Improving Productivity and Satisfaction: Office Layout Research Report

This research report investigates the effects of office layouts on employee productivity and satisfaction at Robysearch Limited, an IT company. The study addresses the problems of open-plan and private office layouts, such as distractions, lack of privacy, and limited communication. The research proposes a clustered office layout where employees with similar duties share a room. The methodology includes questionnaires, interviews, and a meeting with management to gather data. The findings reveal that most employees are open to the clustered office concept, which is expected to boost productivity and morale. The report concludes with a discussion of potential challenges and recommendations for future research, emphasizing the need to balance privacy and communication. This report highlights the importance of office design in creating a productive and satisfying work environment.

Running Head: ORGANISATION ENHANCEMENT 1
A Research That Would See Robysearch Limited Enhance its Overall Productivity and
Employee Satisfaction by Improving Office Layouts.
Student’s Name:
Instructor’s Name:
Class Name:
Date of Submission:

ORGANIZATION ENHANCEMENT 2
Contents
Organizational enhancement......................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Problem statement..................................................................................................................................3
Significance of study................................................................................................................................3
Purpose of research.................................................................................................................................3
Literature review.........................................................................................................................................4
Proposed methods......................................................................................................................................5
Participants..............................................................................................................................................5
Research methods...................................................................................................................................5
Variables..................................................................................................................................................5
Proposed Results.........................................................................................................................................5
Discussion....................................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

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Organizational enhancement
Introduction
Robysearch Limited is an Information Technology giant in the market today, and it brags
of having come up with several Point of Sale software packages and designing websites for
hundreds of clients who are happily satisfied with their choice of making Robysearch Limited
their IT partner. Robysearch provides jobs to about sixty young people who are graduates in
several fields, mainly Information Technology and Computers Science. According to the
management, the workers would be assigned one open space office and several private room
offices.
Problem statement
The major problem arising from these layouts is that those workers who stay in private
offices idle too much and sometimes spend most of their time working on something that does
not benefit the organization (Brand 2009). On the other hand, workers in the open space office
take most of their time gossiping due to too much closeness. The other problem arising from the
open office is that when some decision is needed, some shy workers are not able boldly to air
their views due to fear of shame and being gossiped later by colleagues (Kim & De Dear 2013).
Significance of study
The study will help companies apply the knowledge especially during recruitment to
understand much about the workers and help allocate them in areas they can work better.
Purpose of research
This research seeks to improve the productivity of the organization by providing possible
solutions to these problems caused by office layouts. From other researchers, open offices have
been a critical blow to organizations. Open space offices make the communication more complex

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instead of quickening it, (Rasila & Rothe 2012), decreasing some workers’ motivation, causing
distractions since several people are operating in one room at ago, whereas on the other hand,
open offices have been known to consume fewer resources,(Ajala 2012), and promote openness
and transparency. I propose to introduce a clustered style office layout in which workers with
similar duties are allocated one room, thus reducing the number of workers per room but not
making the rooms private. Following past research, team clusters will be better.
Literature review
The aspect of office layouts serves as an important facet in reducing and increasing
productivity in businesses. Office layouts affect the way employees work as some need privacy
while others like public places. Thus, it is important to learn what workers need for their
productivity enhancement. The companies have applied various office layouts since the past and
each has served to enhance productivity. The open office layout has shown that it can be good
especially where office space is limited. Workers can be monitored by the closeness of the
departmental heads to the staff. However, this form of office layout has shown to be ineffective
as there is no privacy and respect to the management. They are also subject to gossip among the
staff.
Closed office layout is whereby the staff members have their individual rooms enclosed. The
workers get privacy and can work with minimum disturbance from gossiping or lazy peers.
There is respect especially to the management. However, studies have shown that this form of
office layout encourages laziness due to excess privacy. Workers may misuse the office and no
personal issues without being noticed. The management may not know what some staff do when
they are alone in the offices.
Studies show that office layout affects work out depending on what the employees prefer.

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Proposed methods
Participants
21 employees 13 males and 8 females aged between 18 and 35 years will be identified
using stratified sampling to avoid biasness. They will then be questioned using direct interviews
of questionnaires.
Research methods
The research will involve only workers at Robysearch Limited. A simple questionnaire
will be used to gather data from the employees of Robysearch Limited. As a back up to the
survey, private interviews are to be conducted to each of the employees separately. The last
exercise will involve a joint meeting with the management to collect their views as well. The
questionnaire would only collect information about how the office a worker resides affects them
and how they would feel like if they would have found a placing to the team clustered offices.
Variables
The key variables include office layout as the in-depended variable and work output as
the depended variable. They will be measured using the regression, and ANOVA models from
the SSPS software.
Proposed Results
It was found that only 10 of 60 workers were unwilling to move to team clustered offices.
40% of the workers were unable to work to their full capacity due to lowered self-esteem.
However, only 3 of 7 employees in private offices were willing to move to team clustered

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offices. They gave reasons, including privacy and distractions. A whopping 100% of the
management wanted the workers grouped in teams.
Discussion
After carefully analyzing the results collected, an agreement was reached to restructure
the office layout and construct rooms that would harbor fewer similar workers. In this proposal,
the high ranking officers who frequently need privacy such as one on one talk with clients, a
private room will remain necessary, and they would stay in private rooms. Clustering workers
means only workers who deal on one item will be together; for instance, those who work on the
web design would get allocated one office. Those who work on web-based applications could be
placed in a cubicle next to or close to the web designers since they often communicate.
Employers working on the client based systems could be allocated a different room or
cubicle so that they can arrange it to suit their needs. And those who work one on one with
clients such as sales and marketing managers should be allocated private rooms to provide more
privacy and confidentiality to clients. Implementing this proposal should see Robysearch Limited
experiencing a significant improvement on productivity since workers will feel more confident
of themselves, accessible communication while still attending to essential things, or even
attending to customers, while again assuring their privacy.
Conclusion
Challenges that may face this layout will be a distraction, though very minimal as a result
of the other employees sharing the room or cubicle. Another problem may arise when the privacy
of the workers is slightly compromised; however, the positive side of the research outwits the
negative side. Further studies should be on how to get rid of the slight privacy and distractions
for an even better working experience for employees.

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References
Ajala, E. M. (2012). The influence of the workplace environment on workers' welfare,
performance, and productivity. The African Symposium.
Brand, J. L. (2009). Should Your Company Transition from Traditional Private Offices to an
Open Office Plan?. Change/Transition Management White Paper, 5.
Kim, J., & De Dear, R. (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in
open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 18-26.
Rasila, H., & Rothe, P. (2012). A problem is a problem is a benefit? Generation Y perceptions of
open-plan offices. Property Management, 30(4), 362-375.