Table of contents – Culture – Cabin revolution: after the epidemic, office work will not be the same

Now that the coronavirus epidemic in the West has lost its initial momentum, more and more people want to start working again or end teleworking. But we should go back to jobs that have been profitably designed with people on top of each other (according to the Los Angeles Times, in the 1970s, one worker was 45-65 m², and now 14-19 m²). This is not a viable model due to the risk of infection, but the future of many other “achievements” of the office in recent decades is also questionable.

On the one hand, the employer can use slightly Orwellian technological solutions to protect employees, or rearrange the office so that employees can sit at a safe distance from each other, possibly introduce sliding shifts and, of course, apply surface and disinfectant disinfectants. hands everywhere. But it could also be a solution to go back to the sixties and seventies and put dividers on the tables so that everyone has a little corner of their own.

There are three main phases in the history of office work. Initially, everyone blew out the keyboards of typewriters and calculators, then, in the second half of the 20th century, booths appeared, but instead of the time of tables surrounded by walls, open-plan offices became something common. But now he may have sacrificed himself for this.

Small office history

The modern office did not appear until the time of the Industrial Revolution, when the first large companies were formed, and a lot of administrative staff had to be found. The first office building was built in 1726, it was owned by the Royal Navy, and then the East India Company also built its own office building in London. At the time, separate “workstations” were preferred, as former Britain’s treasurer Sir Charles Trevelyan put it, anyone who does mental work needs a separate room. Of course, as the number of white-collar workers grew, it was not sustainable.

In the early 1900s, Frederick Taylor, who became a consulting engineer, thought that for maximum productivity and efficiency, offices should be furnished like factory halls, only people did not have to sit behind the assembly line, they had their own desk, but they were huddled in long rows next to each other, and the elbow reached the elbow. Frank Lloyd Wright designed one of the first open (and ever since incomparable) office offices. The central office space of the Johnson Wax headquarters building in Racine, Wisconsin is 40×60 meters, 6 meters high, and its ceiling is supported by specially shaped columns. The tables were scattered throughout the vast space, the furniture was individually designed by Wright to provide maximum comfort to workers, for example each table had three work surfaces. Even today, anyone would be delighted to work in the Johson Wax office building, and the generous design of the space would also be an excellent choice for post-epidemic-era security rules.

By the mid-20th century, more and more office buildings were already being built in the world’s major cities, but as a quality, these were generally far from the Wright building. One of the oldest and best-known glass-faced office towers was the 1958 Seagram building in New York, Mies van der Rohe, whose flexible-plan offices were already bathed in natural light thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows. Van der Rohe used gray topaz glass panels to protect occupants from strong sunlight and heat.

However, over-the-counter offices have been sacrificed over time, especially as the Bürolandschaft concept began to spread. It was born after World War II in northern Europe, and the goal is to group people by work and separate different functions with natural dividers like plants. Then came the cab revolution, thanks to Robert Propst of Herman Miller. He invented a modular system called Action Office, which consisted of a table and dividers, and the objective was that everyone had a small corner that they could form according to their own needs and where they were not disturbed by others. The first version debuted in 1964 and failed quickly, it was too expensive, and people, more specifically, top executives, did not understand the point.

Then in 1968 the second improved version came out and there was no one to stop anyone who knew it, copy it, only of course they didn’t pay attention to detail. The original Action Office was not an inhuman and rigid series of booths, Propst was careful to allow staff to communicate with each other and provided enough space for all employees. As is often the case, the impersonators omitted exactly the elements that made the original concept attractive and enjoyable.

And the popularity of the stand system has spread not only because of cheap copies, but also because the Treasury has classified office furniture as a descriptive cost, employers have realized that if there are no real walls, only ears, many more people may be crowded in one place. Of course, critics of the system also seem to find it terribly moving to work in such uniform conditions. Propst himself wished he had never invented the Action Office, so many misunderstood the original concept.

As a result of the negatives of the cabin system, the one-room office has become increasingly popular since the 1980s. Admittedly, even then, there were studies that found it much more stressful to have to work in the same air with many colleagues. THE Wall street journal For example, in 1985, he wrote that after switching to an open office in Hewlett-Packard, the earplugs had to be distributed, and at first only one-meter dividers appeared next to the tables, and then more and more were made and Taller. But here’s another example: In the early 1990s, the Chiat / Day advertising agency Gaetano Pesce asked an architect to design an office for them that encouraged employees to be creative, but not everyone was enthusiastic about the Outcome.

You felt completely helpless. There were six conversations around me at the same time, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts

One of the employees said at the time.

A clean desktop system has also been introduced in the office. This is when no one has a fixed table. Employees reportedly lined up every morning to get the equipment they needed, many used the trunk of their car as an office locker, and workers came earlier and later to pinch better places. When the business owner died, the old order was restored. However, by the start of the millennium, the ubiquitous office had been reestablished everywhere, thanks to Silicon Valley, the former startups, whose founders wanted to break tradition in every field, so they said they didn’t apply for it. Google asked architect Clive Wilkinson to help design his new office, and Facebook did the same. And the 2008 global crisis is another boost to this concept, as more people can be crowded into one-bedroom offices, saving on rent.

Alone in silence, only gently

While business owners and top executives may have been persuaded by dirty financiers, because they probably had their own office, they don’t actually experience what it’s like to work with many people in one space.

