Office space: is open plan the best plan?

Over the last couple of months, the manager of a Swansea call centre has become an unlikely TV star. Nev Wilshire has, in equal measure, delighted and annoyed viewers of BBC Three’s ‘The Call Centre’ with his intensely positive outlook and boundless enthusiasm. His motto is that “happy people sell,” and he keeps them ‘happy’ by putting them in headlocks, traipsing them round the office looking for a date, and enforcing a singalong to get them in the mood to sell.

Sound like the sort of man you’d like to work for? No, me neither. But at least he’s trying. “Yes, he certainly is,” you might say.

But there’s more to what makes a workplace than the people within it. What about the office itself? The bricks and mortar, its shape and size? Is your office conducive to effective working, or does the layout get in the way? Radio Four’s just started a documentary History of Office Life, and this article looks at how the office has evolved through the years.

So, what sort of office do you work in? Is it open plan, or full of tiny cubicles? Does it work for you, and does it get the best out of you?

We all have the image of the office filled with rows and rows of cubicles. To the uninitiated, they can appear boring, lonely and quiet. They put you in your place, and stifle conversation. If you rely on the input of others to get the job done, it can make life pretty hard. I once saw a radio newsroom full of journalists trying to discuss that evening’s running order, peering over the tops and round the corner of their cubicles. And in a job where you always need to run things by each other, it’s hardly the most effective office layout I’ve ever seen.

But, if your job is all about what you alone do and requires no real input from anyone else, you may find it focuses the mind to be alone, rather than being accessible to all. Phone calls, especially those where sensitive details are discussed, may also be easier to take in a private booth.

In most jobs, the idea of an open plan office is much more appealing. They’re friendlier, and more collaborative. You’re working face-to-face with your colleagues, which allows you to discuss work issues easily and come to decisions faster. And it’s always nice to have a bit of human interaction, which can create a strong team bond. Managers are usually mixed in with the masses, which not only allows them to manage their team more effectively, it makes them more accessible, and also saves on costly office space.

But before you start rearranging all the desks in your office, it’s possible there is such thing as too much communication. Catching up on X Factor gossip, Friday night plans; the kind of thing that can reduce productivity. Or there can be too little noise, with just the sound of people tapping away at their computers, which then makes telephone calls difficult.

And then there are the other little squabbles. Cross these off as you recognise them. Ever had an argument over the level of heating and/or air conditioning? Fed up of always being the one that has to pick up the phone? What about the one person in your office who doesn’t know when to stop talking? And, of course there’s…. smelly food! These are all potential open-plan office issues.

Alexi Marmot is an expert on office space planning, and she believes office layout shouldn’t be a compromise between private and public space, but one which offers both things to its employees whenever they need them. Maybe we should take a leaf from the book of a Swiss office which allows employees the freedom to work where they wish. They provide sofas, coffee table areas and even a ‘garden’ with tables to work at among the plants. But isn’t this is too much? I mean, it’s a place of work after all. Should employees really be wandering around doing what they want, or are these the perfect working conditions in which they can really shine?