Impact of Change in Office Layout on Employees Communication Satisfaction

This study examined the relation between office environment and employees’ communication satisfaction within the office based on the study results of Company X, which underwent a change in office layout. Company X implemented a change in office layout to create an office environment that would revitalize communication and be easier to work in. Specifically, the idea was not to change the office space but to ensure sufficient meeting spaces. The results of the study found the following: 1) the evaluation of the office environment improved, resulting in the ease of communication; 2) employees’ communication satisfaction in the office had an improving trend, although it was slightly limited; 3) On the other hand, depending on the occupation, the needs for the office environment for improving communication satisfaction were so different that they were virtually polar opposites, despite working in the same office. This suggested that the improvement in communication satisfaction created by the change in office layout was limited.

In July 2014, the Tokyo head office implemented a change in office layout to create a workplace environment that would enable information sharing and rapid decision making. In particular, as many meeting spaces as possible would be created. In addition, they created not only open meeting spaces but also closed meeting spaces to facilitate conversations that had confidential subjects.
They found it difficult to increase their meeting spaces in their existing, limited office spaces. This required economizing on space usage to plan the space for meeting spaces. This resulted in an overhaul of the office arrangement. Furthermore, increasing the number of shared desks reduced the amount of furniture necessary for the office (however, they ensured a sufficient number of desks, including desks for employees who are teleworking or working outside the office).   The distribution of respondents by head office/branch office as well as by occupation is displayed in Table 1. The questionnaire items used in the survey comprised a broad range of items, including office environment, communication satisfaction, job satisfaction, and work climate. Considering the interests of this study, we will discuss the former two (office environment and communication satisfaction). Specifically, these include the following items. All of them ask for a yes-or-no response.
Q1. Enough space is secured for performing my work.
Q2. Enough space is secured to assemble as the need arises.
Q3. It is too crowded and difficult to get out of my seat and move around.
Q4. If we have unexpected guests, we can respond to them sufficiently.
Q5. The office is arranged sufficiently.
Q6. I have sufficient space to place things that are necessary for work.
Q7. I can even place things unrelated to work (for instance, pictures) on my desk.
Q8. It is easy for me to grasp the conditions of the group that I belong to (sales, systems development, etc.).
Q9. It is difficult to have conversations that include confidential information in the office (including meeting spaces).
Q10. It is too quiet and difficult to even make small talk.
Q11. I often feel that it is too noisy.
Q12. The office environment enables me to focus on my work.
Q13. I can communicate in the office to my satisfaction. Table 2 indicates the changes in the responses to the questionnaire items before and after the change in office layout (Because only 4-5 teleworkers existed, they have been excluded). As this table indicates, some major changes were observed in numerous items at the head office. For instance, only 30% of respondents responded "Yes" to "Q2: Sufficient assembly space" before the change, but this greatly improved to 90% responding "Yes" after the change. Similarly, 47% of respondents responded "Yes" to "Q3: Difficult to move" before the change, and 20% responded "Yes" after the change. 30% responded "Yes" to "Q4: Sufficient responding to guests" before the change, and 77% responded "Yes" after the change. Furthermore, 40% responded "Yes" to "Q6: Can place necessary things" before the change, and 67% responded "Yes" after the change. In contrast, no major change was observed in the majority of the items among the branch offices, which did not change its office layout. In other words, the employees working at the main office felt that the office environment improved  Table 3 indicates the correlation analysis between "Q13:

Study Results
Communication satisfaction" and all other items from Q1 to Q12 by occupation. First, examining the totals, we observe a significant correlation at 1% or 5% of "Q13: Communication satisfaction" with "Q2: Sufficient assembly space," "Q4: Sufficient responding to guests," and "Q6: Can place necessary things," all of which greatly improved in the main office. This suggests that the change in office layout improved communication satisfaction to a certain degree. 2 The change in office layout also aimed to make confidential conversations easier, but no major change was observed in item "Q9: Difficulty of Confidential Conversations." Furthermore, as shown in Table 3, no statistically significant correlation existed between this item and communication satisfaction.
On the other hand, we can also see a statistically significant correlation of communication satisfaction to "Q10: Quietness makes small talk difficult," "Q11: Noisy," and "Q12: Easy-to-focus environment," which did not significantly change in Table 2. In addition, interestingly, the relation between these items and communication satisfaction differed by occupation. For instance, in Sales, the correlations with "Q11: Noisy" and "Q12: Easy-to-focus environment" were 0.414 and 0.794, respectively, which are relatively strong correlations. This implies that employees in sales feel higher communication satisfaction in an environment where they can focus on their work with little interference from others. In contrast, in System Development, a strong negative correlation was observed with "Q10: Quietness makes small talk difficult." This means that members engaging in systems development feel a higher communication satisfaction in environments with some noise or that allows them to engage in a degree of informal conversation, as opposed to an environment that is too quiet.
In other words, depending on the occupation, the needs of the office environment for communication satisfaction were so different that they were virtually polar opposites, despite working in the same office.
We conducted an interview to follow up on the results of Table 3 and obtained the following responses. First, the employees in the sales division admitted that expanding the meeting spaces made it easier to conduct meetings, but the change in layout did not significantly affect their communication because they engaged in the necessary communication for their work at the sales desk in the workspace. Some stated with discontent that when they were attending an important phone call or web conference with clients at their work desks, people from other departments talking or moving around disrupted their concentration. On the other hand, in system development, as most members are in charge of different products and services, there are few common development tasks and more individual tasks. When they were engaged in individual tasks, they found that they had less frequent face-to-face communication with those around them. Because of this, an environment where they cannot make small talk caused them to feel a psychological distance to other people and other departments.

Discussion and Conclusion
This study conducted a survey before and after Company X's change in office layout. The following results were found.
The change in office layout secured spaces for employees to gather for meetings and respond to guests. In other words, it prepared an office environment that facilitated communication to a certain