Open office plans were started as a way for companies to save money and also with the idea that it would cause increased communication between employees. Overall this style of office has not been found to be conducive to employee focus and privacy. The size of the open office plan work space makes a big difference. As one can guess, work performance decreases when you have a large open-office plan as compared to a smaller open-office plan (Seddigh, et al., 2015). Fewer distractions equal more productivity. In essence, if you are set on having an open office plan, make sure you do it on a smaller scale. For instance, if one of your office branches is considerably smaller than the others, try an open office space layout there before expanding to using it at all your locations.
Having an office with a door, which many employees admit they took for granted when the open office floor plan came about, is now referred to as a "cell office plan." One would think that cell office plans, as opposed to cubicles, would help employee performance the most out of any floor plan. However, recently the effectiveness of cell office plans has been called into question. One study even found that cell office plans appeared to decrease productivity as much as larger open-office plans (Seddigh, et al., 2015).
How could cell office plans actually decrease productivity over small open office plans? One theory is that being in an open office plan means that you are being held more accountable for your work. You are less likely to get off task if you know coworkers may be able to see your laptop screen as they walk by your cubicle. Another theory is that having an open office plan encourages collaboration and communication amongst coworkers and even employers. However, the result is that employees have less privacy. This is especially important when noting there is a correlation between workplace privacy and job satisfaction (Hatch 2017).
Many companies state that they are using an open office plan due to the sheer cost of having cell offices rather than cubicles. However, if a company is purchasing noise-reduction paneling and other ways to reducing distracting sound in an open office plan, that money could just as well been used to afford employees some privacy instead (Hatch, 2017).
Another determinant as to whether an open or "closed" office plan will work best for your company is to take into consideration the personality types that tend to have the most difficulty with open office plans. If you have the personality traits of agreeableness and openness to experience, you are more likely to be distracted by an open office plan (Seddigh, et al. 2016). Also, the more emotionally "stable" an employee is, the fewer distractions they encounter in an open floor plan (Seddigh, et al. 2016). However, this is a tricky correlation. It may be that because the employee is okay with distractions, this leads to them being more emotionally stable, not necessarily vice versa.
One of the best ways to come up with solutions for the best office plan is to ask the employees about their preferences. This not only helps you make a decision that will increase productivity by the widest margin but also gives the employees a sense of autonomy and pride in their company—and that is worth more than any office plan you could have just come up with yourself.
