Space invaders
WORKPLACE Could the position of your desk
be responsible for your flagging productivity, asks Hazel Davis
UNLESS WE’RE LUCKY, chances are not many of us have been consulted about what sort of office we work in. The office pretty much comes with the job. ‘Here’s your desk’ you might be told one day, with maybe a, ‘we’re moving offices’ a few weeks later. However, every so often the press goes to town on the lat-
est research into office layout. In 2011 a study found that the mod- ern, open-plan office layout can lead to a 32 per cent drop in workers’ wellbeing and even reduce their productivity by 15 per cent. The researchers also found that open-plan offices can cre- ate unwanted activity in the brains of workers, which gets in the way of them getting on with the task in hand. This won’t come as a surprise to many PAs, for whom the idea of open-plan working creates a headache, in more ways than one. However, your open-plan office might be affording you ben-
efits in other ways. Emma Donaldson-Feilder is an occupational psychologist at Affinity Health At Work, which advises com- panies on providing healthier workplaces. She says, “We know
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that social support is really important for resilience in the work- place, so creating office layouts that facilitate relationship build- ing is likely to be helpful. Anything that enables people to support one another can be part of building an environment of good social support and resilience. My work emphasises the role of the line manager and the importance of good manage- ment for employee health and wellbeing, so again anything that will facilitate that is helpful to workplace wellbeing.”
PERSONAL PREFERENCES Bethany Forvargue is PA to the MD at a leading international provider of EDI and eBusiness solutions. She works in an open- plan office and says, “personally I find it a nightmare.” She con- tinues, “the interruptions are constant. We don’t have the facilities to make it more private so we are left with it as it is.” Though Bethany likes the way she is located close to the door so can catch people heading to her boss’s office, she says she would ideally like an office that isn’t shared with other depart- ments. “’And I think we’d all like a bit of natural light,” she adds. But everyone’s different and Debbie McGibbon, PA at flex-
ible office specialist Instant, says she loves working in an open- plan office. “I think open-plan is important for communication, morale and teamwork, because it creates a ‘buzzy’ atmosphere where everyone can get to know each other,” she says. Debbie works right next to her boss and she says, “I wouldn't
want it any other way. It makes it easier for me to be aware of his changing priorities and means I can consistently juggle tasks as needed.”
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