What type of office design is best for productivity and engagement? Today, this common question tends to have two distinct answers. On the one hand are the tech start-ups, who advocate for open office plans that emphasize chance encounters. Google’s new campus is designed to maximize chance encounters, and Facebook’s new headquarters https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/22/nap-pods-and-rooftop-parks-how-silicon-valley-is-reinventing-the-office. Samsung is also exploring the use of more outdoor space to encourage employee conversation. As Scott Birnbaum, vice president of Samsung, https://hbr.org/2014/10/workspaces-that-move-people, “The most creative ideas aren’t going to come while sitting in front of your monitor.” Their new building “is really designed to spark not just collaboration but that innovation you see when people collide.”
On the other hand is research about people’s preferences, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413000340 that, according to its authors, “categorically contradict[s] the industry-accepted wisdom that open-plan layout enhances communication between colleagues and improves occupants.” Another study demonstrated that the noise resulting from open office designs https://hbr.org/2015/03/stop-noise-from-ruining-your-open-office.
https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-microsoft-used-an-office-move-to-boost-collaboration
This article is written by Chantrelle Nielsen and originally appeared on October 11 2016 in https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-microsoft-used-an-office-move-to-boost-collaboration.
