The return to the office after the confinement imposed by the coronavirus forces us to rethink the layout of workspaces with a big winner, remote working, and a victim, the old form of open spaces, according to experts interviewed by AFP.
According to the latest edition, dating from 2017, of the barometer of the quality of life in the office, produced by TNS Sofres and Actineo, three out of five workers (65 per cent ) working in the office are in a closed space, 29 per cent in an open collective space (or "open space") and 6 per cent have no assigned position (shared office or "desk-sharing").
Of the 65 per cent who are in a closed office, 32 per cent are alone (a proportion which rises to 77 per cent for senior managers and 46 per cent for middle managers) and 33 per cent are in an office with more than two people (36 per cent of employees).
In the post-covid context, "companies will be forced to rethink their organization. Touching working environments is a sensitive issue" for Catherine Pinchaut, national secretary of CFDT, who warns that much will depend "on the quality of the dialogue social". "The employer must assume its responsibilities in terms of security, that it informs and trains its employees," insists Céline Verzeletti, Confederal Secretary of the CGT.
The open-top desks were castigated in the successful book "The open space killed me" published in 2008 by Thomas Zuber and Alexandre des Isnards (Pocket). Labor sociologist Alain d'Iribarne called them "the factory of social control" where "everyone watches, listens to the conversations of others".
They will have to be redesigned, says architect and work psychologist Elisabeth Pélegrin-Genel. "The open space has been densified over the years, we have crowded people to save square meters. We will have to + dedensify + and return to something probably much more pleasant because we will not be glued against each other other."
Not "the end of the office"
Author in 2016 of the book "How to save yourself from open space?" (Editions Parenthèse), she says today "beset with requests to install plexiglass" on the worktops. "As in + Playtime + by Jacques Tati. I hope it will only be temporary, that we will not end up living each in his spacesuit, two meters from each other ..."
In this context, the shared office "can become a good solution because of its ease of maintenance" because it is easier to disinfect a workstation empty of any personal effects, says Ms. Pélegrin-Genel.
Co-working (or "coworking") allows you to reconnect with an office atmosphere in dedicated spaces, shared by several companies, closer to home, making it possible to avoid hours of travel.
"Coworking is an alternative at home" for Odile Duchenne, general manager of Actineo, observatory of the quality of life at work, while allowing this "remote work, big winner" of this crisis.
According to Patrick Conjard, of the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (Anact), "work outside the walls", which concerned 7 per cent of employees before the crisis and 30 per cent (just over 7 million) during, "overturns managerial practices" called upon to "manage collectives in the presence and at a distance".
"We are increasingly going to work elsewhere than in office buildings," adds Ms. Duchenne, but "that does not mean the end of the office". For the manager of Actineo, "the company will be the place where we come for meetings, sharing, creativity". This will involve the development of "larger, higher-ceilinged, more ventilated meeting rooms".
One thing is certain for Odile Duchenne: "the crisis will mark these places".
