Finding Enough office Space Options for Government Employees

Space to Work: Solving the Problem of Limited Office Space

Jocelyn N. Craig

Strayer University

August 23, 2015

When the government continues to grow due to increased hiring of new employees; that’s considered a good thing.  However, as is true in most situations, there can be a downside.  In this instance, the problem is office space. There is simply not enough. The agency in question was originally designed for 2,500 full-time employees. The agency now has an estimated 3,900 full-time employees, and the human resource department, as well as the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, plans to hire at least 1,500 workers in the next six months. The logical course of action, of course, would be to rent a larger office space, but the 3 buildings the agency currently occupies still have 5 years left on the lease, and renting another office space at this time would require not only the investment of additional rent but also more equipment, business cards, letterhead, and other materials with both addresses on them, and a duplicate support staff for the new location.  For this reason, the staff needs to make do with the available space for now.  After several meetings, two possible solutions to the space issue have been proposed, telecommuting and cubicle sharing; the purpose of this report to examine the pros and cons of each option.

In order to examine the benefits and drawbacks of telecommuting, it is a good idea to have a definition of the term that will work for this company. Sociologist Kurt Reymers defined telecommunicating as:

Telecommuting has been variously described as telework, electronic homework, the electronic cottage, networking, distance work, location-independent work and flexiplace (Huws, 1991; Morrison & Saveri, 1991). The existence of such varied synonyms is important as they each connote a slightly different meaning for the phenomenon. In fact, the definitions for telecommuting are quite diverse. Some research focuses solely upon work done from the home, while others integrate work done in "satellite offices", or "on the road" via laptop computer technology. The various synonyms represent distinct manipulations of space made possible by the different contexts of working outside of the office. (Reymers, 1996).

For this purpose of this study, we will assume that employees will be working from home offices that will be equipped to an identical degree by the company itself.  In other words, each employee working from home will have the same brand of computer, or equipment equivalent to the agencies, the same software, access to Skype, and wireless access needed to use the Web, send emails, and scan and send documents via pdf.  Obviously the advantage to the company mandating the same technology for each worker is that there will be no issues with individuals not being able to complete work, share files, or participate in meetings remotely.  Of course, the disadvantage of this is that the company will have to lay out capital for the necessary technology home-based workers will need.  However, these employees would need the same hardware and software whether working in the office or at home, so the monetary investment will be much the same.  The company will still save on office rent.

Another issue that may arise with telecommuting is the question of how to manage employees, specifically, how to tell if they are actually productive and not simply using telecommuting as a way to goof off.  Employees who do telecommute would argue that point, of course:

Call me crazy, but I think a lot of people who get paid by the hour to warm seats in an office spend at least some of their work time goofing off too. I’ve been one of them. I’ve worked next to them. I’ve overheard lengthy conversations from other cubicles about wedding plans, which’s picking up the dry cleaning and my personal favorite from many, many moons ago: who should be invited to my co-worker’s then-upcoming vasectomy. (Rigdon, 2010).

While there is always the possibility that employees who work from home will take advantage, most employers find that productivity actually rises when the workers no longer have to commute or worry about child care arrangements.  However, it is important for the employer

to be prepared for a new type of management style in order to accommodate those who are working but not on-site (Gaebler, 2015). It is also important to make sure that those employees who are out of sight are not passed up for projects and possible advancement.

The second option currently being reviewed is the concept of cubicle-sharing. The issue of cubicles in the workplace is itself problematic: many employees feel confined, perceive that their “territory” is constantly being invaded, and are frustrated with the noise, odors, and other problems associated with the lack of privacy (Eigen, n.d.). Sharing a cubicle, of course, can only add to those stresses if not managed appropriately.

The greatest advantage to cubicle sharing would be that all employees would be on-site at least part of the time. This would allow managers more direct contact with employees, give employees a chance to work face-to-face with colleagues, and reduce the “distance” and sense of disengagement sometimes felt by employees who telecommute exclusively (Gaebler, 2015). However, in terms of productivity, each employee would still need his or her own computer, phone, files, and other workplace tools, so there would not be a cost-saving there. In order to accommodate workers, either cubicles would have to be much larger (to give each person adequate space) or schedules would have to be carefully coordinated to ensure that each employee had custody, so to speak, at different times. While some employees may be able to come into work earlier or later, thereby freeing up the space for someone else, this may not be feasible. Making cubicles larger will not work, as lack of floor space is the core issue.