Here’s an office trend I’m not completely buying into: shared, collaborative workspaces.
I get the upside to it, and I agree with the general thinking behind it — mostly — as articulated in this Wall Street Journal story titled “Can’t Afford an Office? Rent a Desk for $275.” As a longtime manager and executive who frequently had a closed door office, I regularly came out and sat at an open spot in the middle of the staff because it plugged me into what they were doing and thinking, and, it looped me into their conversations.
This was a good thing for both me and them. I got closer to the issues and concerns they were dealing with, and sometimes, I could head issues off before they ballooned out of proportion. They, in turn, could engage me in a more causal conversation that might have been more difficult to have in the more formal confines of my closed door office.
Yes, it’s generally all good working in an open and collaborative space — until you need to make (or take) that private phone call or have that personal chat. This is an issue that the Journal story completely ignores as they sing the praises of collaborative space, but it was always an issue for me that was hard to get around.
When I had a closed-door office, I could always run in there to take or make the phone call, so that wasn’t a big deal. But at the times I had no closed door office to retreat to (like at that famous Internet era dotcom in San Francisco, or that workplace magazine that was run by a company that didn’t understand some basic principles about building a good workplace), I was stuck.
I know, I know; that’s what shared conference rooms are for. Well, that only works at times, because you’re out of luck if the conference rooms are full or have been previously scheduled.
And what if you get a call at your desk in the collaborative workspace that doesn’t start out to be private but turns to matters best discussed in private somewhere in the middle of he conversation? Do you say, “hold that thought” as you scramble to find an open conference room you can transfer the call to? What if you can’t?
Or, what if you just inadvertently chatter away, wrapped up in the conversation and oblivious to the open workspace? What if you do that and end up giving your collaborative co-workers an earful of something they shouldn’t be hearing about or listening to?
Take it from me, these are some of the very real problems you have with collaborative space work, and I have experienced all of them, and more.
I used to complain about the lack of a private office to my boss when I was editing that workplace magazine, and he always pooh-poohed or outright dismissed my concerns. Of course, HE never had to work in a collaborative space because HE had a private office to use when he need to make a private phone call or have a sensitive conversation. Because it wasn’t a problem for him, he was completely unable (or more likely, unwilling) to recognize it could ever be a problem for somebody else.
Collaborative workspaces are generally good for building camaraderie, teamwork, and shared sacrifice. But, they have some big downsides as well — something that gushing story in The Wall Street Journal fails to point out.
They are a workplace tool, and like all tools, are only useful if you apply them to the right job and situation. Yes, hammers are great, but they aren’t all that helpful if you need to tighten screws. So it is, too, with collaborative workspaces. They are a limited tool for some workplaces, but they may not be something that works for you.
Of course, there’s more than the debate over collaborative offices in the news this week. Here are some other HR and workplace-related items you may have missed. This is TLNT’s weekly round-up of news, trends, and insights from the world of HR and talent management. I do it so you don’t have to.
