Research Analysis - Work Place Phenomenon, Open Plan Offices

Today’s Open-Plan Office Phenomenon Research & Analysis Prt.1 Rev-02

Presented by Han S Hong

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

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Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

1. Time line and history of our offices

2. Oxford Economic work enviornment survey

3. Cultural Dimensions

4. Noise and distraction data

5. Work place wellbeing analysis

6. Work environment and engagement survey

7. Case study - Nvidia’s Voyager

Prologue This is a work of research and analysis on modern office phenomenon amid boom of the open plan offices. The work was about 3 month process from resource gathering (publications, survey, interview, and case studies) to documenting of analysis. This work lead my team to kick-start a new line of product development that focuses on privacy and acoustics enhancement in our clients' office environment.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Time-line: Market Keeps On Changing

Presence of an open-plan office dates back as early as mid 1700’s in European countires. After its landing in the Un Whether it was for the social movement, industrial evolution or the media influence, the changes were made for th

Burolandschaft lands in

Fist open office was designed

the US - Herman Miller

by Frank Loyd in Racin, WI

introduced Action Office-I

1939

1967

199 20

1960’s Boom of typwriter and wide

Domination o

spread of open plan floor -

regimented cu

type writer farm

office reaction to

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

nited States in 1900’s, open plan office began a journey of dramatic transformations. he needs. Today, the need seem to be around the topic of privacy.

90000

Bloomberg, NY office -

70% of US workplaces are open

complete open floor with

plan offices and are facing

benching workstations

privacy and productivity crisis

Today

2005-

2010’s

of repetitive

Open office as new trend -

ubicle offices

wide-spread of ergonomics &

o cubicle hatred

sit-to-stand desks

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Oxford Economics Research Released in 2016 In collaboration with Plantronics, Oxford Economics surveyed more than 1,200 senior executives and nonexecutive employees from a range of industries around the world to better understand the opportunities and challenges of the modern workplace Top 3 ranks of most important aspects in work environment Rank 1

Rank 2

Rank 3

29%

The ability to focus and work without interruptions

21% 18% 24% 25%

Having space to collaborate with coworkers easily and effectively

16% 19% 18% 17%

The ability to seamlessly connect my devices no matter where in the office

14% Having my own space

16% 12% 11%

Having the technology to facilitate collaboration Having space to take breaks or eat meals

15% 15% 1% 3% 13%

Amenities (free or subsidized 0% 1% food, onsite daycare)

Natural light

1% 2% 3%

6% *The statistic was extracted from its original document full credit to Oxford Econimocs Research

As this research revealed, most highly ranked concern for today’s employee is regarding the coherent work flow and effectiveness of collaboration. Working in teams has become the norm for most firms, with more than half of today’s work considered group-based, and an even higher percentage expected in the future. Many workplace research pioneers predicts that groupbased work ratios continue to escalate, expecting to climb to over 63% starting year 2017. Nevertheless, noise and distraction is an afterthought in office design for executives - minimize distractions from inside and outside of the office was scored the least when considering the organization’s new office space design.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Cultural Dimensions In order to analyze data from employees in more than 70 countries, Geert Hofstede, a Dutch professor and researcher, developed an empirical model first time in 1967 that measured the dimensions of national culture across four dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity and Uncertainty Avoidance.

Power distance and individualism are the two high influenced dimensions to work place planning and employee movements through out the day. While the United States’ power distance in work place is small (meaning that hierarchy exists mainly as a structure), its the most individualistic nation. Below is the new Hofstede study conducted by Knoll in recent years.

0-100 POINT SCALE SMALL-PWR DISTANCE

LARGE-PWR DISTANCE

40

91

INDIVIDUALISM

COLLECTIVISM

In 2014, at the pick of open plan movement, extensive international research conducted by Ipsos shows that 85% of people are dissatisfied with their working environment and can’t concentrate. Of those surveyed 95% said working privately was important to them, but only 41% said they could do so, and 31% had to leave the office to get work completed.

Working in private was important

Dissatisfied with OPO

95%

85% 31% leave the OPO to focus OPO Transition

41% can still focus in OPO Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Noise and Distraction At Work As privacy dwindles, people have fewer places to escape the sounds of their coworkers’ chatter, sneezes, or phone calls. Noise from the open-plan office is picked up on calls, near by conversation, or passersby, and can distract those working from other locations very easily.

