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22 Open Plan Office Environments: Rhetoric and Reality George Mylonas and Jane Carstairs

The physical work environment is an important component of an organisation’s aim of improving work efficiency and productivity. Architectural design affects the way people behave (Oldham & Brass, 1979) with designers creating conditions that can hinder, discourage, guide, support or enhance users’ behaviour (Goodrich, 1982; Zalesny, Farace, & Kurchner-Hawkins, 1985). However, Oldham and Brass concluded that an organisation’s physical environment is often designed with little, if any, consideration for the effects that layouts might have on staff, and Dumesnil (1987) observed that designers have traditionally designed interior spaces focusing on the needs of those paying the bill (the client) rather than users’ needs, creating aesthetic environments with strong visual impact and limited functionality. Most research on the impact of the physical environment on worker satisfaction and productivity was conducted in the 1970s and 1980s and work environments have received little attention by researchers since then. This recent dearth in the research literature is surprising given the mixed findings regarding the purported superiority of the open plan office and research results suggesting that worker satisfaction with the work environment is directly related to job satisfaction and indirectly related to commitment and turnover intentions (Carlopio, 1996). In this chapter we consider the rhetoric associated with the open plan office and the reality based on a large body of research. Further, we argue that, due to the 443

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changing nature of work, it is time to revisit the literature in this area and consider what it means for the way that today’s office is designed. Recommendations are made, based on the literature, for creating more user-oriented work environments. Main Types of Office Design

Two main types of office arrangements are constructed within work environments. These are the traditional or conventional enclosed office and the open plan office. The conventional enclosed office, which is characterised by floor to ceiling walls with a door, provides a private, identifiable and defensible work area (Oldham & Brass, 1979; Zalesny & Farace, 1987). Individuals, therefore, experience a greater sense of privacy, which produces opportunities for personal conversations and sharing information, and reduces the likelihood of external intrusions (Oldham & Brass). There are many variations of the open plan office, but it is generally characterised by an absence of floor to ceiling walls (Oldham & Brass, 1979; Zalesny & Farace, 1987). The open plan office often uses screenedoff work spaces to replace conventional walled offices (Brookes, 1978; Hedge, 1980; McCarrey, Peterson, Edwards, & von Kulmiz, 1974).

The Open Plan Office The open plan office provides an adaptable and flexible environment (Dean, 1977; Hedge, 1982, Ives & Ferdinands, 1974; Sundstrom, Herbert, & Brown, 1982) that allows for staffing location changes without architectural alterations (De Long, 1980). This allows the office to respond rapidly and relatively inexpensively to organisational changes or project-based work requiring regrouping of individuals (Becker, Gield, Gaylin, & Sayer, 1983) to satisfy the changing demands of an organisation and improve information flow (Brennan, Chugh, & Kline, 2002; Brookes, 1972, 1978; Brookes & Kaplan, 1972; Hedge, 1980, 1982). The open plan office also creates an egalitarian system with equal working conditions (Brookes, 1972; Hedge, 1980, 1982), which appears to be better suited to contemporary flattened organisational hierarchies. This open design purportedly assists in facilitating contact between staff through improved communication channels and social cohesiveness (Hedge, 1980, 1982; Sundstrom, 1986). Furthermore, the openness of the design allows better access to daylight than do conventional office arrangements (Sundstrom et al., 1982), facilitates staff supervision (Ives & Ferdinands, 1974) and increases task identity as the absence of physical boundaries provides more information about how an individual’s job relates to the work of others (Zalesny & Farace, 1987). 444

