The traditional office is dead.

Here's why
The open-plan format that dominated office design for the past century is being consigned
to the dustbin of architectural history.

Gone with it are many clerical, secretarial and accounting-type jobs. Today’s offices need
to cater to 21st century roles: web designer; content maker; app producer; data scientist,
to name but a few.

Unlike generations of white-collar workers before them, modern employees want – and
often demand – flexible spaces that are conducive to thinking and that help them perform
the tasks required of them. These might include soundproof booths, soft-seating areas or
standing desks.

Additionally, many companies are complaining of difficulty hiring and retaining

millennials; and a barn-like office with little daylight and row upon row of desks is
unlikely to help. In a Forbes blog, Erika Andersen, author of Growing Great Employees:
Turning Ordinary People Into Extraordinary Performers, wrote that for this new
generation of workers “meaning, flexibility and challenge are key to engaging their hearts
and minds”.

Some companies use their modern office layouts as a recruitment tool. Video tours of
Microsoft’s offices led by interns sell the benefits of green spaces, free drinks machines
and games rooms. “We have five cafes, a Starbucks and a Costa,” one intern enthused
about Microsoft UK’s Reading campus.

Office redesigns, backed by science

Meanwhile, research shows that features of modern offices, such as natural daylight,
windows with views of trees and plants and better air quality can all help employees think,
remember, concentrate and perform better. Improvements such as better lighting and less
carbon dioxide boost productivity and reduce staff sickness levels, the studies suggest.

Professor Stephen Heppell, an expert who advises schools, companies and other
organizations on how to create flexible work and learning spaces, said many of the
innovations of the past 20 years originated in education systems. “It’s interesting that
when you walk into the Googles and Facebooks, everything looks like what you’d see in
high-achieving schools.”

Ambient factors such as the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the light levels, how
warm offices are and their sound levels need to be better understood by companies,
Heppell says.
He is running a project, Learnometer, which looks at how environmental factors may
harm a child’s school performance, but has used it with other organizations, including the
UK’s Hockey Squad.

Crucial to improving that space was the development of different “zones” for different
purposes, better reflective paint on the walls to improve light levels, and improved air
quality. Innovative companies have embraced the theory that playful features within an
office can boost creativity.

“The inventors of graphene [a material discovered in the UK that is 1mm thick and could
transform sectors such as such as electronics, energy, health and construction] came
across it in their play time,” Heppell says.

Google pioneered the trend for slides and ping-pong tables. And one of its London offices
features beach huts and dodgem cars as well as slides.

Microsoft has just finished building two treehouses for workers to use as meeting rooms
at its Washington HQ, with another due to be finished later this year.

An overlooked facet of office transformation may be how you describe it. Instead of
“open plan”, which Heppell says conjures up images of poor 1960s design, bad acoustics
and uninspiring paintwork, he prefers “agile”.

This word, too, he said, underlines what executives want to achieve as it is all conducive
to improving workers’ “smart thinking”.

“After all,” he said, “we have computers to do the ‘dumb’ thinking for us. What else is
left?”

The rise and fall of open-plan offices

1854: the idea was mooted in a UK civil service report: “For the intellectual work,
separate rooms are necessary so that a person who works with his head may not be
interrupted; but for the more mechanical work, the working in concert of a number of
clerks in the same room under proper superintendence, is the proper mode of meeting
it…”

1887: a civil service commission “strongly recommend . . . concentrating a number of

clerks in large rooms. Supervision would thus be much better effected and by fewer
hands.”

Late 1800s-early 1900s: US engineer Frederick Taylor, a leader of the Efficiency

Movement that sought to eliminate economic waste, designed early open-plan offices.

1950s: Bürolandschaft, a type of office-planning (literally “office-landscape”) evolved in

Germany. According to website Open Work Space Design, the concept “used organic
groupings of desks in patterns designed to encourage conversation and create a happier
workforce”.

1970s-1980s: companies moved to “cube”-style arrangements, which provided more

privacy but which businesses used to cram as many workers into confined spaces as
possible. This antagonized staff and didn’t foster cooperation as intended.

2000-today: offices moved to multipurpose spaces, comfy seating areas, and games
rooms. Though associated with Silicon Valley’s tech scene, the idea can be found in
corporate settings globally.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/forget-the-open-plan-office-modern-work-
spaces-should-be-agile/

Kesimpulan :

Pada tulisan ini dijelaskan bahwa karyawan kantor diera modern saat ini menuntut adanya
fleksibelitas ruangan yang membuat karyawan lebih nyaman dan membantu karyawan
dalam mengerjakan tugasnya. Pada era sekarang banyak perusahaan sulit untuk
mempekerjakan dan mempertahankan karyawan milenial. Hal ini diakibatkan oleh
keadaan kantor yang membuat karyawan menjadi kurang nyaman.

Terdapat penilitian mengenai fitur dari kantor modern mampu membantu karyawan
dalam berfikir, mengingat, berkonsentrasi dan bekerjan dengan lebih baik. Adanya
inovasi mengenai kantor modern ini bisa menjadi solusi bagi perusahaan-perusahaan
yang kesulitan untuk mempekerjakan dan mempertahankan karyawan milenial. Serta
dapat membantu dalam peningkatan produktivitas karyawan dikantor.