There has been an ongoing debate around open versus closed office spaces and which one is better. Open offices tend to enable collaboration, yet they are also prone to cause distractions and noise. Closed offices and cubicles tend to allow for more focused work, but they can also be a bit depressing and not encourage collaboration and communication. So which one do you go with?
Unfortunately, all of these debates and arguments around open versus closed offices miss the point entirely. The best office spaces leverage multiple workspace options. UK-based Leesman studied and surveyed over 110,000 people and found that there are actually 21 workplace activities that employees participate in. These range from planned meetings to individual focused work to collaborating to relaxing and taking a break. Clearly not all of these activities are effectively done in a single type of a space. Think of an office space as a house where every room is designed for a specific purpose. You eat in the dining room, cook in the kitchen, sleep in the bedroom, and relax in the living room. Each room is specifically designed for a certain type of living.
Employees need access to environments that enable them to do their best work. This is in the best interest of the organization and of the employees who work there. This is why the most forward-thinking organizations are actually creating multiple floor plans instead of focusing on just open or closed spaces. None of the forward-thinking organizations in the world commit to just a single type of workspace environment (or even two or three!). I explored this for my latest book. When I visited the offices of SAP, I noticed that they have a very wide variety of spaces that employee can choose to work from. This included modern cubicle-like environments, open spaces, cafe and lounge areas, collaboration spaces, quiet areas, outside work areas, and more. By creating this type of environment, organizations are telling employees that they understand that their jobs aren't linear and that they need work options that allow them to choose how they would be most productive for a given task. A recent article published in Harvard Business Review found that employees who have more choices over their workplace scored higher on innovation, job performance, job satisfaction, and workplace satisfaction.