What Does Your Office Tell Others About You?

Number 149

As the recession eases, some companies are starting to spend money on refurbishing or expanding their offices. And, at the same time, many are redesigning their space in interesting new ways. Of course there is more concern about energy efficiency and sustainability than in past years. But, beyond that, there is a trend toward designing workspace in ways that express organizational culture and inspire people to work more collaboratively.

Many companies where professionals once felt entitled to offices of their own are tearing out walls and creating common work areas. The high-walled cubicle is quickly becoming old-fashioned, and executives are moving out of their offices to work with their team members, sometimes even at shared tables.

A hot office design philosophy is that shared space results in shared ideas. Oracle, for example, is experimenting with bullpen-style spaces, where 24 technical staffers work in one room, sitting in blocks of four.

Another trend is to promote collaboration and innovation by having people frequently move around among common areas. There are varied conference areas, sometimes including workspaces that look much like lounges or cafes. That makes sense because mobile technologies allow employees to work from home, or any place they feel like. So when they do come into the office, it is primarily to interact with colleagues, not sit alone at a desk.

So what does this mean for you, particularly if you are in a traditional organization where the people at the top are never going to give up their corner offices? It’s still worth being alert to these trends, particularly if you interact with clients.

Consider Joe, a partner in a New York consulting firm. Joe’s time is billed out at $800 an hour, but he doesn’t even have his own office. That’s because he often works from a client’s location or his own home in the Hamptons. No matter where he may be, he is connected electronically, so he seldom needs paper documents. And when he is in New York Joe spends almost all his time meeting with people.

When Joe works with clients he constantly observes their executives, making judgments about who seems capable of thriving in a changing environment. He likes Mary, a VP at his current client, but he will not recommend her to be part of an exciting new project. Joe has noticed that Mary’s office is a mess, cluttered with stacks of paper files, and he has concluded that Mary isn’t able to keep up with technology or manage her workflow.

Last week, Joe met with lawyers at the firm where he has sent a lot of work. He noticed the large partner offices, however, and thought to himself, “I don’t want to be subsidizing that wasted space.”

If your colleagues or clients visit your workspace, they, like Joe, may be drawing conclusions, at least unconsciously. Do you wonder what they might conclude? To get an idea of that, ask yourself questions like these:

• How clean? Now that professionals are used to working more closely together, they have become more appreciative of cleanliness. Many people are turned off by untidiness and disgusted by messes like food crumbs or coffee spills.
• How cluttered with paper? The goal of a paperless office has proved elusive, but many organizations are pretty far along the path. You may actually need masses of paper files, but know that if they are spread around your office some people may think that you are inefficient or not adept with technology.
• How are the chairs arranged? If your office is spacious, what have you done with the chairs? If you always sit behind your desk, with guests directly in front of you, you may come across as not collaborative.
• Do you have a whiteboard? Whiteboards are a great tool for brainstorming and mapping out shared projects. With a new electronic version, a laptop can be projected onto the board for everybody at a meeting to see.
• Do you share? In some organizations where executives still have large comfortable offices, it is expected that the space will be shared. Each office is kept neat, and when the executive is away it may be used by others as a conference room.