A progressive development of technology and changes occurring within the whole society have an influence on our lifestyle, including the way we work. Companies all over the world struggle with a problem of finding the best way of functioning on the office space. More and more of them depart from an open space system, which was popular in the last decade. The work of several dozen and sometimes even several hundred of employees – similarly dressed, performing similar actions, sitting at the same desks – in the same large room, did not success in such extent as it was initially assumed by experts. Open space became a symbol of an office standardization – it is associated with enslavement of employees and it certainly does not improve their creativity or productivity.
A solution to the problem of a company’s organization may be a new trend which is gaining popularity, defined in English as address-free offices, implemented in i.a. American headquarters of American Express GlaxoSmithKline or PwC. The main assumption of this solution is the fact that employees do not have assigned workstands, which has an influence not only on their workers’ productivity, but also it allows an entrepreneur to minimize places in the office, which are not used by anyone, and which may be assigned, for instance, for rooms used to relaxation since, according to the survey conducted by The International Facility Management Association on 950 companies, unused places can be found in as much as 60 per cent of companies which took part in the research.
Performing tasks in different places of a company, in relaxation sphere or in places intended for intently work, allows to limit time of communication within company. Glaxo company conducted a survey among employees, who were working in offices without assigned workstands. It turned out that thanks to this solution, the amount of sending mails decreased by half. Moreover, according to employees, the process of making decision was shortened by 1/4.Therefore, such organization of office space may favour a team work and improve a communication – comments Zuzanna Mikołajczyk, Director of Mikomax Smart Office.