Impact of Office Space Planning on Productivity

INTRODUCTION

The atmosphere in the office, will build or break a person productivity? It is possible office space planning can influence the productivity of employees. Different type of office space planning have different atmosphere, here are few example of office space planning that is, open-plan office space planning, group, cellular and combine office space planning. Employees with different role and responsibility require different need. Such as an accountant to need have more personal space with more silence so that the accountant can be more focus, the best office space planning for the accountant should be cellular office.

With the right role with the right space, it can actually boost the productivity of the employees which will help the performance of the company. With the less suitable office space planning, it will cause a distraction, stress, unhappy or annoyed it will directly affect the ability of their to do their scoop. This will give a big disadvantage to their employers. With the Example above we know that a function of space planning can build or break the productivity of the white collar.

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This essay direction is to understand the productivity of employees with different type of office space planning.

There are few type of white collar, one of the example is designer, this example will be taken as the focus to further describe.( focusing in doing designer office ( describe designer is what kind of people ) Office layout theories Before we can compare, we need to understand each of the office space planning strength and weakness.

Therefore, there are two theories by few person, Daniela Podage,Manish Khanna and Amanda Wager. Start with open plan office. According to Daniela Podage, the characteristic of this plan is an open choice of furniture with no solid dividing walls or doors, all hierarchy stay in one room. The strength of this plan is communication, it can communicate and process faster through a direct decision making tunnel(Podage,2007). It also encourages informal discussion it can boost up morale, improve social network and it could spark idea and inspiration in the way by spontaneous talking and idea exchange with others or in between group(Podage,2007). Which will improve the integration of the employees? Besides that, the flexibility in a change of organisation, which the employees will have a fresh environment every few here and there. Therefore, will have a nice mix of chemistry with others. On the other hand, privacy space is limited, every move here and there are continued view by others. It possible will make the person feel anxious. Besides that without a solid wall that blocks noise such as music, people chatting, footsteps, a strong blow nice of an air conditioner from one room to others.

Similarly, visual distraction such as people walking here and there, a random employee doing random stuff which will disturb them from focusing on doing their work. On the economic side, it has high operation cost in long hours and a large amount of artificial lighting and air conditioner(Podage,2007). As we can see here, According Daniela Podage, benefit of open office is people will enhance their creativity, bond relationships with others and flexibility in situation. The con is employees has less privacy, easily been distracted by sound and vision and cost of operation(Podage,2007). According to Manish Khanna study, that most of the IT and design companies in Australia use open office space planning. It have the effect in good communication among the white collar with consistent of high level of discipline(Khanna, 2017). With this layout, the whole floor is divided by low walls where the employees share their desk with others. With this layout, it has more transparency, collaboration and better relationship with others(Khanna, 2017). Through his studies, there are benefit such as enhance verbal communication in a way of do not have physical barriers, this would increase the chance of communication among each others, the chances increase because it is effortless to interact with each other and doing their job. With this benefit it also speed up the transaction of information and enhance team play in their job(Khanna, 2017). Beside that, it is cost effective. The reason is the cost of construction separate workstation for employees, it also provide more working space and do not need to separate pay for lighting and air conditioning.

Furthermore, it make supervise easier. Since it have less physical barrier, it is easier for supervisor to oversee their teams. It is a direct way to improve overall productivity. On the other hand, distraction of noise. Due to lack of physical barrier the sound echo the whole area. The effect will make employees hard to concentrate. Beside that, privacy of employees decrease, this will make the employees uncomfortable. Which will indirectly affect their potential and the worries of lack of privacy will distract them from concentrate. We know that according to Manish Khanna the benefit is better communication, cost effective and easier to supervise. The con is distraction and privacy. Base on Amanda Wagner and Anna Nordstrom research, open space planning increase the opportunities for social interaction. They believe this will enhance creativity and decision making. The reason for this idea is people work close together, idea and knowledge are much more often share. Example office that success in using open space planning such as Facebook and Samsung. According their studies, employees with open space planning have 45 minutes of their unexpect knowledge sharing and 78% of those unexpected meeting happen at workspace. Beside that, 72% of unexpected meeting because of their work space are within talking distance from each other which is 7 meters(Wagner and Nordstrom, 2018). Studies show that, employees share 45% of the time in their challenges of work. However, they found out cellular space planning stil can have interaction at hallways or pantry that employees share their problem but the percentage are much lower. Therefore, they had a conclusion. Benefit of open space planning are improved communication, knowledge sharing, mental and physical health, lower stress and decrease sick days.

With healthy mind and body which will affect their productivity that benefit the employers(Wagner and Nordstrom, 2018) . The disadvantage of it is distraction and loss of privacy. They suggest to overcome the con is to apply hybrid space planning which have the benefit of open space planning and cellular space planning(Wagner and Nordstrom, 2018). Now the focus in cellular space planning. According to Podage, cellular space planning still a widespread in the community. Because it is the most traditional of all office space planning. The space are generally divided into small section independent workstation. Which is linear row arrangement, isolation, dark middle zone and highly usage of space. nowadays the demand of this kind of space planning are low compared to the old days. With this arrangement, employees are highly concentrated in work and confidentiality. With this office space are high cost in change in reorganize which will make it highly inflexible. However, with flexible of using artificial light and air conditional will have a lower cost in working hours(Podage,2007). In term of communication is limited because of interaction of each other are blocked by the 3 walls, which will result lower the chance in exchange knowledge. Due to lack of communication and transparency, the chance of integration in team are lower. Beside that, lack of spontaneous communication and idea exchange. The level of creativity are lower compare with open space planning(Podage,2007). According to his studies, we know that the benefit of this space planning are much more focus in their working hours, much more cost effective in term of using utility, and much more privacy. The downside of this space planning is lack of spontaneous communication which will lower the level of creativity and team spirit.