As people have become more consumed with privacy concerns online, the less concerned they seem to have become about privacy in shared spaces.
In the early 2000s, when I began my career, cubicles were the norm. At the time, I complained about them. Cubicles reminded me of open shoeboxes that could house a hamster or other rodent pet.
Now, having experienced the open-plan office, I long for the days of the cubicle. We didn’t know how good we had it before—mostly because we didn’t know what was coming.
Two Extreme Workplace Options
There seems to be two extreme options now for the workplace. One extreme is entirely remote and alone except for video meetings. The other extreme is in-person, open-plan layouts in which there is often little-to-nothing separating one person’s workstation from their neighbor’s.
In one office where I worked, I used a large David Bowie poster to create a makeshift wall between myself and the person sitting across from me. I didn’t work with that person and found the idea of someone working directly across from me with no barrier other than our computers distracting—and distressing. As it happened, while the poster created visual privacy, the person who sat across from me had very long legs, which sometimes encroached into my foot space, extending all the way to where my own legs resided.
Finding Balance Between Privacy, Personalization, and Accessibility
The secret to a workplace that is productive and comfortable for employees comes in finding a balance between a space that is at least semi-private and the need for accessibility, so employees can interact with each other easily.
The cubicle was the perfect balance. It lacked a door and a ceiling but had three walls and often a generously large desk with additional counterspace that could come in the form of the top of a filing cabinet.
The cubicle provided both visual privacy (passersby could only see into the entrance) and a chance for personalization. The resident of a cubicle often had at least one wall with a bulletin board where they could tack up things that gave them good vibes. For me, those good vibes took the form of old New Yorker magazine covers or postcards with artwork I liked. The point is, however much or little an employee decorated their cubicle, there was space to make it feel like a little slice of their private world.
Facilitating Concentration
With smartphones in our pockets, purses, and palms, distracted is the primary way we live our lives. It’s not surprising then that in an open-plan workspace most people don’t question the visual and aural distractions.
I dealt with the aural distractions by wearing noise-cancelling AirPods through which I played my favorite tunes. No one seems to have invented noise-cancelling devices that provide silence without music or some other noise playing. I found it less distracting to listen to music than to the many conversations occurring around me, which usually had nothing to do with my work or interests.
Visual disturbances in an open-plan layout are much more challenging to address. I only partially joked that I needed horse blinders to keep my eyes focused on my computer screen and whatever papers I had on my desk.
The ideal of the open-plan layout was accessibility and easy interaction, but what employees gained in accessibility, they lost in peace. It’s a visual and aural free-for-all when you don’t have at least a few low walls around you.
Managing Space Constraints
One of the arguments against cubicles is that in today’s workplaces we don’t have enough space.
I would push back on that notion. In fact, with hybrid workspaces still a viable option for many companies, we do have space. The personalized advantage of cubicles would have to be sacrificed, but a company pressed for space in an in-person office could assign different work groups different in-person office days. If work groups are not all in the office at the same time, cubicles can be shared.
I’m cynical enough, however, to believe that the phasing out of cubicles had more to do with a desire to keep tabs on employees than space constraints. Look at the evolution of executive offices. They used to be like rooms in a house. Now they are almost always glass display cases. One executive at a past company took a page out of my book and taped paper and posters along the glass front of his office.
Having an open door—or no door at all in the case of a cubicle—is one thing; having nothing at all separating you from every surrounding eyeball is another.
What are the workstations like in your office space? How do you balance a desire for accessibility with employee peace and privacy?