The choice of an open plan versus a traditional, closed office is a hot topic of debate among business leaders, designers and employees. Both options come with distinct advantages and disadvantages that influence productivity, communication and well-being. As more workers return to full-time office work in the post-pandemic era, which layout is best suited to today’s diverse and dynamic workforce? 

How Is an Open Office Layout Different From a Traditional One?

In a traditional workplace layout, senior staff members typically have their own enclosed office, while others work at individual workstations, often enclosed by cubicles. The office space is characterized by walls, partitions and doors. 

In an open office layout, all staff members work in the same large area, with few or no partitions or walls. This layout is characterized by shared spaces. 

What Are the Benefits of Open Office Layouts?

There are many business benefits to having an open-plan office.

• Collaboration and interaction: Open-plan offices encourage employees to interact with one another. The lack of partitions and boundaries creates a space that facilitates and celebrates teamwork, creativity and brainstorming. It can also create an egalitarian workspace where senior executives work alongside more junior employees.
• Sense of space: Large, open-plan spaces allow plenty of natural light into the office, creating a brighter, visually appealing place to work.
• Flexibility: The lack of walls and partitions makes it easy to move desks and office furniture about as required, so an open office layout can be quickly reconfigured as needed.
• Lower setup costs: An open office layout can be cheaper to set up because the costs of purchasing partitions and screens will be reduced. 

Overall, open office layouts are often preferred by creative industries or startups where collaboration is a key priority.

What Are the Benefits of Traditional Office Layouts?

Despite falling out of fashion in recent decades, there are also many business advantages to the traditional style of office layout.

• Designated space: Each employee has their own permanent space, allowing for personalization and having a base they can call their own.
• Focus and concentration: Because walls and partitions absorb sound and create physical barriers, traditional office layouts provide spaces where focused, individual work is prioritized.
• Privacy and confidentiality: Traditional office layouts make it easier for confidential discussions to take place, and employees may value an increased sense of privacy.
• Hierarchy and status: Separated offices for senior executives visually reinforce company hierarchy, which may be important in some types of business and work cultures.

Large organizations or industries such as banking and insurance, where professionalism and confidentiality are key, often prefer traditional office layouts.

What Are the Drawbacks of Open Office Layouts?

Despite the benefits, it’s fair to say employees do not universally love open office layouts. Here’s why.

• Noise and distraction: Open offices can be noisy because the lack of walls and partitions does nothing to absorb and dampen sound. Plus, it’s easy to be distracted when there are people all around you.
• Lack of privacy: It can be difficult to have sensitive conversations in an open office without being overheard. Privacy concerns also have a gendered element, with women in particular feeling that they are watched and judged in an open office environment.
• No designated space: If employees do not have one single space to call their own, they may find it harder to get into focus mode or carry out deep work.
• Negative impact on neurodiverse individuals: For neurodiverse employees, visual clutter and a feeling of personal vulnerability may make open office layouts particularly challenging to navigate.

What Are the Drawbacks of Traditional Office Layouts?

Of course, cubicle life is not universally loved either, and traditional office layouts come with their own set of potential problems.

• Poor communication and collaboration: It can be difficult to collaborate when employees are physically separated from one another, and the physical barriers can hamper communication and creativity.
• Us vs. them: Traditional layouts can foster antipathy between bosses and junior staff, decreasing morale and making it harder to feel part of the team.
• Decreased flexibility: Built-in office structures, walls, partitions and cubicles are difficult to reconfigure quickly and can be challenging to move around. This makes the traditional office layout cumbersome to adapt to changing business needs.
• Poor accountability: When employees spend most of their time shut away from colleagues, they may be more likely to waste company time or be tempted to focus on personal matters instead of working.

What Does Science Say About Optimal Office Layouts?

When it comes to choosing an office layout style, the scientific jury has made its findings well known through a wide range of research. Those findings weigh heavily against open offices for a number of reasons.

A 2021 review of 31 research papers showed that open-plan offices are associated with negative outcomes in employee health, satisfaction and productivity. Employees reported higher stress levels, lower overall health and decreased satisfaction with colleagues. 

Startlingly, since one of the key benefits of open office layouts is thought to be better communication, the research actually points the other way. 

Studies from as long ago as 1984 reported that employees in open-plan offices actively avoided conversations in order not to disrupt their neighbors. A further study in 2018 used sensors to track worker movements and discovered that people in open-plan offices spent two-thirds less time interacting face-to-face than when they had been in a more traditional office space.

So, should people head back to the cubicles? No — there is a better way: the agile workspace.

What Is an Agile Office Layout?

An agile office layout aims to combine the best of both worlds, combining the advantages of open offices and traditional office space while minimizing the disadvantages of each.

To do this, an agile office layout incorporates:

• Open plan shared spaces: Large, open spaces are still a key element in an agile office layout, not least due to cost considerations.
• Some enclosed individual pods: Private, individual pods allow employees a quiet space for deep work or to hold confidential calls or meetings. This is vital since recent research reveals that 60% of office employees find it hard to focus, often due to the added noises and distractions of an open office. Many agile offices use a booking system to reserve the pods, ensuring fair access.
• Designated break areas: Having clearly identified rest and relaxation areas situated away from the main open-plan space helps to keep a focus on work in the main area, with employees able to let off steam elsewhere. This can help reduce noise and distractions.
• Removable privacy screens: Small screens that can be quickly fitted to a workstation when an employee needs to focus can be a good, cheap, temporary solution. They are also easy to take down again a few hours later.
• Noise-canceling headphones: Some employers provide these to all employees in an agile office so they can remain in their open-plan space if they wish. At the same time, it cuts down on distractions and enables focus.
• Clever use of color and zoning: Color-coding areas of the open-plan space helps keep employees on board with what type of work is best suited to which area of the office. For example, use yellow or green in creative areas, but use blues or neutral shades in other zones where a calmer, quieter, focused vibe is encouraged.

In these ways, flexible, agile office layouts can be adapted to all kinds of industries and company cultures. 

How to Choose the Right Office Layout for Your Business

Your unique business needs will determine the ideal office layout. To make an informed decision, consider gathering data from your employees. This can be done in a variety of ways:

• Ask employees to fill out a survey, anonymously if desired, answering questions about their preferred working environments.
• Hold face-to-face meetings or discussion groups to gather a good cross-section of views.
• Observe workflow patterns to determine how your team actually works rather than how you might think they work.

When considering different office layouts, you should also ponder:

• What is your industry style, and how much do client expectations matter? What do people expect to see when they walk into your office?
• Is hierarchy important in your business, or is your culture loose and creative?
• What is the dominant working style of your key employees? Is it quiet, focused, individual work or extensive collaboration and communication?
• Do teams need to sit together, or might people work best seated with employees from other departments who work with the same clients?
• Are you likely to grow rapidly, needing a flexible style to accommodate increasing employee numbers?

Choosing an Office Layout That Works for You

While open offices may help teamwork and traditional layouts may support focus, neither option offers a one-size-fits-all solution. Although scientific evidence suggests that open office layouts may not be the creative hot spots they were once thought to be, they are nonetheless still a good fit for some industries. 

It doesn’t seem likely there will be a wholesale return to traditional office layouts. However, as organizations seek to balance costs, flexibility and productivity, evidence increasingly supports hybrid or agile office layout solutions. Ultimately, the best plan is the one that best aligns with organizational goals and employee needs.