The issue of whether or not particular members of staff get given a private office is often an emotive one. A private office can be seen as a privilege and as an indication of a person's status in the company. This view is not helped when it is noticed that the majority, if not all, of the private offices in a company are occupied by managers. Of course, the argument offered is that the people in private offices have them by virtue of the specific requirements of their role within the company, such as their need to be able to have private conversations, or to hold confidential documents.
I do not want to be drawn on the question of whether those arguments are valid, but instead to focus on how the decision to provide, or not to provide, private offices, is made in respect of those people to whom the argument in any case does not apply.
It is axiomatic that the purpose of any decision within a company is to maximise the value for the shareholders. It follows that a decision not to provide a private office to a member of staff is based on the belief that this is the more cost-effective course. That is, that it represents the best use of the combination of resources represented by the space occupied by the individual on the one hand, and the productivity of that individual on the other.
The exact effect that being in an open plan has on the productivity is hard to quantify, whereas there is a clear cost associated with having an individual take up more space. This makes it quite easy to assert that it would be wasteful to allow that individual to occupy the extra space inherent in a private office.
Or does it....?
Let's consider a software developer receiving a relatively modest income of $60,000 per year. There are direct on-costs of 14% for payroll tax and superannuation, which bring the direct costs of that employee to a little under $70,000.
The individual takes up at least 2.5 square metres even in an open plan environment, and a reasonable small office takes up 6.25 square metres, so providing a private office requires an extra 3.75 square metres.
Now, office space around Sydney costs in the region of $250 per square metre per year in rent, plus another $80 in 'outgoings', so the cost of the extra 3.75 square metres is $1237.50, or 1.8% of the direct cost of the employee.
The conclusion then, is that for accommodating the employee in an open plan area to make economic sense, the effect on that employee must be to reduce their productivity by less than 1.8%. This represents less than eight minutes of the employee's time per day. If the employee loses more than eight minutes of work per day, through getting involved in gossip, other people's work conversations, or simply through not being able to concentrate, then the company's decision to place the employee in an open plan area is faulty.
What has gone before has been an informal derivation of the criterion by which the private office accommodation decision must be judged. It does not in itself lead to a conclusion either way as to whether a private office should be provided. That depends on that actual impact that the decision has on an employee's productivity. To reach a definite result, one needs to know whether or not an employee's productivity would be improved by the appropriate percentage if they had privacy and quiet.
Software engineering is a remarkably unconstrained activity. Success demands an odd mix of creativity, logical thinking, and self-discipline. At the same time, it is totally unforgiving of error, and provides little if any scope for safety margins. On occasion, the engineer will be working at the limits of his or her intellectual ability. It can take a substantial time for the engineer to build a picture in their mind of what they're trying to do. If they're distracted during this period, then the picture is lost, and has to be reconstructed from scratch.
I cannot find words to describe the frustration that arises when this happens repeatedly. Sometimes, a problem only gets solved during the relative peace and quiet of the evening at home. Since the task at hand cannot be advanced until the problem is dealt with, it can mean that an entire working day has been wasted. I find it inconceivable that having peace and quiet at work would not increase the productivity of any software engineer by a mere 1.8%.
Unless the company is in the enviable position of having adequate spare space, it's clearly not going to be possible for it to provide offices to all the appropriate members of staff straight away.
However, if the company is expanding, there's going to come a time when moving is going to become unavoidable. At that point, the company can acquire accommodation that is sufficient for the provision of offices (and which allows for further expansion).
If all this still seems extravagant, look at the ratio of an employee's salary to their accommodation costs. In the example given above, a single person's salary pays for the extra accommodation of 55 other employees. So rather than hire one extra person, then company can provide private offices to 55 existing employees. This will provide a greater increase in productivity if the productivity of each existing employee is increased by 1.8%.
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Sylvia Else