In the United States, the death of the “open office” — featuring Fuel Venture Capital

Created to encourage interaction between employees and foster transparency, the open layout model for modern offices has not been the unanimous success story many expected.

French newspaper La Croix dug into the open-office trend that has swept the United States, in light of recent evidence that refutes assumed benefits of removing walls and partitions that in past decades separated rank-and-file office workers. La Croix U.S. correspondent Alexis Buisson interviewed Fuel Venture Capital Managing Director Jeff Ransdell about an alternative: adaptive spaces, tailored over time to suit employees’ changing needs. Below, find the English translation of the French-language article. The original piece can be found via the La Croix website.

Jeff Ransdell likes to come to work. The affable Texan is the head of investment firm Fuel Venture Capital. In 2016, this thriving … company set up its headquarters in Wynwood, Miami’s arts district. In building out the Fuel Venture Capital office, the organization of the workspace had to be like the neighborhood: creative. No more open desks where staff cram around tables in a food hall atmosphere. Fuel Venture Capital bet on diverse work environments, adapted to the activities of each employee.

No closed offices

There are individual soundproof telephone booths; a casual library with sofas and a coffee table; private meeting and work rooms of various sizes; a cafeteria; and a rooftop restaurant, which also serve as offices; and a large, bright open space where startups supported by the company can work.

Jeff Ransdell does not have a closed office: he works in a glass room sitting with his team to maximize interaction. … ”Having varied spaces is the condition to make employees happy and productive. “

Open space eliminates verbal interactions

Fuel Venture Capital is among the American companies turning their backs on the open-office model. Study after study, the open office layout, which lacks any partitions (walls, doors, partitions) between offices, has faced criticism. Instead of fostering collaboration and transparency — its stated goals when it was developed in the 1990s — it has done the opposite.

In 2018, a survey conducted by Harvard University with two companies showed that the move to open space has reduced the number of direct verbal interactions by about 70%. Conversely, the number of virtual exchanges, for example by email, has increased sharply.

A damper on productivity and job satisfaction

The study follows other surveys that link open offices with reduced productivity and job satisfaction.

“When we think of open space, we imagine dynamic offices, with a lot of dialogue. In fact, it’s more people who adjust their screens because they want to look busy. They wear headphones so they do not get distracted by their noisy environment or hesitate to talk to others for fear of disturbing everyone around, “ said Ethan Bernstein, Harvard researcher.

The open space aimed to replace the “cubicles,” which had been deemed counterintuitive to collaboration. Inexpensive to build out, the open model grew in ubiquity. From small startups to large companies, 70% of companies in the United States had little or no separation between their offices by 2017, including Facebook and Google, both of which tout their open-layout offices.

“The need for privacy remains”

To optimize available, some companies have sought to maximize the number of employees around work tables, to the detriment of staffers’ comfort. Some companies have implemented a hot-desking policy, enabling employees to share the office but at different times of the day.

For Natalie Cockrell, an office-space consultant at Herman Miller, an American office equipment company, “the need for privacy has not gone away,” she said. “Employees want to be able to isolate themselves whenever they want.”

That’s not to say that going back to cubicles would be the answer.

“It’s rare today to see companies want offices that are completely closed or open. Like in a garden, you need a mix of environments,” Cockrell said.

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