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"Open for business" Extract from "My Career" - The Sydney Morning Herald 27-27 October 2002 Getting along with your co-workers has never been so important. Natasha Wallace reports: Creating funky open-plan workspaces with private nooks known as the "mixed-use" solution is all the rage in office design. It keeps companies happy - fewer enclosed offices do wonders for the bottom line - and alleviate the stress on employees, maddened by the noise and constant distraction of a typical open-plan office. But without proper consultation with employees on the kind of space they need to undertake their various tasks, and a strict protocol on workplace behaviour, companies will be wasting their time (and money). After all, a few beanbags isn't going to stop people shouting across the room. When going open-plan is simply a cost-cutting measure, the result can be "pretty nasty", says Natalie Slessor, senior consultant with workplace designers DEGW. "It doesn't take more space and it doesn't cost more money to do it in a consultative way. The open-plan office of the future should be fun and an incredible place to work." The disadvantages of a poorly designed open-plan office are almost too numerous to mention, but most of all employees resent the lack of privacy and interruptions from noisy co-workers hidden behind flimsy partitions. Not to mention the bland furniture, clutter and disappearing staplers. According to a PA Consulting report, Balancing the Bargain - A Survey of Users' Expectations for the Office of the Millennium, most people don't want to go back to a closed office. But meeting the expectations of employees - notably the provision of "quiet space" - will become a higher priority, the report says. Before overhauling its closed or "cellular" offices, law firm Deacons conducted staff workshops to discuss layout problems, such as a lack of interaction and information sharing and, for younger lawyers, little opportunity for mentoring, says partner David Colenso. Aside from a few closed offices for those resistant to change, the new design is mostly open plan with a café and lounge chairs to which staff can escape to read or have an informal discussion. There are "loud rooms" for more private chats. The new Brisbane offices, where Colenso works, will serve as a blueprint for the Sydney office at Circular Quay. Colenso has moved out of his office to sit next to his secretary at a large desk without a partition, but he says the design works only because a strict protocol has been established. "You have to turn the ringer down on your phone; there's no loud talking; you go to someone's desk rather than talk across the workstation … people are encouraged to stand up and go 'shh' if people are talking around them," he says. "We have a very strong emphasis on putting files away and not storing them on the floor or on top of filing cabinets." But there's just one unsolved problem: our ego. As long as the closed office remains part of the reward structure of an organisation, we'll aspire to have one. That's why CEOs have harbour views and leather lounges. "Having a nice space at work is recognition - it's status," says Dr Jim Bright, an organisational psychologist at the University of NSW. "Hanging your name on the door gives you a sense of importance." Colenso hopes the open-plan design at Deacons will address this issue: "We wanted to move right away from the hierarchical nature of law firms where the higher up you are the bigger office you get."
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