Open space started in the 50s in the United States and in the 80s in Europe. The concept is to offer workers large trays of open work. The idea is to allow exchanges between employees and not to leave people alone in their office. To be a little more precise, we can also suspect that it prevents workers from doing nothing during their working hours …
What are the benefits for the company?
- Cohesion between people
- Reduce the area needed to accommodate the same number of people
- Modularity of spacing
But if these benefits to the business are so interesting, why some are critical. Let’s go through all this:
- Permanent contact between the employees and the line manager
- Feeling of being watched which leads to stress
- Too noisy which prevents some from focusing
How to have an open space in your company while allowing its employees to work in good conditions? Let’s explore some solutions:
- Install a break room for breaks to leave the noisy space
- Make a meeting room outside the open space
- Define rules of living in common
- Add touches of nature like plants that give a pleasant appearance and allow to filter the noises
Finally, open space provides an indisputable advantage to companies but it must be done to respect the good quality of work otherwise the economy on one side will be lost by the poor efficiency of workers.
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