PENNED IN: And don't forget the TPS cover sheets.
Image: CUBESPACE/Asa Wilson
In Brief
- In the modern office, many desks are often crammed into a wide-open space possessing few interior walls. This layout was designed for flexibility and to enable bosses to keep an eye on subordinates.
- Studies show that employees are happiest and most productive when they control the look and style of their work areas.
- Recent research indicates that even apparent bonuses such as comfy hang-out rooms and luxurious decor can alienate workers when they are imposed by management without genuine consultation.
Once upon a time the factory, with its dirty, noisy machinery, was the standard workplace of industrialized nations; today it’s the office. Hundreds of millions of people—at least 15 percent of the population in developed countries—work at a desk, with or without a partition that separates them from the desks of their co-workers. That’s an awful lot of swivel chairs.
But a cubicle is more than a mere physical workspace. In recent years social and organizational psychologists have begun to amass evidence that the character of people’s personal work environments affects their performance in profound and surprising ways. The size of our desks, our proximity to natural light, the quality of the air we breathe and our privacy (or lack thereof)—all are major predictors of our comfort, our contentment and our productivity.
This article was originally published with the title Cubicle, Sweet Cubicle.
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12 Comments
Add CommentNot very bright of you Scientific American, only posting a preview of this article. It would be a great reference to be able to share around the workplace, with management, etc. But you want people to buy it... not gonna happen. Instead, your readership will suffer because you are restricting the information contained. A great deal of people that might not otherwise be familiar with your publication could get turned on to what you have to offer. Too bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest that these days, the unemployed would be thrilled to have a job with a cubicle in the bathrooms. Timing of article isn't too good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ brian01:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBingo! Removing SciAm from my Google homepage right now. Nothing irks me more than teaser articles.
Bingo! Removing SciAm from my Google homepage right now. Nothing irks me more than teaser articles. Was fun while it lasted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso removing SciAm from my Google page. It is pure lying to offer headlines and no story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps you should add your own teaser pages to your recent "Good Riddance:..." articles. Good by SciAm, I've watched you fall for too long.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet a library card and read this and hundred of other magazines for free online. I work at a public library in Saskatchewan and we offer this service to all our patrons. Your tax dollars at work for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, what they all said. Share, don't sell. This was a great article that I stumbled on in a magazine my daughter brought home. I searched it online so I could include it in HR Communicator, a daily newsletter for HR pros. Guess not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResearch to determine the effects of working in cubicles fails to consider the reason they were created in 1968. Knowledge workers using the first close-spaced modern workstations began to have mental breaks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCubicle block peripheral vision to prevent Subliminal Distraction exposure and a massive number of failed attempts to trigger the vision startle reflex.
VisionAndPsychosis,Net is a seven year investigation of this phenomenon.
It would be great if, as a subscriber to the paper magazine (I order it through my local newsagent) I was allowed access to the online edition. I wanted to read some sections of this article to a colleague, only to find I need to return home and dig out the paper copy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is a great magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe idea is that you either buy the magazine or subscribe to digital... enough said.
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