Why These NYC Office Layouts Are Things of the Past
Spaces like offices naturally take diverse forms. People might still argue about which commercial business furniture suits workplaces best; however, it’s an indisputable fact that humanity likes things new and improved.
Your employees expect more convenient, flexible office arrangements than they would have settled for in the past. Here are a few layouts that people have collectively decided they’re done with, and some of the reasons why they’re unlikely to make a comeback anytime soon.
The Classic Cubicle Farm
True, floor to ceiling cubicles and similar furniture still fulfill vital roles in modern workplaces. As a modern manager, however, you have to do more than just filling your office with identical boxes.
Cubicle farms lack inspiration and immediately call to mind the monotonous corporate world that so many of your employees detest. While there’s nothing wrong with leveraging these elements in moderation, you need to mix it up. For instance, many farm-style layouts have been replaced with shared floorplans whose cubicles double as private spaces that individuals can use as needed.
The Factory Floor
The days when suit-wearing drones worked side-by-side in endless rows of desks as managers watched from high above are long gone. Factory floor layouts fell out of disfavor precisely because although they allowed people to interact; they eliminated privacy. Observing your staff members’ every move from afar is the ultimate form of insulting micromanagement, so why foster bad blood?
The Inflexible Open Plan
Looking at pictures of tech companies, such as Facebook and Google, one might be forgiven for assuming that any office design will work as long as it’s open. Although open floor plans are still important, you’ll notice that these businesses don’t just knock down walls or start pushing desks into pods anymore. Instead, they use innovative office design facilities to give people space to sit, stand, walk, and shift from one task to another seamlessly.
The key to such changes may lie in the evolution of how we work. Older, open offices mostly focused on the desk as the main productivity zone. Today’s managers know, however, that people do work while they’re sitting on comfortable loungers at meetings, using their phones in the breakroom, and presenting their ideas to their peers in freeform conference areas. Accommodating your employees’ ability to be productive anywhere promotes a more functional workplace.
The Sole-purpose Office
Just as people work in diverse ways thanks to devices that keep shrinking, companies are changing their repertoires to keep up with novel business models. Whether you’re trying to complete a digital transformation or developing new products, your commercial office furniture should be flexible enough to support different tasks and user preferences. Multi-use items can spark creativity, help workers who have physical limitations, and make your office a more pleasant place.
How is your company’s interior design evolving?
Share your ideas in the comments below, or talk to us about finding commercial office workstations that move forward right along with you.