We decided to broaden our horizons a bit and look at open offices in terms of their development, well-being and health of employees.
17. 7. 2017
In fact, there’s absolutely no evidence that an open-plan office boosts morale or productivity, and mounting studies that show the exact opposite effects. At this point, the open-plan office is by far the most common work environment, but the rippling backlash is beginning. The correlations between privacy and productivity get stronger and stronger with each piece of research.
When open-plan offices first came on the scene, everyone expected great things. Improved collaboration and communication, better social engagement, increased accountability and transparency, and a huge boost in efficiency. Unfortunately, half a century later, none of those promised benefits have come true.
Layout (spaceplan) of your open-plan office could be hurting employee productivity,happiness and healt. Research has consistently linked open-plan offices with:
- Decreased job satisfaction
- Lower perceived privacy
- More stress
-Less productivity
It is quite interesting to note how the number of square meters per employeedecreases within the years. In the year 1970 was provide 46.5m2 employee, in 2010 it was 21 m2, and two years later it was only 16 square meters and in 2017 it will be little more than 9 m2.
Converted into numbers, the results of recent studies showed:
- 95% of employees said working privately was important to them
- 89% of employees say thay are most productive wheb working alone
- 85% are dissatisfied with their working environment and unable to concentrate
- 63% named loud colleagues as their distractions no.1 at work
In the amount of space which receives empoyee is quite understandable that it is difficult to concentrate and still have a sense of privacy.
How do see stress and productivity employees, who work in open-plan office and those who have a home office? It is true that open-plan office environments allows germs and viruses to spread and in addition to the stress-induced immunity deterioration.
A survey asked employees to score how easy they found it to be healthy and productive in their working enviroment. The group that worked in open-plan office evaluated productivity on average at 6.5 points and 6.1 points in the question of health. On the other hand, the group of home office evaluated question of productivity on average 7.7 points and 8.1 points health issues. The same survey also asked if they felt that their working environment produces stress. Only 5% of employees in the home office are stressed compared to 28% of open-plan office employees.
We know that the environment in open space is quite disturbing. What research say? In average, 28% of employee time is spent on dealing with unwanted interruptions and effort to return to work again. An average employee is distracted by every three minutes. 75% of 50 interruptions which employee has to deal on the daily bases has nothing to do with work.
Not only employees but also employers cost these loses lots of money. The annual cost in the United States for disruptions in the work is 588 billion dollars annually. The cause of these losses is 25% is forgetting to return to the original task, 45% are people who forgot the last step of task, 13% are an employees who does not remember changes after returning to the original role, and 17% of the loss is due to the fact that the employee does not pay attention to the task during the interruption.
"It is a fact that there is no evidence that open-plan office increases morale or productivity, and studies actually proved exact opposite efect. Correlation between privacy and productivity grows stronger by further research, "says Yonatan.
The trends of furniture and equipment for offices were reduced but today the news in furniture design are developing in different direction. To the open spaces, large offices was added elements which has to dampen noise, visual divide and give to working enviroment feeling of home. From our point of view, architects choosing all of these elements to improve the working environment. That is why the client should consult with an architect who has an overview of these issues.
