As I am sitting outside on my roof, I begin thinking about how the environment affects our work. This topic has been studied by great lengths, whether in the form of color theory or the concept of the Google Bump. Recently I’ve been talking about some of these theories with my entrepreneurial friends as they think about building office culture.
The most common debate is open office floor plans vs a more traditional cubical layout. Open offices were lauded for a long time. The format allows for more open communication, creativity and ensures that employees interact with one another. People could, after all, shout to one another instantly any time they had a problem.
What started in the tech world quickly moved around to other industries as a best practice. Now, however, there are finally enough open office floor plans where the negatives of a layout are surfacing. The open communication created by these floor plans helps bolster communication, but simultaneously lowers the productivity of all parties. Quick, easy distractions at a rapid pace leads to an overall drop in individual performance.
Work environments extend past simple office layouts. The trend for the last 15 years has been to provide an excessive number of in-office perks. Foosball tables, beer, Nintendo switches, and entire rooms dedicated to hanging out are rampant among most well-funded companies in San Fransisco. The idea is to give people time to relax — time to get outside of grinding on a computer and a way for people to mingle with colleagues.
While the concept is good, the execution of this type of activity is not. Let me make a correlation. To help you sleep better, it is advised that you should never put a TV in the bedroom. By doing so, you are training your mind that that the bedroom is a place to stay awake and watch the end of Game of Thrones rather than a place to rest. Placing a plethora of fun activities inside of the office is doing the same thing. Your mind, subconsciously, will consider the workplace to be a place where more than just work should be done. You are inherently setting everyone up for productivity failure.
The solution isn’t to create an overly rigorous company culture that doesn’t have fun. The answer is to set a standard where people understand that the office is made for working. But it’s 100% cool and encouraged to hang out in a park mid-day or to run to a local arcade to get some gaming in. People need breaks and social time that has to be understood.
I believe we will slowly start to see a trend of companies bucking this norm for a more traditional workspace. The challenge with this implementation will not be with the little work of changing the office, but rather with the inherent disadvantage that you set yourself up for when recruiting talent. If a person interviews at two companies, likes the teams roughly the same and is offered the equal compensation, they will likely work at the place which has a VR gaming room over the one which doesn’t.
I guess time will tell what wins out.