Effects of open plan workspaces on job satisfaction: a study on software development professionals in Colombo

Abstract

People in the modern world spend most of their time in workspaces. Yet these workspaces are rarely designed to promote humane aspects. Open plan offices are getting popular despite their effect on people. Recently there is a boost in the local information technology field where many young people work. Therefore identifying effects of open plan workspaces on workers’ job satisfaction has become vital. Vision is the prominent way of experiencing a space and spatial layout decides the occupant’s visibility in a space or through spaces, creating sense of privacy and interaction. Even though several organizational and environmental factors affect job satisfaction, this paper focuses only on visibility and privacy levels in open plan offices. Visibility graph analysis was recognized as a quantitative analysis tool to measure spatial configuration and a self-reported questionnaire survey was launched to collect qualitative measures on user experience. The analysis proves that different open plan configurations have different visibility patterns and create different levels of privacy. Higher satisfaction levels are reported from software company workers in open plan offices and increased privacy levels are identified in offices having individual workstations with different levels of visibility, which promote flexibility and adaptability within the workspace.