They try to use different ways to provide employees more interaction at work. One practice is to transform traditional office spaces into ‘open’, transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors, and other spatial limits.
In the article “The impact of the “open” workspace on a human collaboration” the authors Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban talks about two cases that used these practices, but contrary to common belief, the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases. Moreover, electronic interaction increased. Instead of this method increasing face-to-face collaboration employees reacted in an opposite way. They were more connected by the electronic devices.
On the one hand, the sociological theory presents a strong argument of removing spatial limits provide more contact between people and should increase collaboration and collective intelligence. When spatial limits are removed, like walls, people feel more physically proximate. In theory, it suggests more human interaction. This interaction is necessary to build collective intelligence. When we are in a group it’s possible to create more and produce more results than when we are doing something individually. On the other hand, social psychologists and environmental psychologists, have shown that removing spatial limits can decrease collaboration and collective intelligence. Other research in this field about workplace design suggest that open offices can reduce collaboration and collective intelligence, such as employee satisfaction, focus, psychological privacy, and other behavioral responses.
In the first empirical study, the authors researched two companies that removed employee’s spatial limits. In the company OpenCo1, one entire floor was completely opened. They removed all walls and used the most modern open office workstation. They moved 52 people to the new space because wanted to provide more interaction between people. As a result, the employees spent less interaction time than before the change (72%). They used more emails and messages to interact with each other. In this case, the electronic interaction replaced human interaction.
In the second study, they replaced the study in the OpenCo2 company. They moved 100 people with assigned seats to the new space in the same concept of the first research. In this case they used a long time window research and also collected detailed data on the participants. The result was the same as the first study. The physical interaction reduced and the electronic interaction was bigger than they imagined.
Finally, the authors concluded that removing spatial limits in companies can reduce interaction face to face about 70%. It was verified in both studies. Changes to open offices do not necessarily promote interaction. When people are in the same space, they look for other ways to preserve their privacy; for example, they use more emails or messages to interact with others. The effects of open office architecture on collaboration are not as simple as previously thought.You can check the research in full on https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239