It’s never a bad idea to find yourself some work pals — after all, research has shown that people learn more on the job when they have fun at the office — but actually making those connections between the hours of nine and five is often easier said than done. If your job requires you to spend the bulk of that time typing away in a cubicle, there’s not much opportunity for organic socializing; unless you happen to catch someone on line for the kitchen microwave around lunchtime, your options are kind of limited.
But as Daniel Krivens, who heads up the design firm Krivens Partners, recently wrote in Quartz, there’s a fairly simple way for offices to foster conversation social interactions between colleagues (one that, thankfully, doesn’t involve goofy icebreakers or team-building exercises): Put them higher up off the ground, whether that means standing desks or just taller sitting desks.