of jobs (though the name that your company chose has no merits: "Workplace of the future" what a cheesy and pompous name!).
ReplyDeleteJobs that require working with datasheets, communicating with clients and report writing are better performed in secluded and quiet environments because they require a lot of directed attention. Works that require creativity, like graphic design, could benefit from open office settings because the distractions and inputs from coworkers instead of distracting might be helpful to come up with new ideas.
Bottom line: your company probably had a few good reasons for this open office setup, because architecture needs creativity but they were wrong in thinking that the setup makes sense for an architecture and engineering firm. Workers from those kinds of companies don't spend much time designing: they spend much more time doing traditional office work so they should have probably kept the old setup and assign a room or a little space for creative processes.
I definitely agree with the attention problems of open place office space. It becomes even frustrating when we realize that many times changes to these "workplaces of future" are sometimes only tools to save money because open place office requires significantly lower area compared to other models. But at the same time results of studies have shown that office space is really what it is supposed to do: bringing employees together. Innovation is a key in tech companies and management studies overwhelmingly suggest that innovation cannot be the work of a genius sitting in a room, but work of a group who share existing ideas to find new solutions. Thus, we probably will only see the rise of open plan in the next few years. However, how can we design open office spaces to prevent attention fatigue? One solution is known as activity-based workplace which offers multiple spaces for different activities. One major problem with activity-based workplace is that employees often struggle to find rooms that they need. For instance, at certain times, demand for quiet workspaces might be more than capacity. However, with smart solutions these problems can be solved. For instance, WeWork a coworking company, is using machine learning algorithms to learn the habits of employees and to plan more properly for reconfiguration of spaces. On the other hand, in activity-based offices, employees do not have a designated desk and all areas are shared which can negatively impact the sense of belonging in organization. I think this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed by organizations. However, we all should be ready for open workplaces and find solution to solve the attention-fatigue problem.
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