Does concept of open offices still make sense?

#Hindustan Times

New Delhi : It is a concept that has been around since the 1950s when it originated in Germany (although some put its year or origin even earlier); in the decades since, there has been enough research to show that its cons far exceed its pros; yet it has lingered on.

It, of course, is the open office, and the coronavirus disease, Covid-19, may have finally killed it.

As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe in February, most workplaces around the country (and the world) began to implement rules among its employees: avoid clusters, maintain physical distance, wear masks, avoid using biometric entry, sanitise hands. Many put in place strict deep cleaning protocols. And finally, all suddenly discovered the merits of WFH (work from home).

Once the lockdown is lifted and at least some employees look to rejoin work -- many will work from home; for instance, India’s largest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services has said that up to 75% of its global workforce will work from home by 2025 -- one of the most important questions facing organisations is simply this: Can the open office plan, marked by a lack of cubicles such that all employees are required to sit or work in clusters, still make sense in a world ravaged by an ongoing pandemic?

The straightforward answer? No.

The open office aimed to improve collaboration and proficiency among employees. Different types of furniture demarcated different spaces of work: hubs for private meetings, longer tables for meetings among larger groups, single or two-seater sofas for more private conversations, and workstations for clusters of employees where they often share resources like lamps, telephones, and that great luxury of the modern workplace -- coffee machines.

In a post-Covid-19 world, this translates into zero social distancing, not to mention multiple shared surfaces. In other words, heightened risk of transmission of Sars-Cov-2.

“We are looking at a complete 180-degree shift [in offices]. The whole premise of how offices have been designed has been about collaboration. Now the premise about people coming to office is about social distancing. So the whole focus will be on how to get people to interact in such a way. The communal spaces that the open office plan allowed for will not be possible anymore. It won’t be possible for three people to sit on a sofa and have a discussion,” said Aparna Piramal, author and columnist on business and design.

Neetish Sarda, founder of Smartworks, a firm that offers co-working spaces across nine cities in India, said that his company instituted workplace measures on March 20 itself, five days before the nationwide lockdown was announced. The measures, which included disinfecting all surfaces (metal, knobs, workstations) and floors, placement of sanitizer bottles at “high touchpoints” and physical distancing among clients, will also be enforced once the lockdown is lifted, he said.

Would firms redesign the office space all together? US-based furniture makers, Steelcase, recently released a report-cum-catalogue titled Navigating ‘What’s next: the post Covid workspace’ offers a range of solutions, including reconfiguring desks, or pulling them apart to reduce face-to-face orientation, which can be achieved for instance, by turning workstations to 90-degree angles to prevent workers from working directly across or behind one another. It also suggests leveraging flexible furniture with movable whiteboards and screens to create boundaries.

Bimal Patel, director of Ahmedabad-based HCP Design, Planning and Management Private Limited — the architecture firm mandated to develop the Central Vista — said that it was too early to think of lasting design changes.

“The most interesting thing that has emerged out of the present crisis is not so much this idea that we may need to make lasting [design] changes in the long run but that a lot of people, particularly in the service industries like our own, have discovered the potential of working online.”

In the short run, he said, the important thing for firms to figure out is how many people can actually stay away from the office so as to reduce the number of people coming in to work.

Though Patel may not agree with this, his remark highlights a larger question -- forget open offices, do we even need offices?

A Price Waterhouse Coopers pulse survey among 305 US companies published on April 27, found that more than half the companies (52%) were planning on changing shifts and alternating crews to reduce exposure, while 49% of the companies said they were planning to make remote work a permanent option for roles that allow.

Indian furniture maker Godrej Interio has a four-person team, called the Ergonomics and Workspace Research Cell, whose mandate is to study issues commonly faced in offices — like noisy colleagues — and publish findings that eventually guide their product design team. When the global pandemic hit and offices around the globe and India began to close down, it began to study the challenges of working from home.

“Our aim is to reach 10,000 [respondents] so the research is still ongoing. We asked questions like, what are the issues people face; how can we help them stay productive? Our focus is on the health and well-being of people,” said Sameer Joshi, an associate vice president in the marketing division of Godrej Interio who leads the team. Based on the findings, a ‘work from home’ range of 40 furniture items will be rolled out once factories open, Joshi said.

At a time when the world stares at yet another economic recession, it is crucial to ask whether firms will make such additional investments in office spaces or infrastructure to enable people to work from home. Piramal said it would be in their own interest to do so.

“For the first time, many organisations will have to think of their employees being in a kind of life and death situation [inside the office]. In most industries, you don’t think about this, unless you’re in the manufacturing space or in the armed forces. So, if you view it from that perspective, then certain investments have to be made. [Of course] somebody has to bear that cost. Maybe that cost may come out of employee salaries,” she said.

Or they may simply come out of the savings companies hope to make from rent payments.