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The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of environmental factors in open-plan offices with the same characteristics but with different workstation partition heights (1.10, 1.40 and 1.65 m) on perceptual evaluations of office employees.

In this research, the effects of environmental factors on employees’ perceptual evaluations in open-plan offices at the Gölbaşı Region of Ankara were measured with a detailed questionnaire. The research data were obtained from 81 employees who agreed to fill out the questionnaire and who use open-plan offices.

It was found that the office environments with 1.65 m workstation partition heights were more favorably assessed for each of the items of planning and of privacy that form the dependent variables compared to the office environments with 1.10  and 1.40 m partition heights. On the other hand, the office environments with the 1.10 and 1.40 m partition heights were more favorable for lighting items than the 1.65 m partition height office environments. In addition, young employees had a more positive tendency toward the perceptions of environmental factors, including different workstation partition heights in open-plan offices, compared to older employees.

Results of this research provide a fundamental contribution for the impact of various partition heights that have substantial implications on the perceptions of open-plan office environments. At this point, as open-plan offices have important effects on the quality of employees’ work experiences, the influence of various partition heights on the performance of employees should be emphasized in future studies. The diversity of performance (reading comprehension, calculation, design, drawing, etc.) will be an important decision.

The significant contribution of this research is that it provides valid data and makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge in open-plan office design.

The purpose of this paper is to explore managers' and employees' opinions regarding privacy in open plan offices and also investigate the relationship between the perception of managers and employees on visual and acoustical privacy in order to provide better design solutions in an open plan office setting.

The research method is a structured interview. The categorized data are analyzed with percentage of frequency distributions and Chi square analysis. A total of 42 subjects were interviewed and separated in two groups as managers and employees.

It was found that lack of privacy still exists as an unsolved negative aspect in open plan offices. Findings indicated that there is a strong desire for employees to change and control their physical working space when both visual and acoustical privacy is needed in an open plan office setting. Another finding is that there is a difference of opinion regarding visual privacy between managers and employees.

The limitation of the paper is that the sample is small and all subjects' occupations are computer‐related. Future studies are needed to further investigate diverse subjects in a larger population. Any future research instrument would have to be different from a structured interview.

Research findings provide valid recommendations to system furniture designers and manufacturers. System furniture design needs to be modular and easily changeable and adjustable for open plan offices.

The significant contribution of this research is that it provided valid data and makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge in open plan office design.

The purpose of this paper is to compare different employee perceptions of the success of one change: a move to new offices and an open-plan design.

In sum, 25 interviews were carried out in a New Zealand law firm that six months earlier had moved to new premises.

Contrary to academic and practitioner reports that open-plan offices are disliked, participants appreciated the new office space. A well-planned and highly participative program of change management led to positive perceptions of aesthetic design, open communication, collegiality, egalitarianism and inclusiveness.

Given the small sample used in one organization, the study highlights the need for more research into the processes and outcomes of office space changes.

The roles of communication and culture, in particular, collegiality and egalitarianism, were salient factors in a complex web of causes and consequences in this context of change.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the effect coefficients of the complex connections between selected open‐plan office and effective facilities space management variables.

Data on offices, management control and effective facilities space management measures were collected through questionnaires administered to 102 facilities space managers of 102 randomly selected open‐plan offices in Sydney.

Some open‐plan attributes were found to have direct impacts on several effective facilities space management variables, while others exhibited indirect effects through management control aspects. In most cases, management control considerably reduced the effect coefficients.

While the study is limited to discrete effective facilities space management aspects of only selected open‐plan commercial offices in Sydney, the research implications though far‐reaching, may not be universally applicable. However, a better understanding of the associations provides directions to where attention would be fruitfully focused in future research replications and practice.

The practical implication of this result is for re‐engineering of work environments to consider aspects of management that invariably moderates and/or intervenes in the relationship of space, people and work process. This paper concludes that, with dedicated management control, the impact of open‐plan on facilities space management may be less extensive.

