Corporations in the modern society are actively ruminating on efficacious techniques that will increase productivity in the workplace. Through research and consultation from employees, scholars have identified multiple methods that employers can exercise. Some of these mechanisms for success include recreational activities, improve communication, encourage breaks from work, recognition, limiting office hours, incorporating play and professional development among others. The list could go on owing to the tremendous volume of research available. However, there is the open-plan office layout that scholars propose as a possible means of getting employees to perform at the highest level. Large companies like Google, Huffington Post, Yahoo, YouTube, Facebook, just to mention a few, have incorporated open-office layouts as a means of ensuring the comfort and collaboration. The following paper discusses the effects of applying such an office plan considering group productivity in workplace.
Positive Effects
Increases Interaction of Employees and Collaboration
In the modern workplace, the employees in the company usually comprise of diverse skills and capabilities. Through these divergent competencies, employees have to interact in an attempt to draw insights from one another. The open plan setting is the only one that promotes the general increase in interactions between workers within the workplace setting. The workers will engage in teamwork gatherings when located in a single station. This practice allows for discussions between that are constructive in nature. The staff members can improve their capabilities through this interaction. According to a study by Aram, Seddigh, Stenfors, Berntsson, Bååth, Sikström, and Westerlund (2015) on the effect of office layout on performance, it is evident that employees in small and medium sized open plan settings had significantly higher level of memory that those secluded in cell offices. This assertion demonstrates a clear lack of communication in secluded offices as they have to depend on personal effort without the input of others.
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The open plan setting is also likely to increase social relations between the employees creating a cohesive bond. This occurrence is an important factor in the development of a healthy workplace as members respect one another. These social relations between the employees are beneficial to the organization as it compels further collaboration to realize the objective goals set both short and long term. The individuals through continue activity are more energetic to work and less likely to experience burn outs. The occurrence of burn outs is characterized by lack of recognition and the workplace appearing as a negative environment. The open space setting prompts workers to generate more positive views on the company and is likely to increase job performance through this positive perspectives.
Comfort & Satisfaction
Increasing the level of satisfaction and comfort of an employee has the effect of increasing productivity levels. The organization aims to make the lives of its staff members as relaxed as possible without creating excessive rules on the use of space. Such settings though recognized as an open layout are in close resemblance to the activity based working. The multiple stations available do not belong to any particular employee. Instead, anyone can use them and a practice of constant motion is maintained. Many of individuals interviewed in areas where the open plan setting was incorporated responded to experience work area comfort and satisfaction (Candido et al., 2016). These responses demonstrate the great importance of the open plan setting in improving productivity of workers.
Reduce Sedentary Time
One of the primary activities of an open plan lay out is the increased movement of employees as they transfer from one station to another. This practice has significant impact on the overall health of the employee. Sedentary behavior is a common practice among employees who have exclusive stations in the office. According to a study conducted by Parry, Straker, Gibson and Smith (2013), incorporation of activity into the open plan setting will result in reduced overall sedentary risk. The main aim in this case is ensuring worker inactivity or too much time seated. Failure to engage in such behavior will result in significant health risks which in turn affect the overall productivity of the workforce. Buckley et al., (2015) affirms that the behavior leads to increased productivity in the company as members are leading healthier and more energetic lives.
Negative Effects
Absenteeism
Employee absenteeism is a critical factor to consider in the identifying the overall productivity of the company. When workers are affected by sicknesses such as common cold, it is likely that they will take some time off the job to recuperate. According to a study by Danielsson, Chungkham, Wulff and Westerlund, (2014) the office layout has significant impact on absence through sickness. The investigators conducted a prospective research on 1852 employees comparing cell offices, shared-room, small, medium and large open plan offices, flexible and combi-offices in relation to the self reported sick leaves (Danielsson et al., 2014). The results found that large open-plan offices prompted higher risk of long absenteeism among female employees as opposed to their male colleagues. However, the latter were at high risk of ill-health when exposed to flexible office spaces. This study demonstrates that the traditional open-plan office layout is not conducive for employee productivity as it causes numerous spells of absenteeism.
