Is office culture destroying productivity?

‘Businesses are spending all this money on this place called the office, and they’re making people go to it all the time, yet people don’t do work in the office. What is that about?’

It is what Jason Fried had to say about office culture and productivity. Jason Fried is the co-founder of 37signals, creators of Basecamp and other collaborative business tools, and the co-author of “Rework”.

In his TED talk ‘Why work doesn’t happen at work’ Fried argues that the office is not the best place to do work. Indeed work, Jason believes, is an activity rather than a place. This leads us to wonder: could we be limiting productivity by working in an office?

Recent psychological research indicates that brain work requires flow. It means that you should be able to reach a state of concentration that takes 15-20 minutes to achieve and which can be easily disturbed in an office setting. As such, quality work requires uninterrupted alone time.

Similarly, noisy surroundings can lead to distractions. It indicates that working in an open-plan office can lead to reduced productivity than when working on their own.
Jason highlights two main problems with office culture: managers and meetings. Managers are tasked to check on their employees and to do that; they hold interruptive meetings. As he explains on his blog:
‘A one-hour meeting with six people is a six-hour meeting. A 15-minute meeting with nine people is a two-and-a-quarter-hour meeting. Even a 15-minute meeting with four people costs an hour of collective work time.’

Time is an essential material for makers. Indeed, the more time makers have, the more they can immerse themselves in projects and solve problems and do real work.

Even if the office might not be the ideal work environment, office culture does have some perks such as:

Social life: after work drinks with colleagues is now standard practice. Being able to socialise at work leads to more productivity, more creativity, and more success overall.

Compartmentalisation: the whole process of going to work and spending eight hours there makes the office the place of work, and home the place of fun, relaxation and family. This separation is essential for productivity and mental health

Jason has some solutions to workplace distractions. One of them could be to implement a “no talk Thursday” where for one day a week, people in the office cannot talk to each other.

Other solutions include:

• Adopt library rules for shared working areas. Sshhh! No talking.
• Cancel one meeting a week, or don’t turn up for one.
• Try Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.
• Check out Studyfor iOS, an app that plays calming soundscapes.
• Don’t add music to noise to cover it up. Address the underlying causes of the sound.
• Try noise-cancelling headphones but without any music – just for the silence.
• Create spaces for casual conversations and meetings away from people’s desks.
• If possible, give people doors they can shut.
• No management Mondays– Every Monday, managers are not allowed to engage with employees. Let them work.
• Monitor your concentration levels with tools like RescueTime.
• Switch off phone ringers and pagers to reduce interruptions.
• Talk Tuesdays– Every Tuesday, whatever needs to be said, gets said. Maybe it’s just an afternoon. But, the whole office talks through their work and everyone can offer solutions.
• No phone Fridays– Every Friday, people are not allowed to answer the phones. Workers must communicate through passive means like email, which enables the worker to respond on their own time, at their own pace.
• Invest in a bit of soundproofing and quieter equipment – noisy PC fans aren’t always obvious but the additive noise can be draining

Whichever way you choose, remember that flow only happens when you are fully engaged and removed from distractions, so invest in these solutions to elevate your and your company’s game.