The paper's utilization of this quantitative approach is novel to understanding the connections between office attributes and effective facilities management. This approach offers a veritable alternative to examining and validating these constructs that are useful to space providers, designers, managers and users in understanding the interactions between space, people and process.

Research on the physical work environment and employee territorial behavior in the field of organizational behavior is limited. In particular, while the prevalence of territorial behaviors in organizations is not new, little is known about how the physical work environment (e.g. open-plan offices) may influence the enactment, interpretation and reactions to territoriality. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between the physical environment of work (e.g. open-plan office), employee territorial behaviors (including infringement) and affective environment.

Data were collected by means of in-depth-interviews from 27 participants from two large Australian public organizations involved in recruitment, marketing, consulting and education.

Results revealed that employees’ personalization in the open-plan office is driven by the nature of their tasks, appointment, duration of time spent on their desk, level of adaptation to the open-plan office configurations and the proximity of desks to senior managers, hallways and passers-by. Additionally, affective environment has a critical effect on employee personalization and the enactment and perception of territoriality and infringements in open-plan offices. Additionally, the authors found that the affective environment is dynamic and that employees in open-plan offices experienced emotional contagion (positive and negative).

Due to the demographic make-up of one of the participating organizations, less than a third of participants were male. While the data did not suggest any disparity in the territorial behaviors of male and female, future research should include an even representation of male and female participants. Similarly, the authors did not examine the impact of ethnicity and cultural background on employees’ territoriality. However, given that the workforce is increasingly becoming multicultural, future research should explore how ethnicity might impact the use of space, work processes and productivity in open-plan office. Additionally, scholars should continue to tease out the impact of affective environment (positive and negative) on team processes (e.g. conflict, communication, collaboration and the development of team mental models) in the open-plan office.

The results indicate some practical implications. Noise and distraction are indicated in the results. Therefore, human resource managers and organizational leaders should work with employees to develop some ground rules and norms to curb excessive noise in the open-plan office. Additionally, the authors found in the current study that the affective environment is dynamic and that employees in open-plan offices experienced emotional contagion (positive and negative). Managers should watch out for how individuals react to the prevailing emotions and moods in the open-plan office with the intention of diffusing negative emotions as quickly as possible, for example, by changing the topic under discussion in the open-plan office. The results speak to the need for more active collaboration and engagement between policy makers, workspace architects, designers and employees especially prior to the building of such workspaces.

The results suggest that effective employee interactions in open-plan office may be enhanced by positive emotional contagion and office affective environment.

So far, little is known about the impact of the physical work context (e.g. open-plan offices) on the enactment, interpretation and reactions to territoriality. The current paper explores the connection between the physical environment of work (e.g. open-plan office), employee territorial behaviors (including infringement) and affective environment. The findings demonstrate for the first time and especially in an open-plan office that ownership and personalization of objects and workspaces are more likely to be driven by the amount of time spent at one’s desk, the nature of employees’ appointments and tasks. Additionally, the present research is one of the first to report on affective environment dynamism in the open-plan office.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of window proximity on perceptions of employees in the call center offices.

A semantic differential scale composed of nine bipolar adjectives, four of which dealt with “planning,” three of “privacy,” while the rest measured “lighting” was applied for evaluation. In total, 92 employees at the TEPE Call Center in the Bilkent District, Ankara, Turkey participated in the research.

The results showed that window proximity directly affected the call center employees’ perceptions. In addition, a positive approach was even less affected when the location of the workstation was more at the inner part of the workspace. On the contrary, workstations in front of the window were evaluated more positively, presumably because the employees were happy at feeling roomy and by giving them a higher level of privacy, while also minimizing distractions and interruptions. It was also found that call center employees with secondary education responded more positively than higher educated employees.

This study was limited to examining the effects of window proximity in a call center on employees’ perceptions of an open-plan office. The study supports the results of planning, privacy and lighting, as well as the study on physical environmental factors, such as design, ambient and social, which are thought to be realized in the future.

This study presents suggestions that would be useful for increasing the working and solution-focused perceptual performance values in call center environments from the new generation of work areas. They should be appropriate for the psychological and physical needs of employees in twenty-first-century communication environments, especially in spatial environments and for the suitability of the technological equipment used.

