Does the Modern Workplace Foster Individuality and Collaboration?

If you're a part of a modern office space, you're probably no stranger to the term 'open plan seating' or even (if you're really progressive) the 'hot-desk'.

To clarify for those working in a more traditional office space, 'hot-desking' means at the end of each day, every single employee packs up their possessions, leaves the office for the day, then re-enters the daily scramble to relocate to a new desk in morning.

In terms of saving a bit of coin in your back pocket, you can see the value of the open plan, co-shared, hot-desk arrangement. Often these spaces are shared by start-ups, freelancers and growing but young businesses who aren't quite at the stage of leasing their own dedicated space yet.

It's trending, it's collaborative, and it's flexible - at least that's the sell, anyway.

However, if you dig a little deeper, the stats don't always fall in favour of the latest workplace trends. Take the excerpt from the New Zealand Medical Journal's Office Health Review, for example:

"Arguments that open-plan offices provide flexible and collaborative work spaces are frequently put forward to justify their implementation, but employees are seldom consulted, and empirical research has found that improved accessibility can be outweighed by increased noise and distraction."

Herein lies the problem with modern work-spaces, including the digital workplace: we encourage bandwagon trends and revolutionary ideas like the 'hot desk', with the genuine goal of fostering individuality, innovation and collaboration. But if we were to audit our processes, would we find that they're actually achieving these outcomes?

Perhaps not. Let's explore.

Fostering Individuality in the Workplace

A recent article by The Economist put forward the idea that as a worker in an office, one of the most basic aspects of individuality is having your own desk. That means your own space full of comfortable clutter (or perfect, clean space if you're an individual of that nature), perhaps books, notepads and decorative pieces that make you feel productive and able to demonstrate who you are in the workplace.

With the introduction of a 'hot desk', comes the deconstruction of individuality in this sense. At the end of each day, all of these items would need to be packed up and relocated, which if we're being honest, no one can be bothered doing - can they? Thus, in an effort to be innovative, modern and trendy, all notions of individuality are actually discouraged.

You can see the glaring contradiction here.

As for the digital workplace? We'd argue that some of the software employees (or even clients) are forced into using are having the same effect.

For example, take a digital start up that's using Google Documents and Email as their primary tools to delivery results to clients. While these two tools offer a way for users to collaborate for free (mostly), every individual is also presented as part of a collective. Whether it's as an unnoticed collaborator on a document, or 'cc' in a lengthy email chain - one thing we know is that the individual and what they can offer isn't at the forefront.

Take a look at the software and apps you use day to day - do they really foster individuality?

Collaboration vs. Noise and Distraction

Now, to shift our focus to collaboration. Another idea highlighted in the enlightening article by The Economist is the open-plan office and its quest to promote team working, face-to-face interactions and collaboration.

Interestingly, a new study by The Royal Society has found that "employees in open-plan offices spend 73 per cent less time in face-to-face interactions". In fact, email and messaging use shot up by over 67 per cent. There's even a Stuff article about it!

Then, there's the element of noise, distraction and general constant availability of each and every employee that an open-plan office encourages. For the individual that works best with a bit of personal space, and some nice peace and quiet so they can concentrate on the task at hand, an open-plan office might not be the most conducive to productivity.

Once again, there's a digital workplace comparison to draw here. A lot of our modern tools we're employing to encourage collaboration can actually have a really negative impact on productivity and collaboration.

Take, for example, the trending in the tech world application, Slack. It only takes a quick search in Google to see that there are a tonne of articles out there debating whether applications like Slack are in fact conducive to productivity. However, there are a few really important things to consider.

1. Reaching a state of flow requires 20-minutes of uninterrupted focus time. When this is broken, you have to start all over again. You can imagine how this effects productivity every single time a notifications comes through on your Slack app.

2. Instant messaging innately implies an instant reply is required. Unlike with some other applications, people feel that they need to reply as soon as possible, even if they're knee deep in a really important project.

The key message here is to really consider the applications you're making use of and why you're doing it. Is it because they're trendy and they claim to foster collaboration? Or is it because they're actually helpful to your employees?

Approach New Applications with an Honest Pair of Eyes

The bottom line here is that there is an abundance of applications and software out there that's underpinned by hype, bandwagon movements, and the promise of buzzwords that modern businesses are looking for.

The trick, is to honestly assess what problems you're trying to solve, and visualise how this will pan out in your work space.

Just like the 'hot desk', it may sound good and save a bit of time at face-value, but the reality is sometimes contradictory to what you're trying to achieve.

The team at PIQNIC have been working on this problem with an honest approach. We deliver what we say we will deliver, and we take the under-deliverance of some of these aforementioned 'hype-products', and flip them on their heads by creating a platform that actually delivers in a digital workplace.

Want to hear more? We're keen to have a chat.