Does Your Office Space Measure Up?

Merrainiacs:

Stephanie Chen wrote an article for CNN.com today called: "Goodbye office space? The shrinking American cubicle." The article details how major firms such as Intel have downsized their workstations from an average of 72 square feet to 48 square feet. According to the International Facility Management Association, the average office worked had 90 square feet of office space in 1994 and today has only 75 square feet on average. While the article talks about companies such as SAS that are steering clear of the cubicle model and feel private offices actually help productivity, it also mentions firms like Intel where 30% of the employees do not have assigned cubicles. Essentially, employees can take their blackberry and their laptop and "boot up" in any open office space. Here at Merraine Group's corporate office, we have dedicated work stations and the executive team members have their own private offices. However, if a computer goes down, you can go to any open terminal, enter your password and "Presto," your database, schedule and e-mail pop up without delay. This is a nice feature, but I like having my own work area. David encourages us to bring in pictures of our family and mementos from home that make our workspace a little more "user friendly." Apart from Jeff's "Family Guy" calendar, all the wall decorations are pretty tame.
Our business development team and our recruitment and research teams sit in the "bullpen." It's a noisy work area, but the energy is contagious and the place hums at certain times of day. I imagine there's something to be said for this type of layout as the place comes alive.
We hear from nursing directors all the time how important it is to be "on the floor," but also to have a nice, private office where they can confer with employees and have a spot away from where the action is. We actually have a few clients that send us digital photos of their workspace so we can forward it to potential candidates. Not a bad idea if the walls seem to be closing in.

Merrainiac