Organizational Behavior Case Study: Open Plan Office Set Up and Employee Resistance

This case study discusses the reasons for employee resistance to the open plan office set up and the barriers to communication in a law firm. It also explores the sources of power among law firm partners and the influence tactics used by management on employees.

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Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Case Study Discussion...............................................................................................................3
Identifying the Reasons for Employees Resisting the Option of Working in an Open Plan
Office Set Up..............................................................................................................................3
Barriers to Communication in the Law Firm.............................................................................5
Sources of Power among the Law Firm Partners.......................................................................7
Influence Tactics used by Law Firm Management on Employees............................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8

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Case Study Discussion
Identifying the Reasons for Employees Resisting the Option of Working in
an Open Plan Office Set Up
The open plan office set up was deliberately created by the Cheetham and Wynne law
firm in order to provide its employees with a great deal of flexibility and openness at the time
of working. While this law firm had initially confined all of its official work in a small
cramped up office space, it decided to be a little innovative and set up a new office near the
harbor area. What was unique about the new office space is the fact that it was entirely based
in an open area, without walls on either side. Colleagues were not confined to cubicles any
more but in spaced out work areas, under the open sky, where they could all see each other
and hear one another and were thus in a position to interact with one another as much as
possible. The primary intention behind creating such an open plan office space was to get
office colleagues to interact with each other more, expand opportunities for team work and
make official work more flexible than what it was when the law firm employees were
working in a regular small office space (Luthans et al. 2015). It was hoped by the law firm
management, that the concept of an open plan office is something that would be well received
by all the workers but this was not the case. Workers started complaining that their duties
were getting interrupted and that they were getting distracted by the fact that they could listen
in on each other’s conversations, they could see each other moving around laughing and
talking and this in turn was coming greatly in the way of the work that they were doing.
Some of the workers complained about being able to listen in on their colleagues’ personal
conversations which they were not able to before. What the workers essentially resented
about the open plan office, was that it posed huge distractions for them. It disrupted their

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sense of privacy as they could all be seen and heard easily by their colleagues, even when
talking over the phone, and they did not even get the feeling that they were doing serious
official legal work because of the relaxed and carefree ambience that prevailed in the work
place. The employees of the law firm were thus not able to work as well as they had been
able to, when they were working in a closed office set up (Wagner et al. 2014).
The management of the law firm could have improved the situation of the employees
and handled the resistance that they had begun to show upon arriving at the new office set up
by reducing their workload and actually making their work more flexible. Some were happy
about the way in which work was done in the open plan office and were ready to express their
gratitude for the law firm having them bailed out of student loans and other types of
liabilities. Other employees believed that they were being taxed a bit too hard. They did feel
the law firm was paying them well for the work that they were doing. Yet, work-life balance
was missing. Employees were made work very long hours in order to fulfill all the duties and
the responsibilities of the law firm and this often came at the cost of their own personal
wellbeing, with several of them not being able to make time for themselves and their
families. It was therefore up to the law firm to take cognizance of the issues that were bring
faced by the employees and get the matters resolved by implementing work conditions that
were more flexible in the office set up (Miner 2015). Creating an open plan office space is of
little or no use if employees are expected to be hard at work every single day in order to
fulfill the goals of the law firm. While the open office space definitely gives employees the
provision to move around as much as they want to, it does more bad than good as it really
distracts the employees owing to the fact that they can listen in on each other talking and
conversing and they don’t consequently have the frame of mind to carry out their professional
tasks and duties as efficiently and as attentively as they could have. Since the management of
the law firm took the decision of creating a work set up that was flexible and open in terms of

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ambience, the same should have been applied for the actual tasks and assignments performed
by the members of the law firm. The workers should have been allowed to work in a more
flexible manner, with deadlines being eased and then they could have appreciated the open
plan set up a whole lot more (Greenberg 2014).
Barriers to Communication in the Law Firm
The barriers to communication in the law firm mentioned in the case study are mostly
the noise that is generated by employees constantly talking to one another while work is in
progress. Employee’s conversations with each other can be heard by other members of the
team because there are no walls to restrict the noise that is generated because of all the
conversations. This in turn affects greatly the ability of the employees to work well enough in
the organization. They are not able to give their maximum to the Company, as they get
distracted easily in the course of their work because of the fact that they are able to hear each
other talking all the time (Elsbach et al. 2015). The noise that is generated in the workspace
because of the open plan set up is bringing the productivity of the firm to a complete stand
still. The employees do not have the noise free environment in which they can actually
concentrate on the work that they are doing and consequently do a thorough job of it. The
problem faced by the employees of the law firm because of all the noise that is generated in
the process is definitely a real one. It is not possible for employees to work well for any firm
be it a law firm or any other kind of firm if they are constantly distracted from their work due
to something as trivial as noise. It will unnecessarily drain the employees of their energy and
will make them waste their time and their mental energy which they could otherwise have put
to good use by working for the company, had they been given a completely noise free
environment to do their work in. The idea of an open workspace is a great one and it
definitely gives employees of the firm a lot of flexibility in which to do their work in

