I have some serious conference room envy.

February 20, 2012 3:25 PM

Data on office layout & team collaboration? My workgroup needs more conference rooms, and I'd love to have studies to back up my suggestion.

I work in a megacorp with a very silo-ed structure. Different departments work in very different work environments.

I'm on a floor of 130+ communications-oriented employees, and there's only one conference room. Obviously, this room is in high-demand and pretty much always booked.

There's nowhere to collaborate... when people need to work together, the choices are: a) do it by phone, b) take over an executive office if he/she is on vacation, or c) plan ahead by 24 hours and book a conference room located 30 floors down. THIS IS NOT OPTIMAL. It means we do not collaborate enough, and our team is actively struggling to improve our collaboration. (See: "megacorp with a very silo-ed structure")

What I would love to find is a study that says: "Employees in office settings with a ratio of X workers to Y meeting spaces are Z% more collaborative/productive/$better."

Bonus question: If you've worked in a similar situation, how did your team facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing?

posted by samthemander to work & money (2 answers total)

Peopleware might have something - it covers a bunch of things about employee happiness, the main takeaway being 'spend money on employee space to make your employees more productive.'
posted by asphericalcow at 3:55 PM on February 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Reading Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn changed my thinking about this topic. He looks with fresh eyes at what kinds of office layouts are best for collaboration. It's useful material not based on theory, but on real studies of what people actually like and use. There is a pretty good further reading list in it, too. Might have the studies you are looking for.
posted by seasparrow at 4:35 PM on February 20, 2012 [1 favorite]