03 May New Trend in Offices? No Offices? No Cubicles? No Doors?
Have you heard that newest style of office is the No Office? No cubicles, no doors. Instead employees will have lockers for their things and they will grab a chair at a table or desk – like a library and share space with their fellow employees. Best “seats in the room” are first- come- first- grabbed. A whole new etiquette to conform to for experts like me to outline for clients. Do you think this will fly in today’s office? How about tomorrow’s?
I posed this question on my FACEBOOK page and these are some of the responses I received:
- ….I can see that working in some creative fields perhaps where collaboration is key. But I can also imagine fields where it would not work at all
- My brother Mike works at an office like that. He is a “software architect” and does a lot of collaborative stuff that I don’t understand. Sounds like that setup is appropriate for both the type of work his company does and the personality of his colleagues. They use laptops mostly and don’t have company phones. For my type of work, and for the folks I work around, that kind of setup would be difficult.
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Call me old fashioned, but I like a little spot to call my own.
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Cynthia Lett response -“But Cath – in what you do, what if they took the walls away and this was the way it was – with conference rooms for the really delicate conversations? How do you think that would change the workplace dynamic?”
Paul B. responded: “People would transition their smack-talking to IMs and email…” -
Interesting point, Paul. That definitely wouldn’t improve, it would just find another outlet, just a less audible one and an accountable one. An outlet that never can be deleted and can be dragged into court if necessary.