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(DuHadway et al. 2015). On the other hand, if the open work space results in there being a lot
of gossip and conversation in the office and in getting distracted as a result of their work,
then the entire productivity of the firm gets hampered, which something that is completely
unwanted (Jackson et al. 2016).
The noise issues of course, could be overcome easily by imposing strict rules in the
office space. The management of the law firm can introduce a condition that if employees are
seen to be talking frivolously or chatting endlessly with one another and that too in a loud
voice during work hours, then they could be made to leave the law firm. This penalty would
be implemented even though their work and their business productivity may be up to the
mark (Young and Ghoshal 2016). The imposition of stern work conditions is necessary if
employees are to benefit from an environment that is completely free of distractions. Other
ways to overcome the noise issue that is prevalent in the law firm is to get the employees to
talk in a soft voice if they are to talk with one another at all. If the employees are told to be
disciplined in the work environment and maintain a low voice when communicating with one
another, then there is a good chance of other workers not getting distracted in the process.
The more civilized and low voiced employees are in their communication with one another,
the more easily will the problem of noise generation in the open office space be controlled
(Lazaroiuo 2014). Employees at the noise firm can be given the option of complaining
directly to the management if they feel that they are getting distracted by other employees
talking to one another a bit too much. If they are given the provision of emailing the
management about such disciplinary issues, then it will be possible on the part of the
management to go ahead and take disciplinary action against the people who are generating
noise in the office. They can decide who should be brought in line in order to keep them from
distracting their fellow employees (Punnett 2015). A final way by which the problem of noise
generation in the law firm can be controlled is only if employees who are partaking in noise

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generating activities are penalized via a deduction in their monthly salaries. In an open office
set up it is difficult to keep employees from talking to one another and controlling
communicating in an adult professional setting is something that is very hard to do. However,
if problematic employees who talk too much in the office are penalized via a deduction in
their monthly salaries, then they will be forced to realize the adverse consequences of their
actions (Stewart et al. 2018).
Sources of Power among the Law Firm Partners
The law firm partners are those that exercise a good deal of power over their
employees largely because they bribe their employees into feeling good about working at the
firm (Pinder 2014). The law firm partners have been known to pay off student loans for some
of their employees in order for such employees to have a very high regard for the law firm.
There are other employees who are not treated well at all and who are made to overwork,
sometimes to the extent that they are unable to maintain a proper work life balance. Such
employees have a negative view of the law firm but they are unable to convince their
employees who benefit from the law firm’s generosity, that what the law firm is actually
doing is exploiting its employees in the end (Podsakoff 2018). The law firm exercises its
power by getting a certain number of employees to feel really good and positive about their
presence at the law firm while the employees are made to bear the brunt of the company’s
ruthless management and are made often to work more than necessary (Newton and LePine
2018).
Influence Tactics used by Law Firm Management on Employees
The law firm aims to exercise its power and its influence over those working at the
law firm by paying off student loans and even offering to finance postgraduate programs for

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some of the employees. Some employees of the law firm were even told by the management
that their MBA programs would be paid for. However, this did not work out in the end, since
the MBA programs are known to cost a lot of money and no firm would be willing to pay so
much to finance the education of its employees. However, by making the offer in the first
place to finance the educational programs of employees or to support their future growth and
development, the law firm exercises a number of effective tactics that gets certain employees
at the law firm to get a rosy-eyed view of the management of the law firm. By rolling out
certain benefits for employees, the management of the law firm is able to exercise a specific
influence or hold over its employees and give them the idea that they are perhaps working at
one of the best law firms (Robbins and Judge 2014).
Conclusion
Thus, what the case study and its consequent analysis reveal is that the law firm is
exploitative in nature. While it has created an open and flexible office space for its employees
to work in, what the firm actually does is distract its employees from being as productive as
possible as the workers get distracted due to the constant noise that prevails all around them.
The law firm is also seen to influence employees at the firm quite unfairly by offering them
to have their education paid for and by giving them certain benefits that they find difficult to
say no to, such as by paying off student loans for instance. Such tactics are not exercised
when dealing with all employees at the law firm uniformly. Thus, while a certain section of
the law firm’s employee population feels good and positive about their role in the firm and
the work that they are doing for the firm, there are others who feel disenchanted and who are
of the view that what the firm is essentially doing is exploiting them. The employees who do
not benefit from the influential tactics of the law firm do not have anything good to say about
the law firm and its management. They especially have nothing nice to say about the open

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space work environment that gives the employees a lot of flexibility and the opportunity to
engage in teamwork apparently, but which ultimately ends up in exploiting the employees.
The law firm is not able to generate the kind of productivity that it wishes to generate because
of its open space work environment and its influential tactics on certain employees. It should
disband with the open environment and influential tactics on employees and opt instead to
create a fairer and more transparent and disciplined work environment.

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