Pressed suits
Feeling a bit cramped? Blame management theory
“PROJECT gold” and “Project Nexus” sound like plans for bank heists or military assaults. In reality, they are the names for KPMG’s ongoing attempt to squeeze its 6,700 London employees into ever smaller spaces. Since 2006 the professional-services firm has reduced the number of offices it uses in London from seven to two. By the spring of 2015 everybody will be crammed into one building in Canary Wharf.
According to data from the British Council for Offices (BCO), an industry club, the average office tenant now uses around 11 square metres per worker, 35% less than in 1997. A new building in Ludgate Hill, in London’s financial district, will allocate just eight square metres to each employee. In many offices, rows of “hot” desks have replaced individual offices and even cubicles. “Nowadays it’s almost frowned on to have your own office,” claims Nick Wentworth Stanley, of i2 Offices, a big serviced property firm.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Pressed suits"
From the April 5th 2014 edition
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