Virtual Office Resource

As companies cut costs and accommodate an increasingly virtual office work force, some employees have had to let go of their personal work areas. Unassigned workspaces, also known as "free address" or "non-territorial offices," are being used for employees who do their jobs mostly on the road or from home. A growing number of workers have had their cubicles replaced by communal tables or unassigned desks they share with a sometimes shifting cast of colleagues.

Most companies that have embraced unassigned workspaces have done so to cut costs, but the new arrangement has also brought unexpected benefits such as employee collaboration and reduced internal email.

The Wall Street Journal reported that companies including American Express (News - Alert) Co., drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC and accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers are shifting large groups of workers into shared spaces. Instead of assigned desks, employees also get storage lockers to hold their files and supplies, and spots can be reserved in advance.

At American Express, 20 percent of the employees at the company's New York headquarters are considered "club" employees, who come to the office a few days a week and set up in unassigned desks. These people are part of a company-wide program called BlueWork, intended to increase creativity and save money by reducing traditional office space. The company is also reconfiguring floors of its 51-story building, at a rate of three to four floors a year. Part-timers can set up at communal workspaces when they visit the office.

According to Susan Chapman, a senior vice president at American Express who is overseeing the redesign, studies show traditional office space has a utilization rate of just 50 percent due to sick days, vacations and travel.

"Those are just not things we want to pay for. We want to efficiently use that space," Chapman said.

Kimberly D. Elsbach, a management professor at the University of California, Davis found that most workers adapted to the new work environment, but some felt they had lost some of their identity in the office because they weren't able to personalize their space, and others felt less organized.

The International Facility Management Association, a trade group for office-facility managers, recently surveyed 950 companies and found 60 percent had unassigned workspaces in their offices. Half said the amount of employees using the unassigned space had increased in the past two years.

GlaxoSmithKline said it has saved nearly $10 million annually in real-estate costs by gradually shifting 1,200 employees at its Research Triangle Park, N.C., office to unassigned seating. Similar moves outside the U.S. have saved the U.K.-based company some $40 million annually.

Robert Nash, Glaxo's director of U.S. environment health and safety, previously worked in an enclosed office. Since the changeover, he comes into work with his laptop, equipped with an Internet phone, picks a spot at a worktable.

"It's an instant office. Everything I need is just in my backpack or laptop," said Nash.

In surveys of employees who switched from assigned cubicles and offices, Glaxo found email traffic dropped by more than 50 percent, while decision making increased by 25 percent because workers could meet in person instead of exchanging e-mails. Glaxo has shifted employees in 20 offices globally to unassigned seating and the company says it plans to do so wherever it redesigns office space.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (News - Alert) has had a desk-reservation policy for some time now allowing employees who visit other offices to use vacant cubicles and desks. Now 2,000 employees in its offices in Denver, San Diego and San Jose, Calif., are using a new arrangement in which workers who come to the office regularly still have offices and desks.

Anne Donovan, a human-resources executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said she has learned a lot about her colleagues by sitting at their desks, surrounded by personal items.

She explained, "I think it makes us all feel closer to each other."