Over the last two decades, many businesses have adopted open office plans that remove barriers like cubicle walls in order to create more space for employees to interact. According to recent studies, though, some modern office plans can actually discourage communication since so many employees go out of their way to avoid interacting with other staffers. Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has made these distinctions irrelevant as offices across the country remain closed and employees work from home.

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March 6, 2020

Last year, we looked at how open office plans can discourage communication between employees despite claims about their supposed collaborative benefits. This video explains the history of open offices and how modern workplaces often fail to live up to the standards of the past due to concerns about cost. 

Questions:

  1. How do modern open office plans tend to discourage communication and collaboration between employees? 
  2. Do you think more companies should create open office plans based on the principles Continue reading
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October 25, 2019

In recent years, many companies have gotten rid of cubicles in favor of open office plans that place everyone in sight. The idea is that employees will be more available for communication when they aren’t constricted by barriers. According to a recent study published by Harvard Business Review, however, open office plans could actually be having the opposite effect. Researchers tracked the physical and digital interactions of employees at two Fortune 500 companies that were in the process of Continue reading

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March 10, 2017

UBS-Reinvents-WorkSpaceOver the years, Silicon Valley startups have become famous for developing open work spaces free of personalized desks or big corner offices. The idea is to allow employees to gather together and collaborate rather than leave them enclosed in their cubicles. While other companies avoided this unconventional approach at first, more firms have switched to open offices as the concept has become more popular. Still, these companies have tended to be smaller operations as many big businesses remained skeptical that Continue reading

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