The Ogilvy & Mather Office has a variety of places to work Picture: Future of Work
The
Office has seen a number of transformations over the past thirty years.
The cubicle farm of the 1980s, fraught with privacy issues and
distractions, eventually broke down its walls to make people feel more
accessible and lessen these distractions. The detest of the cubicle farm
led to its exact opposite, the open plan office. Just destroying
the cubicle walls as a solution for distracted employees and a lack of
transparency meant a number of new flaws itself. Studies have shown that
people (especially introverts) find the open plan office can actually hinder or intimidate lowering productivity and teamwork, and more
often than not, other people are a significant source of distraction.
The approach to the office space of 2015, which has been favoured
by nimble startups such as Dropbox and even huge corporations such
as Google, is the idea of ‘Activity Based Working’ (ABW). ABW is a
style of working which is team-oriented and allows for a significant
degree of flexibility for workers. There is no fixed desk for any
individuals, who position themselves wherever they like within the
office depending on their preference and work from laptops.
Why
are office architects designing in this way? Steven Hodder, president
of the Riba and chairman of Hodder and Partners Architects, put it this
way - "The idea that the desk is a unit of productivity is changing
very, very rapidly. Your productivity is not measured by the amount of
time you sit behind a thing called a desk. It is what you do. It is
about your output.”
Open,
fluid spaces means people can sit themselves where they would like
depending on their mood that day: stressful project due tomorrow?
Private booth it is today. Creative brainstorming of a product needed?
The beanbags near the kitchen it is.
This
concept of ABW is beginning to be more freely accessible as technology
progresses: we are no longer confined to landlines plugged into a single
person’s desk. Computer software means the same level of communication
can easily be achieved wherever a person has their laptop.
When
you go to ABW, however, you lose the idea of 'your own space' in the
office: having your pictures on your wall, your snacks in your desk
drawer, your favourite pens on your desk. In ABW, you personalise
your environment to suit your personality. This is a look beyond
technology which often, and mistakenly so, mediates communications. Going to a pure digital world is often a fallacy, and overlooks the joy we get from physical spaces and objects, which is why the importance of human interaction is so vital to the modern office.
And
so, most importantly, this kind of fluid space takes full advantage of a
team atmosphere by providing designated spaces for interaction and
collaboration. As Steven Hodder put it, “there are great stories of
researchers having incidental space and just bumping into one another
and having ideas.” Anchor points, for planned or accidental
meetings, are key to harnessing and encouraging innovative team
thinking. Collaborative technology like digital tables are designed
specifically for this purpose, to achieve a real, dynamic and
interactive activity based work space, to enhance collaboration and communication instead of controlling it.
ABW
is an exciting next step for offices moving to a social, collaborative
approach to work. AB provides more productive employees, which is good
for business, and happier, more satisfied employees meaning a better
outcome for everyone.
To learn more about collaborative technology, visit nsquaredsolutions.com or follow nsquared on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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