Open Offices and Working from Home: Inequities in Residency Wealth

Abstract

Workplace trends such as the open office concept continue to be hot topics of discussion in the literature, such as Steven Bell’s October 2023 C&RL News article “We’re all about openness: Except when it comes to our workspaces.” In this essay, I seek to address comments made by Bell in his article. The goal of this response is not to question the efficiency of open office spaces. More comprehensive, direct responses to that issue can be found in a blog post and December 2023 C&RL New sarticle by Meredith Farkas. Rather, I will focus here on issues of equity related to working from home as part of the open office model presented at Temple University.

In the article, Bell wrote “In addition to costs saved by eliminating private offices, where staff work offsite two or more days a week, the need for private offices diminishes” [emphasis added].