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Rhetoric and Reality

Proponents of the open plan office environment suggest that a number of advantages are afforded to organisations using this type of office arrangement. These include improved ambient conditions, improved social atmosphere, better communication, improved work flow and productivity, lower costs (that is, fit out, reconversion and maintenance), greater flexibility of space, less space required (Becker et al., 1983; Boyce, 1974; Hedge, 1980; Zalesny & Farace, 1987) and more usable area per floor due to the elimination of corridors and dead spaces (Boyce, 1974; Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a). Advocates have gone so far as estimating percentage gains made when converting to an open plan office environment. These include 40% to 50% reduction in space requirements, 20% decrease in maintenance costs, 95% reduction in set-up and renovation times and 10% to 20% increase in staff productivity (Brookes, 1978). Although reduced maintenance and space costs may be true, the psychological and productivity claims are generally not supported by research (Brennan et al., 2002). These latter claims tend only to be opinions, which are seldom backed by scientific research (Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a). The research reported with a high degree of consistency in both the psychological and design literature suggests that typical problems of the open plan office include a higher incidence of both visual and auditory distractions, frequent interruptions by co-workers, loss of privacy (visual and conversational) and problems with ambient conditions (Hedge, 1982, 1986). There is also no evidence to support open plan office proponents’ claims of increased productivity (Hedge, 1982) nor improved work efficiency (Brookes & Kaplan, 1972). In fact, the reverse relationship has generally emerged in the research, with workers in conventional office reporting higher levels of productivity (Hedge, 1982). Workplace Distraction

One of the main sources of complaint with the open plan office is the amount of perceived distraction. Crouch and Nimran’s (1989) survey of 65 managers on the features of their work environment impacting on work performance found that distraction was the most inhibiting environmental characteristic. Disturbances in the open plan office appear to arise mainly from staff behaviour rather than office machinery (Hedge, 1982). Sources of distractions include workers walking around the office and others holding conversations (Hedge). Nemecek and Grandjean’s (1973a) survey of 519 workers in six companies in Switzerland found that the most frequent complaints were noise disturbances (80%), with the main source being conversations (Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a, 445

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1973b). The conversations were disturbing due to the distracting effect of content, which resulted in reductions in concentration (Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a, 1973b). Not only do disturbances in the work environment impact on satisfaction and workers’ stress levels (Sutton & Rafaeli, 1987), they also affect task performance. Banbury and Berry (1998) examined the effects of office noise on office-related tasks and found that both speech and office noise (e.g., keyboard, printer, telephone and fax machine noise) can disrupt performance on memory for prose and mental arithmetic tasks. Workplace Privacy

Privacy is another factor that is reported to significantly impact on individuals’ perceptions of the open plan office. According to proponents of the open plan office the need for privacy is accommodated through a subjective sense of space boundaries, rather than definitive space delineators such as glass or gypsum-board (Brookes & Kaplan, 1972). However, research findings suggest that this is not the case. There is consensus that the open plan office provides little privacy and allows one to be easily overheard (Hedge, 1980). Workers in open plan offices report pronounced problems with visual and conversational privacy (Marans & Spreckelmeyer, 1982) resulting in a loss of production time and increases in mistakes (Kupritz, 1998). A case study by Sundstrom et al. (1982) found after relocation from enclosed offices to open plan, managers’ satisfaction with visual and acoustic privacy declined, as did their ability to hold confidential discussions. Dean (1977) found that 75% of staff in an open plan office indicated that they needed greater acoustic privacy and 50% said that they needed more visual privacy. Research showing that enclosure is correlated with privacy also suggested that privacy in the office is, to some extent, dependent upon physical enclosure (Sundstrom, 1986). Sundstrom, Burt, and Kamp’s (1980) study on privacy showed that architectural privacy was consistently associated with psychological privacy (the psychological state that accompanies a satisfactory retreat from, or regulation of, interactions and intrusions [Sundstrom, 1986]). Further, the level of architectural privacy seems to be positively correlated with overall job satisfaction (DuVall-Early & Benedict, 1992). Adapting to Reduced Privacy in the Open Plan Office

Individuals do not, however, passively suffer from a lack of privacy. Workers use informal, non-verbal cues to induce others who share the office to leave, they strike particular postures (e.g., turn their backs to -

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co-workers) and arrange furniture in such a way to signal their desire for privacy (Goodrich, 1982). Some staff work back late after others have left their immediate surrounds (Dean, 1980) or go somewhere else to work (Goodrich). The typical response to reduced control over interactions is flight (when possible). Becker et al.’s (1983) study in three community colleges found that open-private faculty were less available as compared with closed-private staff. This finding supports the flight hypothesis — that is, using avoidance as a coping strategy (Becker et al.). Alternatively, workers change the quality and nature of communication (Becker et al.), for example, giving out less sensitive information when in an open office environment as one may easily be overheard. Open Plan Office Communication

