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Living Room / Standing desks - what are the ergonomic constraints in an "open" office?
« on: March 25, 2019, 11:47 AM »
Interesting research:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images and slightly edited for brevity by me.)
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What I find fascinating is the apparent lack of any historical perspective and that there seems to be little - if anything - that is new in these research results - they serve to reinforce past research as being just as relevant today as it was decades ago. For example, the 84% of Bospar’s respondents who said that working from home would be ideal - that preference would seem to have been pretty well-established by the entrepreneur Steve Shirley since her formation of F International in the '60s. (F International was a British freelance software and systems services company, founded as Freelance Programmers in England in 1962 - Wikipedia).
So why hasn't anything been done to provide what would essentially be improved working environments that were more conducive to productivity for office workers?
From experience as a lapsed bean counter, my take is that it's still all about direct/indirect costs, as in, for example:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images and slightly edited for brevity by me.)
| Report: U.S. workers hate ‘open’ office spaces Before you go knocking walls down or dismantling cubicles in the name of collaboration and productivity, peruse the results of this new survey. By Robby Brumberg - May 22, 2018 Would you change jobs to find a less annoying workspace? According to survey data collected by Bospar PR, it would appear many of us would—especially those toiling in an “open” office setting. The survey, which garnered responses from a diverse cross-section of 1,000 U.S. workers, found that 76 percent of Americans “hate open offices.” The top reasons cited included:
Despite a recent trend of employers tinkering with barrier-free offices, community benches and desk clumps, the science is not sanguine about open workspace productivity. Some have even called such layouts a “disaster.” What is it workers want, then?
As Bospar executive Curtis Sparrer put it: “An overwhelming majority of Americans want to work in quiet places, but they can’t do that in today’s open office environments.” Workplace environment appears to be a hill that many employees are willing to die on—or at least take a pay cut over. According to the survey, “Eighteen percent would pursue a new job to have a workspace they like better, and 9 percent would petition to work part-time in an environment they do like.” Amid the clamor for more collaboration, connectivity, corporate camaraderie and increased participation, companies are inevitably alienating some workers. Most, it would seem, would prefer to work in a quiet, non-distracting atmosphere. That might be the most universally desired and appreciated work perk of all. You can learn more about Bospar’s research here. |
What I find fascinating is the apparent lack of any historical perspective and that there seems to be little - if anything - that is new in these research results - they serve to reinforce past research as being just as relevant today as it was decades ago. For example, the 84% of Bospar’s respondents who said that working from home would be ideal - that preference would seem to have been pretty well-established by the entrepreneur Steve Shirley since her formation of F International in the '60s. (F International was a British freelance software and systems services company, founded as Freelance Programmers in England in 1962 - Wikipedia).
So why hasn't anything been done to provide what would essentially be improved working environments that were more conducive to productivity for office workers?
From experience as a lapsed bean counter, my take is that it's still all about direct/indirect costs, as in, for example:
In any event, I would suggest that such research is probably irrelevant, and that the only research that made (and still makes) standing desks a no-brainer for management is likely to be that accounting "research" which could demonstrate indisputably that standing desks:
- require a lower area of floor space per employee, which enables higher density packing, which reduces the average fixed costs (rent and rates based on square footage of occupancy), thus enabling a higher average profit per employee to be achieved.
- enable reduced/minimised office set-up, downsizing/upsizing or relocation costs, and reduced/minimised downtime associated with same, compared to conventional offices.
-IainB (October 17, 2015, 05:37 AM)
and Firefox (not sure about the latest Firefox though). Chrome 
doesn't seem to do it it at all well, and Brave's capability 
