Open workplaces don't work! Or at least?

Many articles have already been written about the office garden. Often with the meaning that it is only bad. It would not be good for employee productivity and it would be bad for concentration. However, many of these articles are often based on the writer's own experiences or based on moderate research. But there are also good studies!

Leesman research

Leesman has also researched open offices and comes to different conclusions. Leesman is independent and has no interest in promoting any workplace concept.

Leesman has been researching more than 700,000 respondents since 2010 (!) that work in more than 4,000 buildings.

90-point workplace rating

On 90 points, Leesman assesses how well a work environment enables people to perform their tasks. And it turns out: the ten lowest scoring work environments are open work environments. With problems with individual concentration activities, noise level and (self-perceived) productivity.

Variety is essential

But there is more: nine of the ten highest-scoring environments are also open workplaces. The difference between these two groups lies in the variety of different types of workspaces that are offered to them. If employees are satisfied with this, 75 percent say they can work productively and 86 percent think it's a place where they proudly receive visitors.

Choose the design that fits

It is also possible to imagine that concentrating is difficult when there is no choice in workplace. If that variety is there, you can choose to relax if necessary. In short, the statement that open work environments would only be bad is really too short of a curve.

Another cross-section also looked at the highest-scoring work environments on the index: the so-called Leesman+ organizations. All these organizations have an open work environment. And in the work environment that scores best on noise levels, more than a thousand people work. So even for such large organizations, it is possible to choose the design that works for them and suits them.

Design with the user and operations in mind

So it's too short of a curve to say that open work environments don't work. There is plenty of evidence to say that there are (a lot of) bad open work environments. But of course, this does not mean that there are no good ones. Work environments should always be designed with the user and the work they need to perform in mind.

In order to function properly, like any other office, it is important that certain physical characteristics are in order. This includes, for example, chairs, desks, temperature, (day) light, air quality and also the noise level.

Do you want to know how the noise level and acoustics are doing in your office? Then take contact with us. We would be happy to come by for an inventory and acoustic measurement.

Source: Leesman “The world's best work environments are open offices”