Open plan offices that are intended to promote availability and enhance interactions seem to do this less effectively than fully enclosed single occupancy offices do (Becker et al., 1983). Becker et al. found that working in an open plan office affected the type of topics that individuals were willing to discuss, feedback effectiveness and ability to effectively criticise or praise others in the office (Becker et al.). These findings suggest that interactions are not facilitated by unlimited opportunities for interpersonal contact but by the opportunity for privacy (Becker et al.). Similarly, Hatch (1987) suggested that interactions in research and development firms among professional–technical workers are greater for staff who are given enclosed spaces than for those lacking physical barriers. Enclosure by walls or partitions and a door was found to be positively associated with the amount of time staff reported working with colleagues (Hatch). Furthermore, partition height was positively related to amounts of meeting time (Hatch). These findings are consistent with the view that enclosure supports interpersonal and group interaction (Hatch). As already mentioned, the open plan office design hinders some types of communication, notably confidential communication and feedback. However, it has been found to facilitate other types of interactions. Some studies on the open plan office environment have found improvements in communication, collaboration (Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a; Wolgers, 1973) and social interactions (Brookes & Kaplan, 1972). According to Hedge (1982), the openness and accessibility of workers appears to create a more cohesive social environment with 89% of workers surveyed reporting that they ‘get on well with colleagues’ and 70% indicating that they ‘socialise with other staff in office hours’. However, the cohesive social environment does not appear to mitigate work problems 447

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associated with the open plan office, in fact it may even augment them (Hedge, 1982). This suggests that the type of communication improvements and their impact on work and productivity are important. Seventyone per cent of workers surveyed by Ives and Ferdinands (1974) indicated that they believed there was more social talking in the open plan office. It may be the case that workers with strong needs for social interaction might thrive in an open office setting whilst others do not (Oldham & Brass, 1979). Partitioning Office Space

Our discussion on privacy in the open plan office has started to illustrate the importance that partitions play in regulating this problem. Research has also demonstrated that the number of enclosures surrounding an individual’s work space is positively correlated with job performance and work space satisfaction, and negatively correlated with perceptions of crowding (Oldham & Fried, 1987). Sundstrom et al. (1982) found that privacy ratings and work space satisfaction were positively correlated with the number of work space sides enclosed by walls or partitions. Other studies by Oldham and Fried, and by Oldham and Rotchford (1983) found that the fewer the barriers around a worker’s desk, the more likely they were to take breaks outside office boundaries. This finding provides further support for the flight hypothesis mentioned earlier. Dressel and Francis’ (1987) study of workers who originally worked in open plan offices with no partitions, found a significant increase in productivity (20.6%) after new systems furniture was installed that had partitions as well as more storage and work-surface space and included task lighting. However, individual differences appear to have an influence, with workers who have high privacy needs or low levels of stimulus screening reporting the largest decreases in perceived crowding (Oldham, 1988). Stimulus screening refers to an individual’s capacity to cope with or ‘screen out’ numerous inputs and stimuli present in a given environment (Oldham, 1988). Workplace Density

It may be tempting for employers to pack greater numbers of individuals into an open plan office in order to maximise space-saving attributes (Boyce, 1974). However, this should generally be avoided as it results in opinions of overcrowding, increased noise disturbance, difficulties with temperature control (Boyce, 1974; Oldham & Fried, 1987), decrements in task performance (Paulus, Annis, Seta, Schkade, & Matthews, 1976) and reductions in job autonomy (Szilagyi & Holland, 1980).

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Furthermore, social density has been found to be positively correlated with turnover intentions and negatively related to job satisfaction (Marans & Spreckelmeyer, 1982; Oldham & Fried, 1987). Conversely, some findings on workplace density by Szilagyi and Holland (1980) suggested that an increase in social density can have a positive impact on work performance and satisfaction. These researchers found that increasing workplace density amongst professional workers in a petroleum-related company resulted in less role stress as well as improvements in task facilitation, information exchange and work satisfaction (Szilagyi & Holland, 1980). The professionals in this study required a high degree of interaction and information flow to perform their work (Szilagyi & Holland). This finding points to the need for careful consideration of the nature of the work performed when designing office space (Szilagyi & Holland). Further, when considering office social density, employers and designers should also give thought to the colour of the work space as it can impact on people’s perceptions of density. Research has shown that people consider dark rooms smaller and less spacious than light rooms (Oldham & Rotchford, 1983). Control Over the Work Environment

