(Lela) Jason is the CEO of an advertising agency. He has a somewhat small staff of 125 people that seems to be getting the job done. Although Jason is pleased with the work of the staff, he believes that they could be stronger in certain areas when it comes to their teamwork. After doing some research on the concept of an open-plan office, he decides to give it a try to see if it helps promotes the teamwork he is looking for within the company. Before Jason puts the plan into action, he sends out an email to the entire staff for feedback. In the email, he advises his staff that the open-plan office will be in effect for a year before anything becomes permanent. Surprisingly, Jason receives mixed reviews. Because he still thinks it’s a good idea, over a four-day time frame he puts hires a team to redo the office spaces and even has a space made for him. This reason for doing so was to show his team that he was going to be a part of the experiment as well and he’s willing to do what it takes to make his team better. After the plan is put into action, Jason still receives the same mixed feedback from staff. Because of the plan, Jason has also lost a few employees due to the change.

Questions

• How might CEO Jason make better use of office space to promote teamwork?

Jason could make better use of the space by having a separate area designated for teamwork activities and actual workspaces. Some people work better away from noise while some can work in any environment. If the goal is to promote a more productive environment and stronger team a survey of how the team works would have been great to do before the change was made. By doing so it would have shown that all team members opinions were valued, and their voices were heard.

• To what extent are the workers opposed to the open-plan office simply being inflexible?

Many of the workers are opposed to the open-plan office because of the noise levels that was heard on a day-to-day base. The older employees didn’t like to hear the phone calls taking place and the phones going off in general. Another employee just didn’t like that the fact that he couldn’t hold a meeting because of the noise in the background and that when he did find a “quite” place someone was already in the area to escape the same noisy background.

• Identify several rules Jason might introduce that would make the open-plan office more conducive to effective teamwork.

I think the main rule Jason could enforce is having respect for one another. This means respecting each other’s space and the area. Although it would be hard to keep the noise in the area low, not having conversations on speaker phones would be a great start. As a person who works in an open-plan office, hearing those around me talking loudly while engaging in a call on speaker phone makes it hard for me to get work done. In the same respect I have coworkers who have conversations on speaker phone, and you barely hear them or the person they are on the phone with because they are being respectful of those around them. Secondly, I feel that Jason should implement a rule for the conference rooms, where a person could utilize them for an hour at a time depending on what it’s currently being used for by the previous person.
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