Privacy and Proxemics
As earlier mentioned, various scores of business leaders along with some scholars believe that an open-plan office setting significantly increases the interaction and communication between employees. However, research by Kim and de Dear (2013) disputed this notion identifying it as an integral factor towards intrusion of privacy and proxemics issues. There are workers who dislike interacting with others as they prefer working on their own. Others may instead seek to maintain only professional relationships and not get personal. As such, the setting creates something of an intrusion into the life of the worker. Using data from the Center of the Built Environment (CBE), participants of an empirical survey assessed Indoor Environment Quality in regard to the space configuration of the office. The participants rated private or enclosed offices positively than the open plan layout. In this case, the primary concerns of the employees were visual privacy and sound privacy both of which would not allow the employees to conduct their tasks on their own. This negative rating is a major factor in reducing the productivity of the workers leading to poor performance standards in the organization. This would greatly reduce the occupants’ satisfaction and in turn could lead to high turnover rates.
Cognitive Stress & Higher Levels of Distraction
Demanding jobs will usually require high levels of concentration among the employees as a means of undertaking the tasks appropriately and accurately. It is for this reason that numerous scholars have recognized an open-space layout as a critical factor towards the decline in employee productivity. A cross-sectional study by Seddigh, Berntson, Danielson, and Westerlund (2014) a close association between the type of office layout and the overall health and performance of the employees. Individuals who were working in cell settings were less likely to report cases of cognitive stress. As a result, the higher the number of people working within a given office setting the higher reported cases of stress (Seddigh et al., 2014). The decline in mental health will lower the output rate for the affected worker. This conclusion is a clear indicator of the inappropriateness of the open plan layout as it will usually take a toll on the productivity in the workplace.
The study also reported high levels of distraction as presented in the open plan layout. Through this increase in noise levels and continued interaction between employees, individuals requiring high concentration in their tasks would be easily distracted. This occurrence was a critical factor towards the experience of cognitive stress among members in the workplace. The adverse health effects and decline in concentration among workers has considerable influence on productivity levels (Seddigh et al., 2014). Workers may either miss numerous days of work due to sickness or they may experience a decline in motivation to work at the peak of their abilities. Such factors taking place in the organization demonstrates the negative impact of the open plan layout on productivity. In a later study, Aram et al., (2015) recognized small open plan layouts as better to conduct cognitively demanding tasks as opposed to the large ones. Additionally, the study investigators reverted their beliefs that the cell offices are advantageous for conducting the same tasks.
The open plan office layout has both positive and negative effects on the productivity of the employees at the workplace. The above discussion shows increased productivity through collaborations and interactions, satisfaction and comfort and reducing sedentary time which leads to better health outcomes for the employees. The negative outcomes include absenteeism, lack of privacy and proxemics, and distraction and cognitive stress In this regard, it is necessary that the leadership team of the organization identify appropriate techniques of maximizing the benefits while minimizing the adversities. This practice could prove to be fruitful to the organization as it continues achieving significant growth in its respective industry and market.
References
Buckley, J. P., Hedge, A., Yates, T., Copeland, R. J., Loosemore, M., Hamer, M., ... & Dunstan, D. W. (2015). The sedentary office: a growing case for change towards better health and productivity. Expert statement commissioned by Public Health England and the Active Working Community Interest Company. British Journal of Sports Medicine, Bjsports -2015.
Danielsson, C. B., Chungkham, H. S., Wulff, C., & Westerlund, H. (2014). Office design's impact on sick leave rates. Ergonomics , 57(2), 139-147.
Kim, J., & de Dear, R. (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology , 36, 18-26.
Parry, S., Straker, L., Gilson, N. D., & Smith, A. J. (2013). Participatory workplace interventions can reduce sedentary time for office workers—a randomised controlled trial. PLoS One , 8(11), e78957.
Seddigh, A., Berntson, E., Danielson, C. B., & Westerlund, H. (2014). Concentration requirements modify the effect of office type on indicators of health and performance. Journal of Environmental Psychology , 38, 167-174.
Seddigh, A., Stenfors, C., Berntsson, E., Bååth, R., Sikström, S., & Westerlund, H. (2015). The association between office design and performance on demanding cognitive tasks. Journal of Environmental Psychology , 42, 172-181.
