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How to Defeat Your Cubicle Blahs
It’s less about the layout and more about the feel
If you’re not already familiar with the movie Office Space, you should be. If any movie captures the crushing spirit of cubicles, that film does.
But it turns out, the typical cubicle might not be all that evil.
In a post for the Trello blog, Kristine Spure presents some interesting stats about office layouts, including the fact that productivity varies only by 6 percent between closed, cubicle, and open layouts. Her larger assertion was that happiness is a complex affair. Under that lens, it’s not about how a space is set up. It’s about how the space feels.
I have to say, I totally see Spure’s point. If you work hard to create an amazing culture where people really feel connected, then you’re not going to think all that much of crossing that cubicle barrier when you honestly have to. In the same way, some people might not mind a cubicle at all, so long as they have pictures of family and access to a fuzzy sweater to make the space feel safe and cozy.
Spure offered some simple recommendations on how to mess with the ambiance of an office, such as bringing in green plants or letting workers play the music they like. There’s no harm in trying any of those options out. But the bigger picture is, the way a…
