Workers feel pinch of shrinking office space

|tab|

Eight years of research by the International Facility Management Association shows that, across the board in all categories, workers in U.S. offices have been forced to adapt to progressively less space. |ret||ret||tab|

Surveys of facility professionals in 1994, 1997 and 2002 show that the average amount of square footage allotted to each worker has decreased continuously. For instance:|ret||ret||tab|

Executives and upper management have lost 17 percent of their space, with averages dropping from 289 square feet in 1994 to 239 in 2002.|ret||ret||tab|

Senior managers have lost 15 percent of square footage, from 200 square feet in 1994 to 169 in 2002.|ret||ret||tab|

Middle managers have had to make do with 16.5 percent less space, going from 151 square feet in 1994 to 126 square feet in 2002.|ret||ret||tab|

Between 1994 and 1997, senior professionals held their ground with only one square foot of space lost (115 to 114 square feet), but then lost more territory, dropping to 97 square feet in 2002 for a loss of nearly 16 percent over the eight-year span.|ret||ret||tab|

Technical professionals gained two square feet between 1994 and 1997 (from 90 to 92 square feet), then dropped to 79 square feet for a 12 percent loss.|ret||ret||tab|

Senior clerical personnel also gained space between 1994 and 1997 (81 to 84 square feet), then squeezed into an average of 79 square feet in 2002, for an overall loss of nearly 5 percent.|ret||ret||tab|

General clerical staff also made headway between 1994 and 1997, going from an average of 69 to 73 square feet, then dropping to 66 square feet in 2002. The overall eight-year loss for this group was 4 percent.|ret||ret||tab|

With a tighter squeeze comes other challenges. The research findings, taken from IFMA's Benchmarks II, Benchmarks III and Project Management Benchmarks reports, coincide with information reported by facility professionals in IFMA's periodic Corporate Facility Monitor survey on the most common office complaints. |ret||ret||tab|

In 1997 and 2003, facility managers who responded to that survey ranked "not enough storage or filing space" as the fifth most common complaint from workers. Noise levels and lack of privacyboth symptoms of office crowdingalso ranked among the top 10 complaints. As early as 1991, the seventh most common complaint reported was "workstation/office is too small." |ret||ret||tab|

"The shrinking office is not a myth, but a reality, and a clear sign of the economic times," said IFMA President and CEO David J. Brady, in a June news release. "As companies have been forced to downsize their work forces and tighten their belts, many also have had to examine the productivity level and dollar value of each square foot of space they own. This might mean more workers sharing less space as they parcel off some of their real estate assets."|ret||ret||tab|

"For the facility professional, balancing the needs of workers in shrinking space takes some additional creativity and ingenuity," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

IFMA member Eric Baugh, director of facilities for BAE Systems Mission Solutions in San Diego, Calif., has already met the challenge of a tight squeeze. |ret||ret||tab|

Since the U.S. Department of Defense is his company's primary customer, the facility must comply with the standards of the Defense Contract Auditing Agency and prove the most efficient use of space. At his company, software engineers need two kinds of spaceprivate, quiet space in which to write code, and collaborative space in which to work with other engineers, he said.|ret||ret||tab|

"We have more support space than office space," Baugh said. To explain how companies make different choices in space utilization based on the type of work their people do, he uses the analogy of a home. |ret||ret||tab|

"Some people like large bedrooms because that's where they spend most of their time, so they have smaller living rooms. But, some people entertain a lot and they might choose a house with smaller bedrooms and more living space," he said. A veteran of the space planning wars, Baugh offers this advice for creating efficient workspaces:|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

Think of the amount of space people use at work as a tool and provide the right "tool" for the work being done.|ret||ret||tab|

Pay attention to the culture. What works in Silicon Valley might not work in Virginia. |ret||ret||tab|

Small doesn't have to mean inefficient, but the smaller the office, the more anxiety there is in the ergonomics of the space.|ret||ret||tab|

IFMA is a Houston, Texas-based professional association for facility management with approximately 17,000 members in 125 chapters, 16 councils and one special interest group, covering 54 countries. |ret||ret||tab|

[[In-content Ad]]