Building a Better Cubicle
Did you know that the average cubicle has been getting smaller? The typical cube has shrunk from a "spacious" 250 square feet in 2000 to 190 square feet today. For years, companies have been trying to pack as many of us in as possible.
The good news is that some firms have realized that tiny gray boxes may not be the best environments for productivity. According to research by office furniture manufacturer Steelcase, cubicles are starting to evolve.
“Stuffing people into little boxes without any reflection of the different tasks or needs they have is over,” says Paul Siebert, director of Workspace Futures at Steelcase. Companies are experimenting with more fluid work spaces to support the different ways that people work. Read more Steelcase research on "The State of the Cubicle."
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My name is Pamela Skillings and I'm an author and career coach.
anon
190 sq feet? Ours are 64 to 80 sq feet in size. The cubes in your photo above looks even smaller. So I wonder about that number in your article. I know, let’s compute the total volume of occupancy… 400 cu ft… that’s a nice large number; are we worth it?
Yep
Our BRAND NEW cubicles are 64 sq ft (before the furniture). Something wrong with your numbers.
Pamela Skillings
Wow. Sounds like cubes have been continuing to shrink from the size quoted in that study quoted by Steelcase. Or maybe companies overreported their cubicle sizes for the study so they wouldn’t sound so pathetic. Maybe 64 square feet is the new standard. Yikes. I think it’s time for me to look for a more recent study.
Another Cubicle Worker
64 sq ft even?? try 36 at my work! 6ft x 6ft or so. They are talking about 13′ x 13′ or larger?? Never seen before!!
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[...] for open communication. I’ve fought that fight with no results at all (show my manger this and http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/09/magazines/fortune/cubicle_howiwork_fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes, [...]
Mike
I believe that the 190 square foot number includes common areas and such – it is an overall per employee square footage, not just the inside of the cube. I have designed many work areas for dot coms, VC companies and ‘cube farm’ style areas – I can tell you that the ‘open area’ solution is universally loved in concept, but pretty much hated in practice. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone in a year or two after an ‘open office’ installation and started putting in cubicles because people were complaining that they could not be productive with their neighbor staring at them.
chas
just measured my pathetic excuse for a cube…it is 3×4. That’s 12 square feet. Quit complaining bitches. I have a photo to prove it.
Pamela Skillings
That’s pretty brutal, Chas. You may be the winner of the World’s Smallest Cubicle award — any smaller and I think you’d have to call it a cage. Send me the photo if you don’t mind sharing…maybe I should do a cubicle photo gallery for the blog.
Anon
190 square feet? You have got to be shitting me. I have a PhD and I have 36 square feet.
Jen Kley
Geesh, I’ve worked (sat) in several sized cubes. I once had one with only two walls which beyond annoyed me. It’s the worst when you have office hooligans around you, those who have zero concept of sharing a workspace and what it should absolutely entail.