One of the main problems is base noise. (If someone still has a feeling of lack, click here, you will find a good little office noise simulator here). Obviously, a lot depends on how much different it is to sit in the middle of a newsroom than, say, the accounting department. And of course a noise-canceling headset is a real save, but according to a 2018 study by the Royal Society, we managed to find a simpler solution that goes a bit against what would be a beneficial feature of an open office. , which is to facilitate communication and collaboration. This is because in such workplaces, people will be more reticent, to the extent that the total private sector allows, and live communication will be reduced by approximately 70 percent, while contact on channels digital will increase.

And another survey, in 2018, found that people are much more afraid of infections in offices like this. And not without reason. According to an official survey in South Korea, there was a customer service center where 94 of 216 employees tested positive for coronavirus. And in just 16 days, the virus was released, meaning that 90 percent of them were definitely infected on the job.

For this reason, many imagine a new revolution in the stand, which means that the tables surrounded by partitions can come back. Obviously, the ideal solution to the problems would be for everyone to receive a separate office, but unfortunately that is not a viable option. But why sub-solution your own box? Donald Milton, a professor at the University of Maryland, deals with airborne diseases, and while he says that cough prevents cough-forming sprays from hitting colleagues directly, if you read a couple of studies on how long Coronavirus can be detected on different surfaces, you will be forced to realize that other solutions may be needed, and offices need to borrow some good health care ideas, such as using copper and antibacterial surfaces, especially when it comes to common use items.

And what else can the future bring?

• We may have to give up our desks because we always fill them with our personal belongings, making things difficult for cleaners, even though we need them now more than ever.
• And there may be disposable paper tablecloths on the tables, like in restaurants that should be thrown away at the end of the day. Or, even if there are no cabins, there will be smaller or larger partitions.
• Perhaps the tables have been turned upside down until now, but now we would rather sit with our backs turned. And more space should be left between the workstations. Alternatively, they can paint a mandatory travel direction between tables and in the hallway. And while 10 have so far been able to enter a meeting room, there will now only be five or more online meetings than before the epidemic.
• If the epidemic breaks out again, but once again the whole world does not want to stop life, there will be a fever measurement at the entrance and the mandatory use of masks may be necessary. Whenever possible, disinfection stations should be established and ventilation and air conditioning systems should be established or modified to minimize the risk of infection. Also, contactless switches should say goodbye, and Toyota, for example, thinks a lot about the voice-controlled toilet door. It is about what to do with the kitchen / cafeteria, since it is the biggest contagion, but it is difficult to imagine that people abandon it.
• And yes, many more people will work from home than before the epidemic. It may not be permanent, only alternately and intermittently, since if we say only half the team in the middle of the week and only the other half in the other half, the population density is lower and, therefore, it is easier to keep a safe distance.

Older brother

Consulting firm PwC has developed a contact search application for office buildings, which is already being tested in Shanghai. Many countries, including the United States, are considering using such applications, although digital surveillance is a rather sensitive issue. PwC claims in any case that its app can track the movement of the phone owner much better than it does. With GPS or Bluetooth based software, and if someone tests positive, it is much easier to identify who they may have been in contact with. Another option is to play chess in turns. Appain has developed a method that uses questionnaires to assess whether a worker can go to work or not. According to founder Matt Calkins

There are companies that tend to monitor employees with smart cameras. SmartVid.io has also developed a monitoring system based on artificial intelligence, true for construction companies, to be able to signal danger situations in a timely manner. The construction industry is not skyrocketing right now, but they have started working to make sure their system can also check if someone is wearing a mask, for example.

Lots of home office

There are many companies and businesses that may not be able to make the office safe enough now, and many employers have spent significant sums of money creating the technical background necessary for teleworking due to the epidemic, and they certainly don’t want to. It was a waste of money in such difficult times. In other words, not only are we on the verge of a revolution at the booth, but the renaissance of the home office has come, and perhaps even employers who have so far been skeptical about telework are more open to this solution. because their employees have shown enough in the past few weeks. They are efficient and productive, even when it comes to teamwork.

According to a survey, 37 percent of jobs in the US USA They can be done remotely, and it’s true that only 4 percent worked from home before the epidemic, but once tracking restrictions were introduced, it managed to almost bring that up to the 37 percent mentioned above. Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, says 30 percent of American workers are likely to telecommute for several days in the coming years. In Germany, by the way, Hubertus Heil, head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, suggested that after the end of the coronavirus epidemic, the right of workers to work from home or home office would be retained, leaving enshrined in law. Although of course there are countries like Japan where people’s souls just don’t work that way. Regarding Hungary, according to the 2018 CSO data, in the first quarter, 3.7% of the employees, 144 thousand, worked in telework, the vast majority of them were intellectuals. The vast majority of teleworkers, 89%, work from home, and only 11% work, for example, in a telecentre, a remote office, a public place (coffee shop, business center) or clients.

Of course, working remotely now means something completely different from what it did a few months ago, parents could really tell us about that, as they had to be parents and teachers at the same time due to school closings. While it’s also true that the home office used to help many pregnant women find their way back to the job market. And telecommuting isn’t just fun and laughter anyway, there are also rules in less turbulent times that are worth following to make them really work, which we also wrote about recently. Let’s keep quietly in mind, just because more people work from home doesn’t mean businesses can save space, as office space requirements increase if they want to keep a safe distance.

(Cover image: Empty booths in a Virginia office in 2013. Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post via Getty Images)