Pros And Cons Of Open Plan Office Design

Open office design is becoming increasingly popular for modern businesses and although there are plenty of benefits in the open plan design, as with anything, there can be some cons too.

So, we thought it maybe useful, if you’re planning an office refurbishment or complete office fitout, to consider the following when putting together your office design:

PROS

• Communication barriers broken down – An open plan office is brilliant for inspiring better communication and collaborative working amongst employees and can help you to build a tight knit team who have a mutual understanding of the work ethic and the brand identity in unison whilst they work together and bounce ideas off each other.
• Flexible layouts – Traditional layouts don’t always use the space available to the best ability and open plan offices can allow you to see the layout much easier, making it much more clearer to build a floor plan that utilises as much space as possible and can offer more flexibility when you want to make changes.
• Great for tight budgets – Open office plans are generally more economical than traditional layouts which usually involve a number of rooms or closures that doesn’t let the design flow as easily meaning you will usually find that you use a lot more different types of furniture and needs for each individual area.

CONS

• Noise pollution – Open plan office designs are well known for having noise pollution problems if the design is not carefully thought out and can cause a number of distractions in the workplace if you have many people working at once. Noise pollution can create such a negative atmosphere in the office and encourages procrastination, distraction and lack of focus which ultimately leads to low quality work and low productivity.
• Privacy compromised – Open plan office design can be make a huge compromise on privacy and confidentiality in the workplace, since often in open plan design most employees will share their space they generally won’t have a private area to work in which can be difficult for some employees.
• Stress inducing atmosphere – With the combination of noise pollution and lack of privacy it can definitely become overwhelming and stressful in an open plan working environment. No employee is the same and working in a collaborative and open environment can actually be detrimental to a more introverted employee, something that will be hard to cater for in a widely open design.

Getting the balance right

Luckily, there is a way to get the balance right with open plan office design and so many options to cater for every need in the office environment, as well as resources to minimise the noise pollution and lack of privacy in the office.

Partition walls are the perfect way to add structure, privacy and reduce noise pollution whilst allowing light to continue to flow freely through the office, especially with glass partitions that are cost effective and create the illusion of continued open plan design throughout the office.

Redditch Partitions have a number of options that can help you keep that open plan theme whilst eliminating the common annoyances that a wide open design can cause.