This study aims to investigate the performance of open-plan office layouts and to identify occupants’ concerns in existing open-plan office layouts.

Workplace activity questionnaire (WAQ) was administered in the form of an online survey in March 2019, as part of a design briefing process for the expansion of the office facilities located in Bangalore, India, for a Fortune 100 software technology company. A total of 4,810 questionnaires were distributed and 3,877 responses were received (80.6% response rate). After that, 849 incomplete responses were eliminated from the analysis, resulting in a final sample size of 3,028. The questionnaire included 11 key activities conducted by the office workers and established the gap between the workers’ perceived importance and support from their existing facilities using a five-point Likert scale.

The findings of this study provide strong evidence that different physical environments influence the satisfaction of occupants. An improvement of the facilities, especially by enabling areas for quiet working, should be prioritized in relation to the other activities surveyed. Also, office workers perceived significantly different support levels for quiet working depending on their department, while there was no significant difference between the workers of different buildings.

Individual demographic information was not collected because of the possibility of personal identification. There was also a lack of objective environmental measures, such as temperature and noise level. Thus, the quality of indoor environments was unknown. In this study, some respondents mentioned dissatisfaction with indoor environmental quality, including noise, temperature and air quality in their comments.

In the programming stage of a workplace design process, the WAQ survey tool has value because it renders important insight into the perception of a live workplace, which can then be used to determine priorities for a design effort. It clearly identifies the areas to focus on, ask questions about and develop improvements. Validating its reliability will enhance its credibility and confidence in its use. In addition, the large sample size provides statistical advantages in the data analysis, providing a higher likelihood to find a true positive of the findings of the study. Also, having a relatively high response rate provides an advantage of mitigating the risk of having non-response bias in the analysis.

In the rise of offices designed to support activity-based working (ABW), parts of industry have fully transitioned to open-plan environments and then later to unassigned seating, whereas other parts, such as tertiary education, are still in the process of moving away from individual offices. There are a few relevant studies to understand how occupants from industry sectors with different levels of adoption of ABW perceived environments designed to support this way of working. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge gap by providing insight into workers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction from open-plan offices designed to support ABW along with the key predictors of perceived productivity.

A data set of 2,090 post-occupancy evaluation surveys conducted in five sectors – tertiary education, finance, construction, property/asset management and design/engineering – was analyzed. ANOVA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted for the survey questionnaires. First, ANOVA tests were conducted for the whole sample with perceived productivity as the dependent variable. A seven-point Likert scale with five theoretical factors was generated with all survey questionnaires. CFA was performed to show the factor loadings. In addition, regression analyses were carried out for each of factor item taken as the independent variable, where perceived productivity was the dependent variable. Key sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction per sector were analyzed and differences between occupants reporting a negative or positive impact on their productivity were also investigated. Finally, open-ended comments were analyzed to show the key sources of dissatisfaction based on open-ended comments.

Workers from construction were the most satisfied, followed by finance and tertiary education. Occupants from all industry sectors consistently rated their workspaces highly on biophilic and interior design. Distraction and privacy received the lowest scores from all sectors. Open-ended comments showed mismatches between spatial and behavioral dimensions of ABW both for satisfaction and perceived productivity. Interior design was the strongest predictor for perceived productivity for all sectors. Findings dispel the notion that ABW implementation may not be suitable for certain industries, as long as the three key pillars of ABW are fully implemented, including design, behavior and technology.

This paper provides insight into workers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction from open-plan offices designed to support ABW in different industry sectors along with the key predictors of perceived productivity.

This paper aims to illustrate the extensive benefits of qualitative data analysis as a rarely undertaken process in post-occupancy evaluation surveys. As a result, there is limited evidence of what occupants say about their buildings, especially for operational parameters, as opposed to how they rate them. While quantitative analyses provide useful information on how workers feel about workplace operational factors, qualitative analyses provide richer information on what aspects of the workplace workers identify as influential to their comfort, well-being and productivity.

The authors analysed 6,938 comments from office buildings worldwide on workers’ perception of workplace operational factors: design, storage, needs, space at desks and storage in their work environments. These factors were analysed based on the buildings’ design intent and use, and the associated comments were coded into positive, negative and balanced comments. The authors used a combination of coding, descriptive analysis, content analysis and word cloud to dissect the comments.

The findings showed that whereas workers rated these operational factors favourably, there were significantly more negative comments about each factor. Also, the Chi-square test showed a significant association (p < 0.01) between the satisfaction scale and the type of comments received for all the operational factors. This means that when a factor is rated high in the satisfaction score (5–7), there were fewer negative and more positive comments and vice versa. The word cloud analysis highlighted vital aspects of the office environment the workers mostly commented on, such as open plan design, natural lighting, space and windows, toilets, facilities, kitchens, meeting room booking systems, storage and furniture.

This study highlights the importance of dissecting building occupants’ comments as integral to building performance monitoring and measurement. These emphasise the richness and value of respondents’ comments and the importance of critically analysing them. A limitation is that only 6,938 comments were viable for analysis because most comments were either incomplete with no meaning or were not provided. This underlines the importance of encouraging respondents to comment and express their feelings in questionnaire surveys. Also, the building use studies questionnaire data set presents extensive opportunities for further analyses of interrelationships between demographics, building characteristics and environmental and operational factors.

The findings from this study can be applied to future projects and facility management to maintain and improve office buildings throughout their life cycle. Also, these findings are essential in predicting the requirements of future workplaces for robust workplace designs and management.

The authors identified specific comments on the performance of workplaces across the globe, showing similarities and differences between sustainable, conventional, commercial and institutional buildings. Specifically, the analysis showed that office workers’ comments do not always corroborate the ratings they give their buildings. There was a significantly higher percentage of negative comments than positive comments despite the high satisfaction scores of the operational factors.

From poor indoor environmental quality conditions to musculoskeletal discomfort, the interior design of workspaces has the potential to negatively affect human health. One of the key responses from industry has been the rise of health-related guidelines, certification and rating tools. Despite the rapid adoption of such tools by the Australian high-end corporate real estate, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence arising from such premises. This study aims to compare results from certified premises against other open-plan offices to understand differences arising from occupants’ satisfaction, perceived productivity and health.

A total of 1,121 post-occupancy evaluation (POE) surveys conducted in 9 offices were analyzed. All these premises hold a certification from the Green Building Council of Australia and two achieved a WELL rating. The analysis is performed in three parts: comparing WELL-certified (2 cases) and non-WELL certified (7 cases) offices along with comparison with a benchmark of 9,794 POE surveys from the BOSSA database, comparing activity-based working (ABW) (5 cases) and traditional (4 cases) offices along with comparison with BOSSA database and qualitative study of the similar design features in all 9 offices accompanied with an in-depth analysis of the health-related issues that might have occurred because of poor ergonomic design. For the first two parts, several t-tests are performed.

Highest scores for overall satisfaction, workability, perceived productivity and health were reported on WELL-rated premises. Offices incorporating active design principles outperformed others on workability, satisfaction with work area, collaboration, unwanted interruptions, perceived productivity and health. ABW environments outperformed the traditional offices on spatial comfort, thermal comfort, noise and privacy, personal control, comfort of furnishing, adjustability of the work area and space to collaborate. People using sit–stand workstations reported spending significantly less time seated and female workers were more prone to reporting pain over the past 12 months. The best-performing offices implemented active and biophilic design, prioritized overall ergonomics and different spaces designed to support a variety of work-related activities.

This research conducts a comparison between certified premises against other offices in terms of occupants’ satisfaction, perceived productivity and health. A qualitative analysis is also conducted to investigate personal and physical environmental aspects. The way of working (ABW or traditional), implementation of active design features, self-reported musculoskeletal discomfort and physical activity were also investigated. The study has taken a holistic approach to investigate many health-related physical, environmental and emotional aspects in certified workspaces.