Don’t Get Too Comfortable at That Desk<br />Since 2014, IBM has spent $380 million renovating its work spaces in the United States, which now bear all the hallmarks<br />of the new hybrid design — open spaces, whiteboard walls, no offices, sit-or-stand desks, huddle rooms and phone rooms.<br />IBM, for example, recently called 5,000 of its at-home employees back to offices, though<br />one in five workers in North America still work from home full time, the company said.<br />A diversity of spaces, experts say, is more productive,<br />and the new concept is called “activity-based workplace design,” tailoring spaces for the kind of work done.<br />Too much openness can cause workers to “do a turtle,” researchers say,<br />and retrench and communicate less — colleagues who retreat into their headphones all day, for example<br />Today, there are more private spaces, and the team areas hold only eight to 12 engineers.<br />The contrast with the cavernous offices and silent hallways of the old headquarters in suburban Connecticut<br />could scarcely be more striking — open spaces, sit-or-stand desks, and no parking spaces.<br />“When used as a generic answer for work space design, it’s terrible,” said David Lathrop, a researcher at Steelcase, a big office furniture maker.<br />But the hybrid design saves less than entirely open designs, which usually have workbench settings<br />and in which the amount of space can drop to as low as 60 square feet per worker.
