Open-plan offices can be better for firms, says expert

Office design news from Morgan Lovell

Published on 10-05-2010

The benefits of having an open-plan office have been highlighted by one blogger.

Writing on his Financial Times blog, Don Sull, a professor of management practice in strategic and international management and faculty director of executive education at London Business School, explained this kind of layout can "foster and maintain shared situation awareness".

He also pointed out some of the advantages he has noticed from choosing open-plan office design and build.

According to Mr Sull, employees are able to understand how their work firs in to the "bigger picture" if they have frequent discussions and overhear snippets of conversation.

It also promotes daily face-to-face meetings and impromptu conversations, while allowing for the "serendipity of chance encounters" between workers from different departments, he continued.

Meanwhile, Karen Ford, senior executive of powerPerfector, recently suggested that office energy efficiency could be improved by a new method of power management technology to change the voltage that enters a building.

Posted by Ian Johnson