It's Official: Open-Plan Offices Are Now the Dumbest Management Fad of

[1][inc-logo-black.png]
It's Official: Open-Plan Offices Are Now the Dumbest Management Fad of
All Time

[2]Company Culture

It's Official: Open-Plan Offices Are Now the Dumbest Management Fad of
All Time

A new study from Harvard reveals that open-plan offices decrease rather than
increase face-to-face collaboration.

[3][G_James_updated_headshot_51669.png] [4]By Geoffrey
JamesContributing editor, Inc.com[5]@Sales_Source
[GettyImages-1168149503_411226.jpg]
Getty Images

Over the decades, a lot of [6]really stupid management fads have come
and gone, including:
1. Six Sigma, where employees wear different colored belts (like in
karate) to show they've been trained in the methodology.
2. Stack Ranking, where employees are encouraged to rat each other out
in order to secure their own advancement and budget.
3. Consensus Management, where all decisions must pass through
multiple committees before being implemented.

It need hardly be said that these fads were and are (at best) a waste
of time and (at worst) a set of expensive distractions. But [7]open
plan offices are worse. Much worse. Why? Because they decrease rather
than increase employee collaboration.

As my colleague [8]Jessica Stillman pointed out last week, a new study
from Harvard showed that when employees move from a traditional office
to an [9]open plan office, it doesn't cause them to interact more
socially or more frequently.

Instead, the opposite happens. They start using email and messaging
with much greater frequency than before. In other words, even if
collaboration were a great idea ([10]it's a questionable notion),
[11]open plan offices are the worst possible way to make it happen.

Previous studies of [12]open plan offices have shown that they make
people less productive, but most of those studies gave lip service to
the notion that open plan offices would increase collaboration, thereby
offsetting the damage.

The Harvard study, by contrast, undercuts the entire premise that
justifies the fad. And that leaves companies with only one
justification for moving to an [13]open plan office: less floor space,
and therefore a lower rent.

But even that justification is idiotic because the financial cost of
the loss in productivity will be much greater than the money saved in
rent. Here's [14]an article where I do the math for you. Even in
high-rent districts, the savings have a negative ROI.

More important, though--if employees are going to be using email and
messaging to communicate with co-workers, they might as well be
[15]working from home, which costs the company nothing.

In fact, work-from-home actually saves money because then employees can
live in areas where housing is more affordable, which means you can pay
them a smaller salary than if you force them to live in, say, a
high-rent district like Santa Clara, California.

So there it is. Companies have spent billions of dollars to create
these supposedly-collaborative workplaces and the net effect has been
for those same companies to suffer billions of dollars
in lost productivity.

What can you do about it? Well, if you're a business owner, just say
no, or, if you've already drunk the Kool-Aid, admit you've been
snookered. Re-implement work-from-home and convert your open plan
office into a collection of private spaces.

What if you're just a worker-bee? Well, tread lightly. As a general
rule, bosses don't react well when told they've made an expensive, dumb
mistake. There are also some folk at your workplace whose careers are
now tied to the "success" of the office redesign.

So, if you really want to try to change things, you'll need to deal
with denial and cognitive dissonance. As Upton Sinclair might have
said: "It is difficult to get people to understand something, when
their salary depends on their not understanding it."

If I were in that situation, I'd use the overwhelming evidence against
open plan offices to lobby for a more work-from-home so that the
company can expand without adding office space. That's not only a good
idea; it also allows the power-that-be to save face.
Published on: Jul 16, 2018
Like this column? Sign up to [16]subscribe to email alerts and you'll
never miss a post.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not
those of Inc.com.
More from Inc.
[]
[inc_logo_footer_223x76_e0e0e0.png]
CHANNELS
[17]STARTUP
[18]GROW
[19]LEAD
[20]INNOVATE
[21]TECHNOLOGY
[22]MONEY
[23]INC. 5000
[24]VIDEO
MORE INC.
[25]EVENTS
[26]NEWSLETTERS
[27]MAGAZINE
[28]BRANDVIEW
[29]PODCASTS
[30]SUBSCRIBE
__________________________________________________________________

SUBSCRIBE
[currentcover.jpg?1581009933652]
[31]MAGAZINE
[32]DIGITAL EDITION
FOLLOW INC.
© 2018 Manuseto Ventures
[33]Help Center
[34]Advertise
[35]Privacy
[36]Sitemap

References

Visible links
1. https://www.inc.com/
2. https://www.inc.com/company-culture
3. https://www.inc.com/author/geoffrey-james
4. https://www.inc.com/author/geoffrey-james
5. https://www.twitter.com/Sales_Source
6. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/worlds-worst-management-fads.html
7. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/hate-open-plan-offices-heres-whats-coming-next.html
8. https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/if-you-want-people-to-collaborate-get-rid-of-this-office-plan.html
9. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-open-plan-offices-destroy-productivity.html
10. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/collaboration-creates-mediocrity-not-excellence-according-to-science.html
11. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/open-plan-offices-create-extra-stress-for-women-say-scientists.html
12. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/16-ways-open-plan-offices-make-you-less-productive.html
13. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/why-your-company-will-benefit-from-getting-rid-of-open-office-spaces-first-90.html
14. https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/hr/2016/open-office-plans-are-a-lot-less-cost-effective-than-you-may-think
15. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/working-from-home-makes-you-happier-less-likely-to.html
16. http://geoffreyjames.com/newsletter/
17. https://www.inc.com/startup
18. https://www.inc.com/grow
19. https://www.inc.com/lead
20. https://www.inc.com/innovate
21. https://www.inc.com/technology
22. https://www.inc.com/money
23. https://www.inc.com/inc5000
24. https://www.inc.com/video
25. https://www.inc.com/events
26. https://www.inc.com/newsletter
27. https://www.inc.com/magazine
28. https://www.inc.com/brandview
29. https://www.inc.com/inc-uncensored
30. https://www.inc.com/subscribe
31. https://www.inc.com/magazine
32. https://www.inc.com/digital
33. https://incmagazine.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
34. https://mediakit.inc.com/
35. https://www.inc.com/about/privacy.html
36. https://www.inc.com/sitemap

Hidden links:
38. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
39. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
40. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
41. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
42. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
43. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
44. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html
45. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-offices-are-now-dumbest-management-fad-of-all-time.html