High-tech offices impact high-rises

Those who own downtown office towers and expect them to be packed with executives, professionals and supporting office workers may be in for some surprises. Reason: Changing times are also changing the way people and organizations use space -- especially downtown office space. This is one of the implications of a new report called "WorkSmart" by the Center for the New West, Cornell University's International Workplace Studies Program and the Claremont Graduate School. There are several reasons for these changes.

First, new approaches to leadership and management rely more on teams and ad hoc task groups rather than rigid hierarchies. Spontaneity and self-generated problem-solving are replacing compliance with command-and-control directives and work orders. Result: Professionals and support staff alike are increasingly located in highly flexible open space with smaller workstations (replacing larger private offices) with lots of common space to use for spontaneous meetings and to manage projects. Bottom line: Fewer square feet per employee -- from the support staff to the top executive.

Second, new office technologies are dramatically changing how and where people work. From the 1920s to the 1980s, when most of the nation's office towers were built, workers used minimum function telephones, mechanical (later, electronic) calculators, pens and pencils, and later, in the 1980s, non-networked or "dumb," computer terminals. And office workers cranked away on routine tasks in isolation.

Today, the typical high-rise inhabitant is equipped with a sophisticated, multifunction telephone that often includes voice messaging, voice conferencing, call forwarding and other enhanced services; a fax; a high-speed copier; and, often, a computer integrated into a local area network, called a LAN, that permits the employee to use computer-based e-mail and document-sharing to communicate with others in the office, regardless of level or rank.

With increasing frequency, the desk-top computer is linked into the Internet and World Wide Web, giving employees access to people, institutions and information located anywhere in the entire world.

So today's employee, regardless of rank or physical location, is anything but isolated. Result: Many employees