COMP3780 Assignment 1: Open Office Environment Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the open office environment, addressing its historical development, management practices, and impact on productivity. The report begins by exploring the origins and evolution of open-plan offices, tracing their emergence in the 1960s and subsequent adoption. It then examines how the open office layout influences management practices, highlighting the effects on communication, teamwork, and flexibility, as well as the challenges faced by managers, such as distractions and privacy concerns. Furthermore, the report details the advantages and disadvantages of the open office in the modern environment, including cost-effectiveness, better communication, and flexibility versus distractions, stress, and potential spread of diseases. Finally, the report evaluates information flow in open versus closed office environments, with a focus on how to measure these flows and the impact on work productivity. The report provides a detailed overview of the open office, supported by research and analysis, offering insights into its effects on both employees and management.

Running head: - OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
Table of Contents
1. Question-1:.............................................................................................................................2
2. Question-2:.............................................................................................................................4
3. Question-3:.............................................................................................................................6
4. Question-4:.............................................................................................................................8
5. References:...........................................................................................................................10

2OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
1. Question-1:
Consider the open office environment of today. What is the history of this approach?
Answer:
Open plan offices had first come into existence in the year of 1960 as well as the
particular concept had become quite familiarly established across majority of the offices in
and around the world. Previously existing cubicles had often been accused of being the
source of noise as well as nuisance along with stress; the open office concept had various
advantages associated to the same having the inclusion of luminosity as well. This particular
concept also acts as a degree of motivation towards a faster movement as well as to carry out
collaboration with much ease (Lashina et al. 2019). In regards to the recent condition, the
open planned offices that had been at some point of time compelled the workers as well as
submitted towards a passive behaviour gave rise to designs that are multi-spaced by the
workers for the other workers of the same enterprise. Hence, this concept can be states as a
philosophy that establishes a reconnection among the creator and their initial intentions.
The history of having a collective open spaced office had emerged as early as in the
20th century when the partition of the exiting cubicles had been perceived by the architects
working at that point of time such as the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright as a trend of fascist,
totalitarian. On the other hand, the space as well as the flexibility in regards to the open office
had been believed to provision the employees with a freedom from the narrow and small
confines of their small working places at that point of time.
After the Second World War had taken place, with the economic growth as well as the
gradual development among the tertiary sectors also brought in the concept of this open
office as a part of a newer perspective towards work. This particular idea of having an open
office had first emerged in the year of 1950 in Germany where two specific consultants

3OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
namely, Eberhand and Wolfang Schnelle had drawn out the office landscape where there had
been no partitions, decorated with green plants and had been unobtrusively furnished.
Following this, in the year of 1974, the American based company named Herman Miller had
carried out the marketing of the Action Office Series 1, which is the first series of modular
office. This had been built with the help of panels as well as workplaces consisting of varied
heights to provision the employees with various forms of activities (Dujourdy et al. 2019).
However, it was not until the year of 1968 when the designer named Robert Probst designed
the cubicles and made an office that contained of removable partitions of the height 1.5
meters that provision all the employees with required amount of privacy and also provided
them with definite view of the other existing office when they stood up.
Figure-1: Open Office Layout
(Source- Dujourdy et al. 2019)

4OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
As a reason, the open-plan office had quickly gained attention across majority of the
companies with the specific ability to increase the potential surface area of the original
workplace at a lower cost than expected. Hence, in the year of 1980, various office gave rise
to the planning of open-office layout and allowed the employees to work at floors with no
particular partition.
2. Question-2:
How does the open office influence management practices or vice versa? What hurdles
would a manager of this sort of office layout face?
Answer:
With the rise of the particular concept of open office, the following impacts have been
found to be working upon the management practices with a proper implementation of the idea
following a correct method. These are,
i) Enhanced communication- with the open office layouts having no physically
existing barrier are more likely to bring a significant increase among the
communication between the employees and hence, acting as a contributor towards
the teamwork (Van Hootegem and De Witte 2017). Enhancement within the
teamwork acts as a primary contributor towards boosting the collaboration among
the workmates as well as the management employee working at the top level.
ii) Flexibility- among the open office layout, with no specific physical barriers that
are in place allows the offices to place in more number of employees within the
same floor of the workplace. With greater number of employees as well as
enhanced communication and collaboration, there has been a visible identification
of increased productivity of the workplace. With more growth of the company, the

5OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
office layout can be redesigned to give spaces to more number of working
employees.
iii) Enhanced collaboration- this is considered to be the most increased benefit from
the open office layout. With employees working together towards a single work,
there is likely to be multiple ideas as well as input coming towards the particular
work. Although, there is the presence of various virtual tools for such
collaborations, face-to-face interaction is always considered to be better than such
virtually existing tools.
However, there also has been a significant identification of some problems that are
faced by the managers looking after such open-spaced office layouts (Abdollahzaded,
Tahsildoost and Zomorodian 2020). These are,
i) Distractions- with such open offices giving way to employees to interact among
themselves, also give rise to greater levels of distraction. While working in such
an open office environment, there is a potential possibility of noises or sounds
coming in from the surroundings that are ought to be distractive for the ones
trying to work with concentration. Hence, low levels of productivity often stand as
a problem for the managers to look after the business and keep it running.
ii) Privacy issues- with open office layouts having no presence of a physical barrier,
there is a lesser levels of privacy that can hamper private phone calls or some
other activity that shall be personal. In regards to this, there are high chances of
office having conflicts among the employees for privacy hampering and can result
in a toxic environment within the workplace. This can also lead to lower levels of
production and making it difficult for the managers to keep the business going.
iii) Job satisfaction- researches that have been carried out have put forward the
revelations that open office working environment have a direct relation to the

6OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
reduction in job satisfaction and resulting in lower rates of productivity that makes
it difficult for the managers to keep the offices running.
3. Question-3:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this physical layout in the modern office
environment?
Answer:
In regards to the open office environment that has been prevailing across majority of
the workplaces for a long time now since the year of 1980 some of the advantages of having
such a physical layout have been mentioned below. These are,
i) Better communication- with no real existence of any physical barrier separating
the workers within the office, there is a likely happening that such workers will be
having the ability to communicate more among each other as well as work as a
team towards a common objective. Such open offices have also been proved to be
efficient for freelancers who can come in can carry out their work rather than
working from home.
ii) Cost-effectiveness- the idea of open offices are proved to be cost-effective in
contrast to the traditional cubicles or might as well be the private offices. With
less presence of an overhead the managers or the business owners can provision
each employee with the required amount of resources to carry out their business in
an effective manner (de-Lara and Sharifiatashgah 2019). Hence, such open office
layouts save the cost of building large desks and walls of the cubicles that are not
necessary.
iii) Flexibility- with the presence of the open offices, there is no need for an enterprise
to stick to a single layout all through the year. Open offices have the potential to

7OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
be designed in such a way to maximize the flexibility. In regards to this, it can be
said that such open offices can be redesigned in the most simplest way to
provision the employees with a newer physical layout that makes the working
environment flexible.
On the other hand, some of the disadvantages that such open offices have upon the
working environment have been identified below. These are,
i) Distractions- are considered to be the potential disadvantage of such an open
office working environment. With no real existence of any physical barrier there
is a high possibility for people who are ting to work might get distracted from
someone beside or some noise coming from within the office premise.
ii) Stress- with the increased levels of distractions, open office environments can turn
out to be stressful for the workers at times. Researches conducted have placed
forward the fact that open offices have the tendency to cause discrimination based
on age since the older workers are more likely to be in possession of anxiety,
digestive problems as well as issues related to heart (Çağatay et al. 2017).
Occurrence of such scenarios make the older people quit their job and make the
way for younger applicants to fill in the empty places of the ones who have
resigned.
iii) Diseases- with the actual presence off cubicles or potential walls, there is a
potential possibility of someone suffering through common cold can lead to the
same getting spread among the surrounding workmates and hence having a direct
impact upon the productivity of the company.

8OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
4. Question-4:
Leading on from question 3 - assuming you are a manager, comment on the likelihood or
not of information flows with regard to work productivity in an open vs. ‘closed office’ (i.e.
traditional) environment. How would you measure these information flows?
Answer:
With the open office environments prevailing among majority of the business
organizations in regards to the recent situation, there has been significant identification of
various advantages of the open office environment over the closed once. Some of the
advantages have been mentioned below in regards to the flow of information and other
existing resources that find their way to an easy navigation around the office premise when it
is an open office.
With no presence of physical barriers and workmates sitting next to each other within
the same premise, a particular information can be spread more easily and effectively than that
of the closed offices that are divided by high walls of the cubicles (Bernstein and Waber
2019). This also leads to greater efficiency in conveying of important information that might
be helpful and related to work.
In addition to this, implementation of open office concepts within the premise of the
workplace also potentially increases the ability of workers to carry out collaboration within
various works and enhance the communication among a team. This collaboration and the
method of teaming up makes way for multiple ideas to be inputted into a single work and
leads to a better outcome from the undertaken project. On the other hand, closed offices do
not provision the employees with the ability to collaborate and put up teamwork. As a reason,
the flow of information is restricted in this scenario.

9OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
In reference to the above discussion, it has been found that closed office act as a
barrier to multiple things that can be instead carried out for greater levels of production and
making the workplace better for work to be occurred on a daily basis. This is provisioned by
the idea of open offices, which provide with the capability of carrying out projects and
relative work in collaboration and teamwork (Haapakangas et al. 2018). This leads to a
greater rate of productivity on a daily basis because of the fact that an individual who can do
a work alone in a time can be done in a lot less time when it is a team working towards that.
As a reason, the information flow can be taken as a measure of productivity in such offices
having an open layout.
The open offices provide a platform to open discussions regarding an individual topic
wherein people share their views as well as their knowledge to the ones who have the least
amount of knowledge in that field. This can result in information flow that can again turn out
to be a primary contributor towards increasing the levels of productivity and manufacturing
on a daily basis as well as bringing a potential growth to the business. Hence, the flow of
information is greater in terms of level and efficiency when it comes to the open office across
majority of the business organizations.

10OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
5. References:
Abdollahzaded, N., Tahsildoost, M. and Zomorodian, Z.S., 2020. A method of partition
design for open-plan offices based on daylight performance evaluation. Journal of Building
Engineering, p.101171.
Bernstein, E. and Waber, B., 2019. The Truth About Open Offices.
Çağatay, K., Yıldırım, K., Gökbulut, N. and Subaşı, T., 2017. The effects of interior design in
open offices on employee’s motivation. Mugla Journal of Science and Technology, 3(1),
pp.20-26.
de-Lara, P.Z.M. and Sharifiatashgah, M., 2019. The emergence of deviant behaviors in the
physical work environment: A study of workers in open offices. International Journal of
Manpower, 40(5), pp.1012-1026.
Dujourdy, H., Pialot, B., Toulemonde, T. and Polack, J.D., 2019. An energetic wave equation
for modelling diffuse sound fields—Application to open offices. Wave Motion, 87, pp.193-
212.
Haapakangas, A., Hongisto, V., Varjo, J. and Lahtinen, M., 2018. Benefits of quiet
workspaces in open-plan offices–Evidence from two office relocations. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 56, pp.63-75.
Lashina, T., van der Vleuten-Chraibi, S., Despenic, M., Shrubsole, P., Rosemann, A. and van
Loenen, E., 2019. A comparison of lighting control strategies for open offices. Building and
Environment, 149, pp.68-78.
Van Hootegem, A. and De Witte, H., 2017. Job satisfaction and performance in open offices:
The role of distraction and perceived control. Gedrag & Organisatie, 30(1), pp.25-51.

11OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT