A consulting firm in Birmingham rang us, panic-struck, three months ago. The result of their employee survey has just been reported, and what bothered 70% of their workforce most about work is what their office environment looks like. Not the pay, not the benefits package, but the space.
The managing partner was stumped. They’d invested £120,000 to rip out the tired, cramped offices and replace them with an open-plan design two years ago. They’d posted great pictures of it on LinkedIn, so it certainly did look very impressive. Yet people were unhappy, and their best project manager just quit, complaining, among other things, “nowhere to actually work.”
Taking a walk through their offices, the issue is apparent. They’d planned a collaborative workspace when most of their work demanded intense focus. Classic mistake.
The Hidden Cost of Bad Layouts
Inefficient office design is not something advertised with neon lights. They zap productivity quietly, like a leaky tire. People adjust, develop workarounds, and ultimately learn to accept things are just more difficult than they should be when it comes to getting work completed at the office.
We partnered with an architecture practice in Leicester who costed the value of the problems associated with their design. Considering time lost searching for meeting rooms, concentration impaired by noise, and employees working away from the office due to it not working effectively, the value to the business could be £85,000 annually. The cost of the office rental was £65,000.
They were literally paying more for lost productivity than the rent.
Before you embark on dismantling walls and moving furniture, it is important to evaluate if it is actually a issue of design. Here are the indicators:
People work from home, not by choice but out of necessity, because they could not work effectively in the office. So, if employees are more productive at home than when working in the office, it is obvious that it is not doing the job right.
The conference rooms are fully booked but are halfway occupied by only one person. This is due to people needing privacy, which they cannot get anywhere else.
People are wearing headphones everywhere, all the time. People have music while working. If people are having to wear noise-cancelling headphones just to operate, you have a problem with noise and distraction, which design could resolve.
Parts of the workspace are empty, while others are overcrowded. This is often an indication that it is not geared to how people work. They are gathered where it is best and avoiding areas that are not conducive to their work.
Staff are constantly complaining about “interruptions.” If your team is having problems getting their work accomplished because they are constantly interrupted, then you’re not varying enough types of workspaces on the team.
Solutions That Actually Work
Try zoning an area by activity, and not by departments. This is the first and most impactful thing we could ever tell you to improve the design. You can divide an area into several zones; each composed of a specific kind of work. These include Focus Zones, Collaboration Zones, and Social Zones.
The Birmingham consultant firm I talked about earlier? We rearranged their spaces. An area to focus quietly. An area to collaborate. An area to mingle near the kitchen. Didn’t move any walls, changed little of the furniture. Boosted employee satisfaction ratings from 30% to 78% within ninety days.
An accountancy firm, Milton Keynes. All the people-facing teams were allocated on the ground floor, and the entire back-office operations were on the floors above. Made sense, right? Resulted in the back-office team feeling disconnected and undervalued, and inter-team communications were awful. Designed mixed communities on each floor. Changed the entire culture.
The rooms themselves should cater to the types of meetings. Not all meetings require a 12-seat room with a 65-inch monitor. There are ones involving two people and their laptops. There are phone conversations. There are also seminars for 20 attendees.
In fact, we monitor the allocation of the meeting rooms in almost all our projects, and the result is the same each time: small rooms are always overcrowded, and the large rooms are left empty. Just mix up the sizes of the meeting rooms.
Quick Wins (Changes You Can Make This Week)
Not all layouts will require a major renovation. Here are some changes which work quickly:
Rearrange the furniture you have. We have fixed productivity problems at dozens of offices without changing a single piece of furniture. Arrange people so you turn rows into clusters, establish visual paths to minimize distraction, and place workstations away from paths. No cost takes a day.
Set up quiet zones. You can also have quiet areas, even if you are working in an open-plan office. A sign, some acoustic panels, and a strong signal to focus, and you are ready. A marketing firm in Leicester did it, and it worked to improve concentration levels right away.
Unoccupied meeting rooms by installing phone booths. If your meeting rooms are always occupied by people on phone conversations, then you can resolve the issue by installing phone booths. Four phone booths are more economical than constructing a meeting room.
Utilize underused areas. Every office has what are called “dead” areas, which are areas of the office where no one ever goes because of their location. These areas are often where you’ll find the best places to work alone.
The Bigger Fixes (Worth the Investment)
If you’re able to spend some money on changes:
Incorporate acoustic separation without constructing walls. Floor-to-ceiling glass, screens, and clever furniture arrangement can divide areas while also keeping visibility and light. Inexpensive compared to constructing walls and provides approximately the same benefits.
Rearrange your meeting rooms. Rather than having six medium rooms, think about having four small rooms, two large rooms, and four phone booths. The same number of spaces, but much more efficient utilisation.
Develop fluid spaces made from modular furniture. Regions which can transition between solo working and team working by merely shifting the furniture. This fluidity is highly useful when working on projects.
When to Bring in External Expertise Layout problems can either be visible and easy to correct. Other problems, which require expert assistance, include if: You have already tried the obvious solutions and failed. Several departments are complaining about the layout, each with their reasons. You are planning expansion or contraction. You are thinking of relocating but maybe a reshuffling of departments could fix things.
The common mistake we witness is when companies start doing layouts based on what is visually appealing and what is currently fashionable, and not what serves their needs. Your Office Layout is either an Advantage or a Disadvantage. There is No In-Between. Suspect it could be affecting productivity? We’ve resolved productivity issues, among other problems, in numerous offices across the UK. So, what are some things that are not working effectively within your setup?