Ever since technology first made it possible for people to work remotely from their colleagues, there has been speculation not only that office design should change but even that the physical office could be dispensed with entirely, and with it the idea that people should come together to work in the same place at the same time to achieve common goals and to share in a common identity.
This is a perfect example of the tendency we all share of confusing what is possible with what will happen. This appears to be a particular issue when we consider the effects of new technology. Hence the enduring talk of the death of the office, which technology makes possible but which people make impossible.
The latest study to challenge the death of the office narrative shows that more than half (59 percent) of flexible workers feel their skills and knowledge are falling behind that of their colleagues, Two-thirds (65 per cent) of 1,700 part-time workers questioned for the Part-time work: The exclusion zone? report from Timewise said they felt isolated from their teams, particularly as it was harder for them to attend social events. Three in five (61 per cent) noted they felt less up-to-date because they missed meetings.
People are drawn to the idea of remote working, but the office exerts its own gravitation. One of the key areas of research that describes the tension between these two forces is found in the work of Tom Allen at MIT.
Allen made his name in 1984 with the publication of a book called Managing the Flow of Technology which first popularised the Allen Curve, a graph of his research findings which shows a powerful negative correlation between physical distance and the frequency of communication between colleagues. So precisely can this be defined, that Allen found that 50 metres marks a cut-off point for the regular exchange of certain types of technical information.
The book is based on research Allen and his colleagues carried out in the late 1970s with a group of engineers. They quickly determined that the distance between the engineers’ desks in an office design had a direct and significant impact on the frequency of communication between them. We don’t even need to be isolated to communicate less, just further apart.
Of course, technology has changed the dynamics of this situation since the 1970s. It’s a point Allen himself addresses in his 2006 book The Organization and Architecture of Innovation co-authored with German architect Gunter Henn. The book explores how office design, physical space, social networks, flows of information and organisational structure must be integrated to drive innovation.
What it finds is that far from lessening in importance, the building is gaining a more prominent, if different role and that the physical distance between individuals is an essential element in the development of working relationships and the way ideas and information flow. Physical space is integral to innovation.
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The book makes the following point based on its research: “Rather than finding that the probability of telephone communication increases with distances, as face to face probability decays, our data shows a decay in the use of all communication media with distance. We do not keep separate sets of people, some of which we communicate in one medium and some by another. The more often we see someone face to face, the more likely it is that we will telephone the person or communicate in some other medium.”