Office Layout
| Author | Zane Quible |
| Pages | 552-554 |
Page 552
Office productivity is influenced by a number of factors, one of which is office layout. Because office layout influences the entire white-collar-employee segment of the organization, its importance to organizational productivity should never be underestimated. Office layout is based on the interrelationships among three primary factors: employees, flow of work through the various work units, and equipment.
Efficient office layout results in a number of benefits to the organization, including the following:
It affects how much satisfaction employees derive from their jobs.
It affects the impression individuals get of the organization's work areas.
It provides effective allocation and use of the building's floor space.
It provides employees with efficient, productive work areas.
It facilitates the expansion and/or rearrangement of work areas when the need arises.
It facilitates employee supervision.
Planning the layout tends to occur in two steps, a preliminary stage and a final stage.
When designing office layout, a number of factors need to be taken into consideration during the preliminary planning stage, which is generally carried out by administrative office managers, employees, or consultants. Among the factors to consider during preliminary planning are these:
Studying the flow of work vertically and horizontally between individuals and work units is critical in designing office layout. The goal is to design a layout pattern in which work moves in a straight-line direction with minimal, if any, backtracking or crisscrossing patterns. The major source documents found within the various work areas are often considered in analyzing work flow.
Studying the organization chart, which visually depicts who reports to whom as well as the relationships among and between employees, is also considered in the preliminary planning stages. Generally, the organization chart helps determine which units should be physically located near one another.
Having a good understanding of the possibility of expansion helps assure that layout is designed to accommodate future growth. Among the factors to be considered are the potential need for additional work units as well as the number of additional employees likely to be needed in both existing work units and new work units.
Page 553
Studying the organization's communication network identifies who within the organization has considerable contact with whom, either face-to-face or by phone. The more contact employees have, the greater the likelihood that they or their work units need to be located physically near one another.
Studying departmental organization also helps determine which departments should be placed in close proximity to one another. For example, those departments with significant responsibilities for the accounting and financial aspects of the firm should be located...
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