He recommends visiting IFMA’s Knowledge Library, which offers an online community, best practices, research and other resources. And following the move into a new space, management should perform a regular “customer satisfaction survey” of employees to see whether the space is driving that goal.įinally, Link reminds facilities managers they aren’t alone in hashing out the details of office spaces. Surveying employees before creating a plan can reveal needs that will help formulate this goal, Link says. Facilitate and encourage more remote work.Increase productivity by giving certain employees (e.g., engineers) more private work spaces.Improve collaboration among departments by breaking down (literal) barriers.The floor plan above uses a mixture of open bench seating and collaborative space for a marketing or sales department, along with some private office areas for engineers or executives.Īdditionally, Link says a company should have an overall goal they want to achieve with the new space. Here’s an example of an office plan designed to meet the needs of various types of employees:Ī floor plan with a mixture of open and private spaces
“As we go through the process, we’re constantly checking in to make sure we’re meeting target needs.”īy completing this checklist, a facilities manager and company executives can determine a ratio of private and open spaces, as well as ancillary spaces-such as huddle rooms or conference areas-that enable the type of work required for each department. “There are a lot of conversations going back and forth, understanding what needs are,” Tilley says. “The facility manager is going to have a pretty good idea of how they run their facility currently and the issues they see,” Hille says. Whether your organization is renovating an existing space or designing a new one, the facilities manager serves a major role in office space planning-from beginning to end. To recap: Open office plans can save money on real estate costs, but they don’t always offer the productivity or retention benefits for all departments or employees, especially introverts-who make up about half of Americans. “As a result, more companies are looking toward workplace strategies,” Link says.
Jed Link, communications manager at IFMA, adds that the idea of the workspace has shifted from just a “container for things that do business” to a tool that serves its own function. “Space is harder to come by, and more companies are being forced into smaller square footage than maybe what they would ideally want,” says Bianca Tilley, interior designer at Gensler, an architecture, design, planning and consulting firm. One reason for the open-office trend is the current commercial real estate market. “We’ve seen around a 20 to 40 percent reduction in real estate costs in companies switching to open offices and reducing size of workspace,” he says.Ī common open floor plan layout Benefits of an Open Office Plan You’ll find some professionals arguing the pros of this style, while others claim that it eliminates privacy and adds audible and visual distractions.ĭerek Hille, project manager for Office Space Planners, has seen the open-plan office design trend grow rapidly in an attempt to boost in productivity-but also as a way to save money on real estate costs. Your Facilities Manager’s Role and Office Space Goalsĭo an online search for “open office layout” and you can witness the debate firsthand. In this article, we’ll discuss the differences between open and closed office styles, the role of a facilities manager in office space planning and a few tools and resources you can use to assist in this process.īenefits of an Open Office Floor Plan vs Closed What is the operational goal the company wants to achieve with the space?.What type of work environment does each department need to work efficiently?.We spoke with three office planning experts who say there are two key questions that can help companies find balance: This video goes into detail on why some say the open office layout is a total productivity killer. So, everyone’s happy now, right? Not so much: new statistics show that this workspace style leaves many employees feeling distracted, unproductive, overexposed and overwhelmed.
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Accurate representation of worker breaking free