28%

11min 23min

65db 55db

42%

David Rock, founder of NeuroLeadership group, explains that employees, on average, spend 28% of their time dealing with unnecessary interruptions and getting back on track.

Based on the research done by Gloria Mark, UC Irvine, when we try to work on a project, we get interrupted every 11minutes on average, and it takes us up to 23 minutes to get back into flow.

In many open plan offices, noise ranges from 60-65 decibels. German Association of Engineers set 55db as the requirement for intellectual work, that includes - high complexity and creative thinking, decisionmaking, solving problem and effective communication.

Gallup research - 75% workers experience frequent noise while working, 42% workers would change jobs to have privacy when need it.

75%

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Three Perspectives of Work Place Wellbeing Moving away from 20th century’s linear hierarchical structure, 21st century workstyle has evolved into a complex-network structure. As group-based work becomes the norm, employee engagement became the center of the issue in OPO. In 2014 Steelcase-commissioned survey, the research concluded that employees “need workplaces designed to nurture their physical, cognitive and emotional wellbeing.”

Physical Well-Being

Emotional Well-Being

Motion and movement Healthy work tools

Sense of belonging Freely express ideas

Work Place Well-Being

Able to focus

Productivity

Kaleidoscope interaction

Cognitive Well-Being

Focus

Mental process

Privacy

Decompress & recharging

It is evident that for work place planning to be successful the cognitive well-being should be well assessed in the office environment ecosystem.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Open-plan Office Segments in Cognitive Perspective Today’s workers desire the choice of where to work in the office based on the tasks at their hands. From the cognitive stand point, we observed three types of office areas, or zones.

Selective exposure Entrusted confidence Purposeful solidtude

Individual Clusters

Transitional space

Central Plaza

Remote Work

OPO

Private Office

Break-out/ Phone booth

Virtual Meeting

Conference Rooms Group Work Pod

“Let’s go eat some pie to solve this complex problem.”

Our ability to solve problems logically is very limited. Most problems of any basic complexity require the unconscious brain to actually solve the problem. So once you get to a certain level of complexity, the best way to solve a problem is to pose the question and then do something that’s slightly distracting, to forget about the problem and do something else pleasant for a while. The unconscious brain keeps going, and then when you come back to the problem you get a much better answer than actually trying to continue to solve the problem logically.

-Steelcase Q&A with David Rock -

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

About the Survey To better recognize the challenges found in OPO, we surveyed 50 people from three companies including ourselves. While conducting in-house survey we have reached out to couple of silicon valleys’ fastest growing hi-tech companies, Jfrog and Nvidia. The objective was to compare the two contrasting industry who have set up similar office environment. Unlike AMQ’s sales and support people culture, the other two companies are driven by the software technology and services, hence; encompassing software engineers as majority of their employees. The survey consist of two parts. First half is to rate the working condition based on how they feel, then the later portion asks for short answers to identify existence of common OPO issues, and how employees are addressing those challenges once they may have recognized them.

Who Participated?

Sales

AMQ

12% Logistics/ Support

16%

56%

Operating Managers

16% Manufacturing/ Development * AMQ’s 2/3rd participants are based in the US office while 1/3rd are from China office. Since the majority of sales personels work remotely, the survey was applicable to only few of them and made up 12% of whom particpated in AMQ’s inhouse survey.

Network Engineer

Nvidia | Jfrog Software Engineer

100%

Support Engineer

System Engineer * The two companies are shown as merged because both participants are fully consist of the same occupation, software engineer. Although their job titles differed based on the team setting, the core discipline of profession remains common.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Rate between 1 to 10, 10 being the best Including Foshan office

US Office only

I can easily concentrate at work

76%

74% 81%

I can freely express and share idea

81% 76%

I feel relaxed and calm in my desk

74% 87%

I can physically move and change posture

88% 74%

I can accommodate mobile works in my work area

77% 67%

My team can work without being interrupted/disrupted

59% 76%

I can choose where to work within the office, based on the task I am doing

76% 85%

I may move around easily throughout the day

85% 83%

I socialize and have informal, relaxed conversations with colleagues

82% 64%

I have enough visual privacy at my desk I have enough acoustical privacy at my desk

59% 51%

44%

*Although Foshan office does not fall in the demographical area of this study, we’ve paired the inclusive results to be compared. While the overall satisfaction rate is comparable, there are some significant differences in three areas -- team interruption, visual privacy, and acoustical privacy. The difference may be due to the nature of team composition in Foshan, as well as cultural tolerance difference.

Short answer high-lights While 30% like the aspects of OPO (openness, modern design, socialism, etc), over 60% of complaints were about the office being too open and too noisy. About 74% answered that they take the phone calls by walking out and around or finding empty spaces. Also, 74% answered that the other people’s conversation mostly distract them from work flow. To stay focus, over 52% said they use types of ear-buds or head phones, while the rest employee answered that they try focus real hard or get away from the noise and try to comeback to work later.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Likes and dislike about their work environment misc Likes the open plan aspects including the openess, modern design interior, easy to socialize, etc.

30%

60%

Dislike factors are based on open-plan aspects including lack of visual/sound privacy, not enough small conference room, too much distraction, etc.

How do they take phone calls at work

Make or take phone calls walk out and around or find empty and quite space

26% 74%

Make or take phone calls through the desk phone, only use texting, or other.

How do they keep focus from distractions

Personal solutions ignore distraction with best ability, move to empty spot, go into their POV, or try really hard to mentally focus

48%

52%

Most common solutionwearing headphones or earbuds to dim the noise or play music

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Rate between 1 to 10, 10 being the best Nvidia and Jfrog consolidated I can easily concentrate at work

72%

I can freely express and share idea

85%

I feel relaxed and calm in my desk

71% 93%

I can physically move and change posture I can accommodate mobile works in my work area

83%

My team can work without being interrupted/disrupted

68%

I can choose where to work within the office, based on the task I am doing

79%

I may move around easily throughout the day

86%

I socialize and have informal, relaxed conversations with colleagues I have enough visual privacy at my desk I have enough acoustical privacy at my desk

83% 54% 50%

*J frog and Nvidia’s main clusters are composed of power/data providing open plan system with sit-stand bases along with individual storage pedestal per station - very comparable between the two and AMQ. However, the two tech companies provide different stages of collaborative work areas throughout their office layout.

Short answer high-lights 56% like the aspects from OPO (openness, modern design, socialism, etc) including availability of open access points. On the other hand, 67% voted their complaints on the lack of visual and sound privacy in their primary work station, and answered that the other people’s conversation/walk-ins are the main distractions to their work flow. About 84% answered that they take the phone calls at the quite and empty places. Both companies standardized on noise-canceling headphone as acoustical solutions.

Many engineers from Nvidia enjoyed company provided Bose head phones.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Likes and dislike about their work environment

Likes the open plan aspects including - the openess, modern design interior, access to private rooms.

56% 67% OVERLAP

Interestingly, majority of dislike factors were also from the open-plan layout - lack of visual and sound privacy in their vv work stations.

How do they take phone calls at work 16% Make or take phone calls walk out and around or find empty and quite space

Make or take phone calls through the desk phone, only use texting, or other.

84%

How do they keep focus from distractions

Personal solutionsignore distraction with best ability, move to empty spot, or drink more coffee.

33% 67%

Most common solution Company provided noise caneling headphones to dim the noise or play music

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Case study - Invidia’s OPO Segments We have visited Nvidia’s most recently built open plan building, Voyager, to gain an in-depth understanding of office layout anatomy they have adapted. Nvidia’s Voyager has three layers of ecosystem in architecture.

First floor mainly consist of cafeteria and communal spaces. Second floor focuses on clusters of work stations as well as small and large group work pods. In every corners and path of transitional space exhibits types of break-out lounges or open-access group-meeting rooms. The center of the orb that is structurally constructed in polygon panels surround high-intimacy conference rooms and break-away zones.

Finally, on the top floor of its central enclave, it presents employees with special bar lounge for off-time relaxation and celebration. al idu s v i I n d u s te r Cl

Selective exposure Entrusted confidence Purposeful solidtude

Work Pod/ Phone booth

Nvidia | Voyager

Op en Bre Acc ak- ess ou / t

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Ce n Pl a t ra l za

Summary of surveys and case-study

Restricted R&D room

ce / en r e ry nf Co Libra

Today’s leading industries organizations desire their work environments to support the flow of internal and external information, promote creativity, while enhancing their culture and business model. In order to successfully provide solutions that remain competitive in the marketplace, commercial office product provider should be able to suggest different means to create office environments that are demanded in each unique scenarios presented.