Control over one’s immediate environment has decreased significantly since the move to the open plan office. This has had a detrimental impact on workers, as individuals often have a strong desire to control their immediate environment (Hedge, 1986). A study by McCarrey et al. (1974) of 600 workers in an open plan office environment suggested that reported lower satisfaction was due to inadequate control over input to and from the environment. This occurs through a lack of auditory privacy, personal privacy and confidentiality of communications (McCarrey et al.). Workers also appear less satisfied with their workstations and jobs when faced with intrusions from others (Sutton & Rafaeli, 1987). These intrusions are stressors because they hamper control and decrease predictability of events (Sutton & Rafaeli). On the other hand, workers with a greater degree of control over their immediate environment are more satisfied than are workers with a diminished amount of control (Marans & Spreckelmeyer, 1982). In conventional enclosed office spaces staff are able to exercise intimate control over work, work space and ambient conditions (Hedge, 1982). Adjustability of heating and cooling as well as furniture and storage elements enhance a staff member’s sense of control over their work environment and environmental satisfaction (O’Neill, 1994). The use of task lighting in furniture can also provide staff with a sense of personal control in their work 449

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environment (Dean, 1980). Furthermore, the opportunity to personalise one’s work space by introducing personal items makes the space more of one’s own (Goodrich, 1982; Oldham & Rotchford, 1983). This suggests that giving workers greater control over their work spaces through consultation during the design phase, and providing them with greater control over working conditions, is likely to improve their satisfaction levels (Hedge, 1986). Impact of Job Type and Job Complexity

Research findings indicate multiple effects on workers of working in an open plan office. Open plan office research, which has investigated a variety of variables, suggests that job type and complexity can influence worker reactions to privacy, distractions and the other issues associated with open plan office spaces (Hedge, 1982, 1986). Workers in supervisory, managerial, graduate and complex technical jobs generally react less favourably to working in an open plan office than do other staff members (Hedge, 1986; Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a). Amongst managerial and professional workers noise is the prime complaint (Boyce, 1974; Dean, 1980). Managerial and professional staff indicate a strong need for conditions conducive to concentrating and are most sensitive to the problems of disturbances and lack of privacy (Hedge, 1982; Ives & Ferdinands, 1974; Zalesny & Farace, 1987). This group also reported that open plan office conditions prevented, rather than facilitated, effective working and reported the highest levels of dissatisfaction with office conditions (Hedge, 1982; Zalesny and Farace, 1987). On the other hand, staff performing routine clerical jobs reported that they suffered less from disturbances, distractions and loss of privacy in an open plan office (Hedge, 1982). Zalesny and Farace’s (1987) survey of 426 workers who relocated from conventional enclosed to open plan offices, found that perceptions and reactions to the physical environment varied with a worker’s organisational position. Managers reported that the open plan office resulted in less privacy, and that they were less satisfied with the physical environment (Zalesny & Farace). Clerical staff responded more favourably to the change in office environments (Zalesny & Farace). Similarly, Johnson’s (1970) survey of 358 individuals from 18 different companies, found that managers preferred work spaces divided by some form of partition or wall as they found seeing others as distracting. Secretaries and clerical staff, on the other hand, preferred to see others in the office and to interact with them (Johnson).

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Worker Adjustment to the Open Plan Office

