Office Design – Enclosed Offices vs. Cube Farm

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Office Types:

  • Enclosed Offices
  • Open Space Concept
  • Cubicle Farms
  • Alternative

Why Getting Out of Offices is Great:

  • More and better communication amongst team members
  • More direct contact – you end up knowing people better
  • Space can be modified quickly and easily
  • Usually people have more access to natural light
  • Some companies have found it reduces cost because you can put more cubes per floor than offices. (Cisco reduced costs by 37%)
  • It’s harder for employees to slack off

Why it Sucks:

  • Reinforces negative notions of hierarchy when some are in cubes, and others in offices
  • It’s not possible to close a door for privacy
  • Meeting in your “office” is more difficult
  • Constant noise and disturbances
  • To do it well, isn’t really any cheaper than building offices
  • It lowers morale and productivity
  • Unless the work environment requires a high level of interaction with others, the lack of privacy is a distraction that negatively impacts productivity
Making it Work:
  • Over communicate any office-space change.  This is a very big deal to people
  • Be very clear about your reasons for making a change, and make sure you consider the pro’s and con’s
  • You need much more meeting space in an open concept than with offices
  • Hire someone to help you through the transition
  • Ensure white-noise
  • If you go open – everyone must go, from the CEO on down
  • Research it well – there is no shortage of information arguing both for and against open office space

One Solution:

  • If employees spend the majority of their time working individually, put them in offices
  • If employees spend a great deal of time collaborating, put them in an open office configuration.  Perhaps in offices of four to eight people.
  • If you want you employees to spend most of their time reading Dilbert, put them in cubicles.

Last Word from Robert Probst:

  • Before his death, the inventor of the cubicle apologized for his contribution to “monolithic insanity”

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