The open plan office, indeed, juxtaposes its collaborative environment with privacy and zone issue that is evidently challenging the majority of the users that are in it. The survey was conducted on two very different groups of employee composition, however; the result of collected data presented in the bar-graph ended up very comparable between the two groups. The differences in results we’ve seen, then, are the degrees of how much the employees could find alternative solutions within the OPO system and/or the interiors. The group of employees who have more variety of work areas to alter from their primary desk have definitely higher ratings in overall survey questions. The same group also showed higher satisfaction in the acoustic and privacy-control rating due to additional work-tools provided by the company, such as white board divider and noise canceling headphones.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Conclusion Today’s open plan office, indeed, juxtaposes its collaborative environment with privacy and zone issues that are evidently challenging the majority of the users that are in it. The survey was conducted on two very different groups of employee composition, however; the result of collected data presented in the bar-graph ended up very comparable between the two groups. The differences in results we’ve seen, then, are the degrees of how much the employees could find alternative solutions within the OPO system and/or the interiors. The group of employees who have more variety of work areas to alter from their primary desk have definitely higher ratings in overall survey questions. The same group also showed higher satisfaction in the acoustic and privacy-control rating due to additional work-tools provided by the company, such as white board divider and noise canceling headphones.

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Work Cited Industry Leader’s Publications and Open-source Articles Steelcase 2014 globla research “Engagement and the Global Workplace” published 2016 and relating articles Knoll’s global workplace researches and related articles, 2012-2016 Hermanmiller publication archives, 2012-2018 why you can’t concentrate at work https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-you-cant-concentrate-at-work-1494342840 Open-plan offices can be bad for your health https://www.theguardian.com/money/work-blog/2014/sep/29/open-plan-office-health-productivity the 8 ugliest open offices of all time - SBS(Australia) the Feed youtube video https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/the-8-ugliest-open-offices-of-all-time.html 9 Reasons That Open-Space Offices Are Insanely Stupid https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/why-your-company-will-benefit-from-getting-rid-of-open-office-spaces-first-90. html Science just proved that open plan offices destroy productivity https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-open-plan-offices-destroy-productivity.html How to Stay Sane in an Open Plan Office https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/how-to-stay-sane-in-an-open-plan-office.html?cid=readmoretext_aut How to Millennial-Proof Your Office

https://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/how-to-design-offices-for-the-future.html Office designers find open-plan spaces are actually lousy for worksers https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/04/22/office-designers-find-open-plan-spaces-are- actually-lousy-for-workers/?utm_term=.368fb7a60724 Open office plans are as bad as you thought https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/07/18/open-office-plans-are-bad-you-thought/?noredi rect=on&utm_term=.8e1cf815d62f 5 Really Annoying Open-Office Issues https://www.themuse.com/advice/5-really-annoying-openoffice-issues-plus-solutions-for-how-to-deal-with-each-one Office Space: Evaluating 5 Types of Office Environments http://www.tuw.edu/content/business/5-types-of-office-environments/ The In-Betweeners: The rise of a new office-furniture typology https://www.architonic.com/en/story/simon-keane-cowell-the-in-betweeners-the-rise-of-a-new-office-furniture-typol ogy/7000703 What You Can Learn About Employee Happiness From Decades of Office Design https://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/3-lessons-century-innovative-office-design.html The open office plan is a disaster, Chicago Tribune, Feb 2018 http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/success/inc/tca-the-open-office-plan-is-backfiring-20180220-story.html# This Office Design Trend Is Causing a Privacy Crisis. Here’s What It Means for You https://www.inc.com/jeff-pochepan/this-office-design-trend-is-causing-a-privacy-crisis-heres-what-it-means-for-you. html Organisations that don’t embrace agile work will find it difficult to attract & retain https://serraview.com/10-factors-to-consider-before-implementing-activity-based-working/

Privacy and Engagement In Open Plan Office RESEARCH & ANALYSIS