Poor Design Of A Shared Office And How It Affects Human Behavior Reports Examples

Defining the problem

An organization’s workspace influences the performance of the workforce. Every organization provides an office environment to its workforce so that they can perform their assigned roles and duties. The workspace is very significant and influences the operations of an organization. The design of an office influences the psychological and behavioral outcomes, for example, motivation in the workplace, job satisfaction, and interaction patterns (Henderson, 2014). In recent times, most organizations have realized that poor design of a shared office affects the performance of the workforce as it becomes difficult for them to meet the expected standards at the workplace. The open offices do not have the interior walls, are large and accommodates many workers in an open workspace. The design of the workspace impacts on the human behavior in any organization. The physical layout is determined by the available facilities and equipment, and this can negatively affect our individuals interacts in an open space.
Since time immemorial, the physical environment had been a topic of interest for psychologists as they conducted studies to identify how the effect of environmental conditions (e.g. lighting, temperature and ventilation) affects the human behavior and productivity across all organizations. The poor design of a shared office is believed to affect human behavior negatively. For well-designed offices, the workforce is always happy and motivated to deliver his/her best in an organization. Contrary, poor design of a shared office contributes to misunderstanding across an organization. The workforce spends most of their time interacting and this causes distractions and lack of motivation at the workforce (Books, 2009, p.8). The poor designs of offices is criticized by workers and in the process, they develop a behavior of resisting the authorities because they believe that organizations are not doing enough to ensure that they are happy and comfortable at the workplace.

Stakeholders impacted by the problem

The poor design of an open office affects the following stakeholders: the executive management, the workforce and the organization itself. The workspace influences the conduct of the employees in a certain organization. For instance, a poor designed open office causes more damage to the overall performance in an organization compared to offices that are well-designed to provide a favorable environment to the workforce. The disorganization that results from poor design of open offices causes congestion and commotion that affects the performance of the employees. The workforce is less motivated to shoot out their best because of the interruptions that occur on a daily basis. In some occasions, the noise that emerges inside an open office lowers the level of concentration at the workplace, and this is harmful to any organization.
The Executive Management determines the resources that will be allocated for construction and repair of an office. If the resources are inadequate, the open office will lack the required standards that allow workers to work in a favorable environment. The decision of congesting the workplace should be avoided because it causes more damage to the organizations’ performance. The distraction that takes place in poor designed open offices irritates the employees and these results to poor performance (Bitner, 1992, p.63). The Executive Management expects the employees to help the organization realize its goals and objectives according to the set timeline. If they fail to ensure a proper and effective design of the office place, the performance will deteriorate, and organization will fail to meet its objectives. The stakeholders must be concerned with the poor design of an open office and device measures to solve the problem before it gets out of hand. The Executive Management has the power of fixing the problem by allocating resources that will either construct a well-designed open office or numerous closed offices that will help the workforce operates in a favorable environment.

Key considerations in Problem Resolution

Physical considerations
Poor design of a shared office is an aspect that determines the performance of employees in an organization. A poorly designed open office lacks a supportive and conducive environment that allows workers to operate without distractions. Such offices are greatly affected by noise that comes from machines and employees within the workspace. Noise pollution causes distractions and denies an employee the opportunity to concentrate on his/her duties and responsibilities (Mantei et.al, 1991 p.205). A poorly designed open office does not have proper lighting and the inside temperatures are too high. The spaces between employees are also limited, and this affects the required privacy at the job place.

Psychological/social considerations

Taking human behavior into account can improve the performance in an organization. The distraction that occurs at an open office makes employees to loss focus as they lack motivation to perform. Human beings are concerned with privacy in everything that they do, but a poorly designed office denies them this right. As a result, the employees are stressed, and their morale is affected (Codrea-rado, 2013). An open office that is poorly designed allows individuals to interact at the wrong time and such distractions may anger certain employee, and this affects their state of happiness.

References

Bitner, M. J. 1992. Servicescapes: the impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. The Journal of Marketing, 57-71.
Books, H. S. E. 2009. Reducing error and influencing behaviour.
Boyer, K. K., Olson, J. R., & Jackson, E. C. 2001. Electronic surveys: Advantages and disadvantages over traditional print surveys. Decision Line, 32(4), 4-7.
Codrea-rado, A. 2013, May 21. Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more likely to get sick – Quartz. Retrieved from http://qz.com/85400/moving-to-open-plan-offices-makes-employees-less-productive-less-happy-and-more-likely-to-get-sick/
Henderson, J. M. 2014, December 16. Why The Open-Concept Office Trend Needs To Die - Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2014/12/16/why-the-open-concept-office-trend-needs-to-die/
Mantei, M. M., Baecker, R. M., Sellen, A. J., Buxton, W. A., Milligan, T., & Wellman, B. 1991, April. Experiences in the use of a media space. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 203-208). ACM.
Patterson, M. G., West, M. A., Lawthom, R., & Nickell, S. 1997. Impact of people management practices on business performance (pp. vii-viii). London: Institute of Personnel and Development.