Press release: The five deadly sins when planning open-plan offices

Münchner Beratungsunternehmen conceptsued° erklärt, warum Konzepte für Open Space Offices oft scheitern – und wie sie gelingen

“The fact is that open office space designs have to meet the rising demands of communication and social interaction within a business. It’s only through good planning and execution that the potential offered by open plan office space can be realized. That means supporting a sense of inner freedom in the people that work there, in turn increasing the value created by a company,” says Timo Brehme, founder and CEO of CSMM Gmbh. Based in Germany and Austria, Brehme’s consultancy has been advising both German and international firms since 2003 in the selection and redesign of business property. Here, Timo Brehme lists the most common mistakes made by companies making the move to open plan offices—and how they can be avoided.

Mistake 1: Focusing on saving space

The main motivating factor for businesses to use open plan offices is to save costly floor space. Timo Brehme comments: “Workspaces are pushed close together under the pretext of making communication more open. Many managers forget how important it is to offer spaces for staff to collaborate, or ones that add value. These are essential for optimizing work processes and speeding up communication. If you don’t invest in ‘islands’ where workers can get some peace and quiet, or in well thought-out meeting spaces, you’re actually hindering teamwork instead of supporting it. If you’re managing a business, you should remember that the costs for the space are often a lot lower than personnel costs. The value added by investing in employees’ sense of wellbeing is far more sustainable than the savings attained by saving on floor space.”

Mistake 2: Employees have no input into the change process

The generation born in the 1990s has grown up in a globalized and digitalized world. Many of them learned during their first few years in elementary education how to work in a flexible, mobile way—and how to work in a team. The over 50s, on the other hand, have spent most of their career working in small offices on a PC. When managers suddenly start planning open office spaces, it can open up a lot of potential for conflict. Many team leaders still present their staff with the finished product instead of involving them in the change management process. That makes it almost impossible to generate acceptance. “Just saying to workers, ‘Here’s your new open plan office, deal with it’ doesn’t work. Every employee is a person with needs, habits and anxieties about change. That’s why staff should be involved in the change process early, in a framework predefined by top company management,” Brehme explains. The move to an open plan office creates new freedoms but also new responsibilities. It’s vital that all parties have input into the guidelines for the new office culture. Brehme continues: “An office culture can’t be created by a few individuals and then forced onto a team. The people, the organization and the space involved should fit together. Group discussions and workshops are an effective way of finding out how people have worked together in the past and how they could—or want—to work together in a way that’s faster, more flexible and that also leaves them feeling happier.”

Mistake 3: Poor use of technology

Workers today don’t want or need to be allocated one place to work effectively. Instead of monitoring how much time their people spend at their desk, many employers have gone over to agreeing on personal targets. To ensure that the targets are reached and staff can be contacted at any time by colleagues and clients, both in the open plan office or when working at home, business leaders need to invest in the required technology. That means a solution involving mobile devices. Cloud-based work also opens new possibilities. “Data has to be accessible from all over the world. Different team members must be able to work on the same file in real-time. Digital signatures should be available, as should online access to business deals. That’s the only way of creating flexible structures while also reducing floor space and integrating wider social change into office culture. That means that the space, the organization and the technology have to work together.”