Jim Harter, Chief Scientist of Workplace Management and
Well-being at Gallup provides data cited in the article that establishes the
importance of paying attention to the work space of workers. Harter says that
data his organization has collected shows that only 30% of people are engaged
at work, 52% do only the minimum required and 18% are actually working against
the objectives of their organization. Harter cites a number of things managers
must do to increase the percentage of workers that are engaged; most of which I
covered in my book. One that I did not cover is the importance of personal
workspace and the feelings of ownership in the tools associated with people’s
work and workspace. Reviewing how I felt about workplace tools and space during
my career may help guide aspiring managers in addressing this important issue
that is often neglected.
In my earliest jobs as a lab technician I was assigned a
set of tools and a tool box to contain them. They were “mine” as long as I had
the job but I was responsible for returning every tool and the tool box when I
left the job. These tools were used every day in doing the work I was assigned
and it’s easy to see why I considered these tools “mine” even though they
belong to the organization. If I loaned one of my tools to a co-worker I made
sure I got it back. If other workers had felt free to use my tools without my
permission I would have become upset and less engaged due to the perceived
outrage against me.
Later in my career as an executive I had a private office
with desk, chairs, phone, my personal secretary and the freedom to decorate the
office as I saw fit within the bounds of decency. Sometimes I did add things to
my office to make it more personal and sometimes I did not. However, in all
cases I felt that the office was “mine”, to be used only by me or with my
permission. If these implied rules had been violated I would have diverted my
energies from my work to correcting the violation of my implied rules just as I
would have hunted down anyone who borrowed one of my tools without permission
when I was a lab technician.
After retirement I worked part time as a consultant for a
number of years. In many of these jobs I would be given a workplace and a
computer or access to a shared computer. In some jobs I would have a workspace
with a computer that was “mine” and access to shared computers for email that
could not be accessed with my workspace computer due to security concerns. I
mention this arrangement because of the comments by Tom Eich, Partner at IDEO.
Eich says private offices are no longer economically viable so that either
open-plan offices or shared workspaces are the new norm. Also the growing
practice of working much of the time at home makes it desirable to have shared
workspace and tools such as computers and phones for use when workers are in the
organization’s facility. He says people accept these arrangements as long as
they have personal storage and have access to a dedicated desk or workspace when
they need it.
The message for managers is that attention must be paid
to the relationship of workers to their workspace in order to maximize the
engagement and thereby the productivity of the workers. It is important to assign each worker
personal storage space at the least and to allow workers to treat desk space
and other associated work tools as their own even if these are only assigned
temporarily to the worker. In principle workers like to have control of their workspace
and tools as well as their processes. The more the workers feel in control of
their processes, workspace and tools the more likely they are to be fully
engaged in their work. If they feel management or co-workers are not respecting
their “ownership” of their processes, workspace and tools then energies are
diverted from the objectives of the organization toward fixing the perceived
ownership issues.
