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The Moral Life of Cubicles

David Franz, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Virginia, writes, "Organizational technologies of office life provide a kind of moral education, that offices shape character, that they create a certain kind of person." He maintains that the cubicle revolution was ideological and utopian. Citing sources as different as Tom Peters, Intel, and Max de Pree, Franz argues the office cube represented a future of boss-less companies that erased barriers between departments. Cubes "eliminated the hierarchical distinctions between managers and workers; every cubicle had an open door, everyone was equally a worker. Empowering and humane, cubicles seemed to create a workplace with a soul."
More at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/62#comment-675

Are millennnials' brains modular or unconscious?

In addition to the OXYGENZ research presentation at the January Symposium, Jay Brand will address the question, "Are Millennials' Brains Modular or Unconscious?" Jay will discuss how the mind handles different types of tasks automatically or consciously. What are the implications for being able to perform different tasks simultaneously? Does the brain work modularly or more like separate, specialized components for different tasks? More details at: http://www.newwow.net/members/symposium/vi/intro#comment-668

This week's top news stories:

Gensler US 2008 workplace survey
Gensler's latest workplace survey describes four work modes of the knowledge worker: focus, collaboration, learning, and socializing. The study concludes that US companies who understand the shift in work modes achieve lower costs, increased revenue and higher worker satisfaction. Gensler analysts created a workplace efficiency rating for all survey respondents. Applying this rating, they found that organizations at the high end of workplace effectiveness were 14% more profitable than those at the low end of workplace effectiveness. Gensler research also found that on average, people spend 48% of their time in focus work, 32% of their time collaborating, 6% socializing and 6% learning. Much more at http://www.newwow.net/members/node/77#comment-659

Featured study: The Future of the Workplace
The latest issue of CoreNet's The Leader features an article by Maria Puyabaraud entitled The Future of the Workplace: What’s Next is Here. In it, she outlines three different views of the future developed by the Futures Academy at the Dublin Institute of Technology in collaboration with Johnson Controls. The research developed a "futures approach" with three scenarios designed to stimulate creative thought about what might be coming. For example, if our future includes accelerated economic growth and fierce global competition, workplaces will be more networked, with "Smart homes" and new workspace community centers. Increased remote working will make it more difficult to maintain organizational culture. Read our summary at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/480#comment-654

New in the library: Enabling Work Practice by Mike Joroff, et al.
Many thanks to Mike Joroff for contributing a copy of his latest study and making it available to NewWOW members free of charge. The study is supported by the dWork project, Helsinki University of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mike writes that the study "offers a major shift in thinking about 'workplace-making.' Good practice today aligns place and IT supports with the activities of those who do the work, as that work is now done. This is acceptable in many, if not most, circumstances. However, sometimes there is a need for, and an opportunity to create a 'transformative workplace,' one that creates new supports for work as an intimate part of the redesign, or creation of new work practices." Find a copy of the report in our library at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/962

Featured study: Designing Space to Support Knowledge Work

The authors, a team from Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Kansas, and Steelcase, examine the impact of office design and spatial layout on employee productivity and connectivity. They base their analysis on a case study: the relocation of a design firm to new premises, which were designed to support organizational culture and creativity. Researchers learned that layout can contribute to the density of different networks of interaction at shorter time intervals. Layout can also indirectly contribute to productivity, by facilitating the sharing of ideas, communication, and the joint exploration of possibilities in the nonroutine phases of knowledge work [the second point was not supported statistically but there was evidence to support it.] Read on at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/958

Measuring workplace productivity

Joe Ouye posted his research paper entitled In Search of Measuring Workplace Productivity to the library. Joe presented this paper at the ProWork Seminar in Helsinki, Finland, this past May. His paper reviews the difficulties and approaches of measuring knowledge worker productivity and suggests a Workplace Performance Model, based on principles from Human Performance Technology (HPT) for understanding and designing multiple measuring approaches. HPT is the study and ethical practices of improving productivity in organizations by design, and developing effective interventions that are results-oriented, comprehensive, and systemic. Find Joe's summary and a link to download the paper at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/940

Book review: Generational differences

We review Stanton Smith's book, Decoding Generational Differences: Fact, Fiction, or Should We Just Get Back to Work? Smith is national director of next-generation initiatives at Deloitte. His work is based on research done at Deloitte, where over 80% of the company's client-facing employees are under 35. Smith describes three main areas where Generations X and Y differ greatly from the previous two generations. An example: Gen Yers have a consumer attitude towards the workplace. This means they "want to interact with and influence anything that they consume, including their careers." So Deloitte has developed a "mass career customization" program to satisfy those needs. Smith attributes the program for retaining between 800 and 1,000 staffers, with a savings of $120 to $150 million. More at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/931

Study: Measuring green building performance. A new study from the US General Services Administration (GSA) evaluates building performance data from a dozen owned or leased buildings in its portfolio. It found that buildings designed with sustainable features cost less to operate, use less energy and have more contented employees on average in comparison to all US commercial buildings. The study pondered the question: "While sustainably designed buildings promise higher performance, do they deliver?" The answer: they do. Researchers found that the buildings in the study used 26% less energy, had 13% lower maintenance costs and showed 27% higher occupant satisfaction. Read our summary at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/923