Let's face it, not many of us actually get the opportunity to plan our office workspace! You either inherit a layout or your options are restricted by physical or budgetary constraints. The sprit of your company or operation will also dictate how you lay out the workspace: is it a team-based approach or do you need to provide individual or confidential spaces within the overall area? There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.
You can certainly provide more work spaces and fit more employees in an open plan office. If the layout of the office needs to be changed, it can be done quickly and with minimal effort as all you need to do is shift some desks (and power outlets, telephone and computer access points etc).
Communication is obviously easier because everyone is in the same area and life is easier for supervisors for that same reason. For open plan to work though, you have to be comfortable with the fact that managers and senior managers are in constant contact with the staff. It may well be essential to your company ethos that employees are indeed in close proximity to managers and senior managers, able to reach management more quickly and deal with issues.
However, open plan offices are undeniably noisier and can be more chaotic than partitioned offices. Phone conversations and background chat between employees will intrude on any outgoing sales calls your staff make. People passing to and fro can also distract focus and attention and in a partitioned office, disturbances like this wouldn't happen. Personal and business security is also quite difficult in an open plan environment.
Privacy is next to impossible! Managers or employees may feel uncomfortable being in such close quarters with their co-workers when confidential calls need to be made or when someone needs "geed-up" or given a performance review. Illness and infections will spread like wildfire in an open plan environment. Senior staff or employees who have been with the company longer than most will most likely feel they are entitled to a private workspace at least, as befits their perceived status. Not addressing this "territorial status" issue can damage productivity and employee relationships.
But does that mean you have to either go completely Open Plan or completely Partitioned? You can get the best of both worlds by investigating office partitioning systems that will at least "delineate" certain areas of workspace without being an expensive and permanent option. Modern office partitions are truly relocatable, meaning re-arranging is quick, simple and easy. They are a cost effective way of creating some dedicated areas with the minimum of disturbance. Their elements can be used time and time again.
Glazed partition units in particular are equally easily erected and dismantled, are fully interchangeable and can give discreet divisions of office space that are still well lit or have access to natural daylight. Office partitioning systems , especially glass ones, can create areas with the privacy and quiet required for many staff members in an open plan layout without making the space feel corralled and boxed in.
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