TED7
Mechanical
- Jan 17, 2011
- 155
Hello all.
I will start off by saying this will be a very open ended question and I'm more after sparking discussion than getting a concrete answer.
At my workplace there are three main offices. Finance, who I'm not interested in. Design, where I work and Technical, where everyone else works, be it manufacturing, production management, quality, team leaders etc.
The planning office is a narrow, open plan office with staff sat in rows 2 desks wide facing each other. The design office is a similar size but with an irregular layout, half the staff but with half height dividers between staff facing each other, we can see either the persons head over the divider, or their back. We also have a breakout room at each end, which the other office does not have and we do use them regularly.
I'm interested in somehow documenting the positive and negative effects each office layout has on productivity. For example, the design office layout has the effect of keeping people quiet and focused on their own world, whereas in the technical office, people are always chatting about ideas etc. but I find the environment stressful.
Does anyone have any views on the pro's and cons of an open layout, a closed layout or the sort of half and half layout created by putting up barriers but not totally enclosing people and any ideas on how I can investigate these and compile some kind of report.
There are plenty of redundant meeting rooms which could be re-purposed as offices to relocate some of the technical office staff to create a layout similar to the design office but it's hard to put forward ideas without facts and I don't want my bias to play too much of a part.
Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws
I will start off by saying this will be a very open ended question and I'm more after sparking discussion than getting a concrete answer.
At my workplace there are three main offices. Finance, who I'm not interested in. Design, where I work and Technical, where everyone else works, be it manufacturing, production management, quality, team leaders etc.
The planning office is a narrow, open plan office with staff sat in rows 2 desks wide facing each other. The design office is a similar size but with an irregular layout, half the staff but with half height dividers between staff facing each other, we can see either the persons head over the divider, or their back. We also have a breakout room at each end, which the other office does not have and we do use them regularly.
I'm interested in somehow documenting the positive and negative effects each office layout has on productivity. For example, the design office layout has the effect of keeping people quiet and focused on their own world, whereas in the technical office, people are always chatting about ideas etc. but I find the environment stressful.
Does anyone have any views on the pro's and cons of an open layout, a closed layout or the sort of half and half layout created by putting up barriers but not totally enclosing people and any ideas on how I can investigate these and compile some kind of report.
There are plenty of redundant meeting rooms which could be re-purposed as offices to relocate some of the technical office staff to create a layout similar to the design office but it's hard to put forward ideas without facts and I don't want my bias to play too much of a part.
Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws