Open-plan Offices: the Importance of the Ambient Conditions' Characteristics for Employee Satisfaction

A well functioning open-plan office facilitates interaction between employees in the organization and improves overall communication and productivity. Health issues, however, such as head aches, nose, eye and skin irritation as well as breathing difficulties and higher levels of epinephrine in the employees' bodies (which is a risk factor for heart disease) are also related to open-plan offices and ambient conditions' undesirable characteristics within the servicescape. This book strives to serve as a practical guide for managers and employees when designing an open-plan office. This book can also be used as a tool to better understand the ambient conditions' characteristics in an open-plan office and how they consciously, or unconsciously, affect the employees that are working in the open-plan office in numerous ways: cognitively, emotionally and physiologically. The extent to which the ambient conditions in the workplace affect employees is of paramount importance not only for students of business and for those who work in open-plan offices, but for managers who are concerned with the bottom line as well.