Oldham and Brass (1979) examined worker reactions 8 weeks before and 9 and 18 weeks after they moved from conventional to open plan offices. Results indicated decreases in supervisor feedback and friendship opportunities and that task significance and concentration decreased significantly, while work satisfaction, interpersonal satisfaction and internal motivation declined sharply (Oldham & Brass). Oldham and Brass suggested that these results were temporary and short-term since they were based on data collected in the first 18 weeks after the move to an open plan office. However, studies using longer postoccupancy survey periods do not generally report improvement in staff perceptions of the open plan office. Nine months after a move to an open plan design Brookes and Kaplan (1972) found that the main causes of complaint were an increase in noise level, the number of visual distractions and a loss of privacy. Investigating the effects of relocating staff from enclosed offices to open plan offices, Brennan et al. (2002) found that workers were significantly less satisfied with the physical environment, experienced increases in physical stress, decreases in team member relations and lower perceived job performance. Dissatisfaction reported by these workers did not abate after an adjustment period of 6 months (Brennan et al.). Conversely, Hedge (1982) found that 54% of staff reported adapting to frequent interruptions by colleagues in an open plan office. However, this finding could suggest that 46% of staff still had not adjusted to their new environment. No evidence was found to suggest that adaptation either improves with length of employment or is dependent on previous experience in different types of offices (Hedge, 1982). Some workers may be adapting to these less than optimum open plan office environments at a cost. People’s ability to accommodate comes with costs in terms of energy requirements and efficiency (Johnson, 1970). This is likely to impact on work efficiency and productivity, paradoxically one of the main motivators for conversion or movement to an open plan office environment. Ambient Environmental Conditions

Ambient environmental conditions such as temperature, ventilation and lighting can impact on workers’ perceptions of their workplace. Temperature and humidity significantly affect workers’ satisfaction with their office environment (Johnson, 1970). Many staff in open plan airconditioned offices suffer a higher incidence of eye, nose and throat irritations, even when no physical evidence exists that levels of known indoor pollutants exceed health standards (Hedge, 1986). Other research 451

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findings indicate that workers are disturbed by reflections or glare with eye complaints (23%) (Nemecek & Grandjean, 1973a) and experience problems with inadequate lighting (50%) (Dean, 1977). Improving Office Design and Satisfaction

A number of solutions has been proposed to remedy the adverse impact of working in an open plan office environment. Ferguson and Weisman (1986) concluded that the solution to the lack of privacy, auditory distraction and reduced job satisfaction may be to use methods such as selecting furnishings with low acoustical reflectance values, or re-orienting desks to improve visual and auditory privacy. Based on the research findings of Kupritz (1998), having minimal traffic routed through one’s work area and having the work space located away from main traffic corridors appear to be important characteristics for regulating privacy. Other suggested solutions include using partitioning and sound absorbent building finishes that provide noise reduction and make conversations less intelligible (Banbury & Berry, 1998; Herbert, 1978, 1980; Oldham & Brass, 1979). Additional approaches to improve satisfaction may include organisational policies that define workers’ rights to both privacy and quiet within the work space and educational programs to enhance awareness of non-verbal privacy cues (Ferguson & Weisman, 1986) and on how to behave, work in and use the open plan office environment (Hedge, 1982). Another solution may be to provide workers with realistic previews of the open plan office design (Oldham & Brass, 1979). Interestingly, research studies that have investigated a large variety of design variables suggest that the most critical design features that impact on user perceptions of the work space are those that exist at the most intimate and personal levels within the office such as working surface and storage space (Spreckelmeyer, 1993). Kupritz (1998) found that design variables associated with privacy regulation are ranked immediately after design items that are necessary to perform basic job functions (e.g., adequate work-surface, adequate storage, easy access to reference materials and having groups that work together located together) (Kupritz). Similarly, O’Neill (1994) found that when work space enclosure is considered in conjunction with other design variables, it plays less of a role in worker satisfaction than previously believed, with adjustability and storage perceived as more important properties of work space design. These findings suggest that features associated with privacy regulation take precedence once design features that are necessary to perform basic job functions are addressed (Kupritz). This illustrates the importance of 452

