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We don’t want to hinder work; we want to enable it.” Nigel Oseland is workplace consultant at his own business, Workplace Unlimited, and feels there’s often an inherent assumption that individuals and organisations want such collegiate environments. “Architects and designers were brought up working in studios and open-plan environments and I still feel when I’m briefing them that that is their default position,” he says. “But it’s not appropriate for all industries.”
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Quiet revolution? Recent thinking – such as the US lecturer Susan Cain’s 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – has also recognised the importance of providing the correct setting for individuals who may not enjoy the limelight or more social scenarios, he adds. “Introverts have an inclination to do work that is more logical, process-oriented, can be a bit complicated and requires attention to detail,” says Oseland. “They don’t actually like the open-plan, buzzy environments, partly because it distracts them from their work but also because it’s just not their personality. By focusing on open-plan and collaboration spaces we’re ignoring 50 per cent of the working population.” There are, though, cases where more collaborative settings work very well. Monica Parker, head of workplace consultancy at Morgan Lovell, gives the example of National Australia Bank’s new offices in Melbourne Docklands. “It’s probably the finest example of a corporate workplace that I’ve ever seen, taking out Google,” she says. “There are a variety of workspaces, no assigned desks and lots of quiet areas that people can use. The potential
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for performance there is very high. To say open-plan impacts performance is too broad.” The concept works particularly well among younger workers, suggests Roy Parrish, managing director of interior design firm Ranne Creative Interiors. “Generation Y grew up in open-plan offices,” he says. “They aren’t influenced by the hierarchy of private offices because they never knew that world. “Generation Y-ers also go to work to make new friends and
have influenced an increasing socialisation of the workplace,” he adds. “They naturally use collaborative spaces in offices to work, in the same way that they studied in Starbucks, and chatted in college campuses.” By contrast, many older workers, who spent much of their careers in more hierarchical offices, struggle to adapt to the concept, he says. The challenge for organisations – and those tasked with redesigning or modifying office space – as the economy begins to pick up is to identify and
implement the most appropriate working environment for that particular workforce. “The range of different tasks that people have to perform on an ongoing basis can be very different and if you’re going to try and get the maximum out of them, which is primarily what we should be doing, we need to recognise that they need different sorts of space at different times,” says Andrew Mawson, managing director of Advanced Workplace Associates. “Our approach is to say that if we can understand more about www.fm-world.co.uk
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