Companies Pushing Togetherness Isolated Executive Suites Are Falling Out Of Favor As Office Culture Changes

As a partner and controller at Andersen Worldwide, Rene Ordogne gets a room with a view. Farther down the corporate totem pole, so does senior analyst Randy Scasny.

In fact, everyone gets a view - of everyone else.

The days when executives were ensconced in comfortable corner offices while the staff labored in cubicles are gone at this global consulting company.

Now, everyone lives in “neighborhoods” - workplace groupings aimed at increasing collaboration and spontaneous interaction.

It’s a concept quietly gaining momentum in corporate America as management looks at ways to increase productivity.

“It’s different than we had ever expected,” Ordogne said while sitting in one of several office lounge areas that look surprisingly like living rooms, with comfortable chairs, foot rests, eye-pleasingly painted walls and artwork.

Ordogne gave up a posh office where privacy was as simple as closing his mahogany door. His “home base” is now the same kind of 8-by-10-foot low-walled desk that his executive assistants and staff have - and they sit right beside him.

“I had a reasonably nice office at the other spot, but I was just too excluded before,” he said. “I like the ability to just kind of see people. I don’t know how they feel about it. I don’t think there were volunteers standing by to sit by me, but I respect that and go out of my way to let them have their space.”

One of the largest proponents of change, not surprisingly, is Steelcase Inc., the world’s largest maker of office furniture, based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The company this year made the changeover at its own corporate offices.

Several other companies, such as Mobil and Shell, have done similar things with their offices, said Carrie Tennessen, a researcher at the International Workplace Studies Program at Cornell University.

Castec Software Factory in Toronto and several Dutch government offices also have turned to Steelcase for their needs.

“This is something we’re going to see continue,” Tennessen said. “But it has to be more than just design change. The management needs to consider the whole picture in terms of changing the behaviors you would expect to see go along with workplace changes.”

Executives and managers at Andersen attended numerous seminars on how to give workers space and trust under the new arrangement. Workers in turn get more flexibility, but ultimately are held more accountable.

Steelcase worked closely with Andersen to design the Chicago-based company’s new offices, which cost millions of dollars.

Andersen expects it will save at least $1 million annually from the move in real estate costs alone. The firm’s 1,100 employees now have offices on five floors, compared with 22 floors in its previous building.

“We saw an opportunity to enhance department cooperation and interaction by eliminating the physical areas and obstacles to spontaneous communication,” said John Lewis, Andersen Worldwide’s chief financial officer.

“From my personal point of view, it’s been fantastic. I’m getting visits from people I hardly ever see. It’s just a far more interactive environment than what we’ve had before and exactly what I hoped to achieve.”

The open space design makes the new offices appear almost empty despite the new density. To let people get away from it all, each neighborhood has “shared” areas - empty workstations, mini conference rooms, even private cubicles - where an employee or groups can meet, work on the computer or use the telephone in relative privacy. But all offices have glass doors now.

Scasny said he wouldn’t go back to the old offices.

“In the old building, I had a cubicle with three walls,” he said. “I never had a choice to go into a private office, to make a phone call or otherwise. Here, I can do what I need to do. I think it’s great.”