
5 common agile design fails to avoid in your office fit out project
We’ve outlined 5 common agile design “fails” to avoid in your office project, and how you can avoid them to create an agile office that works for you.
Open-plan offices have had mixed reviews in the past as numerous studies show they can be bad for our health and productivity.
Despite the negativity, over 8 million UK employees work in open-plan environments so this type of office is very much the norm for many British workers.
Below, we take a look at the pros and cons of open-plan offices and how – with the right design – they can be healthy, productive and enjoyable places to work.
An open-plan office is a workspace that has minimum enclosed spaces, such as private offices.
Employees share the same space to work in, which can include desks, meeting spaces and areas for socialising.
Open-plan environments can create unique opportunities for collaboration – from problem solving to creative idea sessions – which can actually aid productivity and engagement. Ad-hoc discussions and ideas sharing can reduce the need for more formal time-consuming meetings.
What to do:
Removing physical barriers in an office means employees can speak openly with each other, without the need for phone calls, emails or formal meetings.
Open offices often mean that employees of all levels work alongside each other, this can make managers or members of the c-suite much more approachable and keep them up to speed with what’s happening in their company.
What to do:
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Open-plan office designs are a lot more agile than offices with private rooms or fixed partitions. Therefore an open-plan space can be adapted to grow with your business as the company’s needs change.
Successful designs provide a variety of spaces for employees to work in so they have the most appropriate set up for their individual requirements.
What to do:
Distractions and disruptions are key downsides of open-plan offices that are regularly cited in studies. According to one study, employees working in an open-plan office lose 86 minutes a day to distractions. Even brief interruptions can lead to employees making errors.
With the right design, open-plan offices can actually aid productivity by providing a variety of workspaces to suit the different working requirements for individual employees.
What to do:
Lack of privacy is a notorious problem in open-plan offices and can be costly – on average office workers lose 28% of their productive time to distractions. Thankfully, contemporary open-plan office design takes this into account. Managers have realised that working in isolation is sometimes necessary to give employees the space to concentrate and fully immerse themselves in a task.
Privacy from stimulation gives employees the space to work (or simply ‘be’) away from noise and distractions.
What to do:
According to research, 90% of employees who work in open-plan offices experience “high levels of stress, conflict (and) high blood pressure”. Open-plan offices have also been cited as the reason for increased number of sick days, with employees in this type of office having 62% more days off sick, due to a large number of employees working together in close proximity.
The noise in open-plan offices can cause stress levels to rise, with one study showing that working in a noisy office can increase levels of adrenaline.
What to do:
We’ve outlined 5 common agile design “fails” to avoid in your office project, and how you can avoid them to create an agile office that works for you.
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Explore the pros and cons of open-plan offices and how the right design can make them productive places to work.