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Office Design Key to Productivity, Gensler Survey Says

Office design effects innovation, collaboration, and creativity.

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 7/26/2006 12:00:00 AM

Does your office environment determine your efficiency? That’s what new evidence released by Gensler says. According to the architecture and design firm's Gensler 2006 U.S. Workplace Survey, office design has a direct correlation with optimal job performance, not to mention a companies’ competitive advantage. Businesses that ignore the design and layout of their workplaces, the survey suggests, are failing to optimize the full value of their human capital.

Survey participants, a randomly selected and representative sample of over 2,000 office workers in all staff and management strata in the U.S., are typically a middle manager or above, 42 years of age, in an office of over 200 employees, and from a company with less than 4,000 employees and $350 million in annual revenues.

Nine in 10 workers believe that better office design leads to better overall employee performance, and increases a company’s competitive edge. In a better working environment, productivity would increase 21 percent, office workers say. Half of these respondents indicated they would work an hour longer, given improvement. Of the senior executives surveyed, 90 percent say better conditions actually increase a company's bottom line.

Innovation, collaboration, and creativity are all tied to office environment, the survey concludes. “Businesses are waking up to the fact that the workplace is much more than just real estate and a means to house their people,” says Diane Hoskins, an executive director at Gensler.