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including office users in the design process and understanding what they need to perform their work adequately. It cannot be assumed that providing improved environmental quality in the workplace will result in a corresponding increase in occupant satisfaction (Spreckelmeyer, 1993). Careful analysis of conditions within the existing work space is required to assess established perceptions before initiating environmental change (Spreckelmeyer). Active involvement of users in the design process is important in meeting user needs and ensuring greater user acceptance (Goodrich, 1982). Users need to receive ongoing feedback on how the information they provide is being used and made aware of any trade-offs that have to be made (Goodrich). Users will tend to accept new design concepts if they have an understanding of how a design solution was arrived at and how to use the new system effectively (Goodrich). Without this ongoing feedback process, users tend to be more negative about the design of a space (Goodrich). Benefits of user involvement have been demonstrated by Spreckelmeyer (1993) in a postoccupancy evaluation for a government organisation. Spreckelmeyer found that relocating to an open plan office produced significant increases in satisfaction levels among most workers. It appears that staff involvement in the process of change and their awareness of the new working conditions was effective in reducing the negative impact of environmental change (Spreckelmeyer). Including user needs in design issues such as workstation lighting, size of individual work spaces and office privacy, contributed positively to worker satisfaction with a workplace (Spreckelmeyer). Designers should, therefore, conduct predesign surveys and focus groups to ascertain current and future occupant needs. Job analysis techniques would be beneficial in assisting to achieve this. Technological advances and increasing globalisation have had profound effects on the nature of work and job design in recent years. For example, Frese (2000) identified trends of increasing job complexity, increasing use of teams, reduced supervision and increasing reliance on (often remote) technology. In order to design a work environment conducive to today’s work and to foreshadow requirements for the work of tomorrow, management and designers need to match office design to the staff occupying the space and consider the type of work, complexity of tasks, cognitive demands, technology used, social and communication patterns as well as future job requirements. For example, the nature of work carried out by managers and professionals is generally cognitively complex, requiring analysis, reflection and conceptualisation (Goodrich,

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1982). For an office environment to be functional for these worker groups it needs to support these activities (Goodrich) by constructing work spaces that provide privacy and freedom from distraction (Sundstrom, 1986). Alternatively, an open plan office environment is likely to be more suited to team-based work where frequent exchanges of information are required or sharing knowledge for new learning is necessary to successfully perform one’s work, such as a project team working on the same problem. Given the nature of work today, a combination of the two different types of work space may be needed in order to accommodate the various components of an individual’s job. This suggests that a range of work areas should be constructed to accommodate different user needs such as open spaces for improved communication flow when work is collaborative and other compartmented areas for work where freedom from distraction is essential (Boyce, 1974). These combinations of work spaces have been successfully implemented by organisations (Dean, 1980). Further, given that the built environment sends daily signals to those working in the space (Baldry, 1997) it is also vital that the office space reflects an organisation’s culture as well as its vision and values. If an organisation espouses valuing its people and has poor quality and less functional office furniture and/or crowds its staff into tight spaces, then this sends a clear continual message that senior executives do not in fact value their workers. An organisation that values its people would instead involve them in the design process and provide them with adequate tools and space to perform their work comfortably.

Limitations of Office Design Research The main issue with research conducted on workplace design is overreliance on self-report questionnaires to make comment on changes to productivity. According to Dean (1980), many productivity studies are in fact surveys of staff opinions on what would make them work more efficiently. Therefore, independent measures of productivity are required such as supervisor ratings and hard data (e.g., sales figures). The questionnaires used also tend not to include definitions of standards and therefore, terms such as ‘productivity’ and ‘privacy’ may be interpreted differently by different people (Hedge, 1986). Furthermore, these questionnaires are rarely in the user’s language so there tends to be little ‘shared meaning’ of concepts such as privacy (Kupritz, 1996). Another research limitation is that it has not been clarified whether reported improvements in open plan office communication are due to changes in procedures, organisational practices or management behaviour that

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could have been made without changes to the office environment (Brookes & Kaplan, 1972). Finally, there is a question over the relevance of this older research given that the nature of work has changed since the bulk of the studies were conducted, with more recent findings suggesting that other design variables impact on work productivity and satisfaction.

Conclusion The above findings from an extensive body of research, suggest that open plan offices do not generally support advocates’ blanket claims of improved communication, satisfaction and productivity. In fact, most findings suggest the exact opposite. Removing physical boundaries diminishes perceived personal privacy and opportunities for close interpersonal relationships and results in perceived loss of control over space and personal work boundaries (Zalesny & Farace, 1987). There is a plethora of environmental, employment position (e.g., task requirements) and individual (e.g., privacy needs, stimulus screening) factors that impact on evaluations of the workplace. The nature of work has also changed since most of the research was conducted on open plan offices. The complexity associated with this large array of factors means that this area of scientific investigation has not been adequately, or systematically, researched. Further comprehensive research is required to clearly identify variables that impact on users of office environments and whether suggested solutions do improve work efficiency, productivity and satisfaction.

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