A Comparative Study on the Perceptions of HR Employees from Open Office and Closed Office Setups Regarding their Interpersonal Communication and Workplace Productivity

Abstract

With the increasing number of communication trends in organizations, it is also essential to study the physical aspects of organizations and how these affect the interpersonal communication of the employees. One physical aspect is the workplace design, specifically the types of office setup companies have. This physical aspect affects and alters the way employees interact and work, therefore studying its influence on their interpersonal communication is relevant. Hence, this research study aims to know how HR employees perceive open and closed office setups and their impact on interpersonal communication and workplace productivity. To help answer this, these are the objectives: 1) to know how the select HR employees describe their respective office setups, 2) to know the advantages of both closed office setup and open office setup, 3) to know the disadvantages of both closed office setup and open office setup, and 4) to know the importance of office setups on employees’ interpersonal communication and workplace productivity. A qualitative research method was also applied, by conducting personal or face-to-face interviews with the participants. The sample size was limited to six employees from the Human Resource Department; three from a closed office setup and three from an open office setup. These six employees are from different industries such as Business Process Outsourcing, Real Estate Marketing, Manufacturing, and Auditing companies. From the gathered data, the results also showed that partitions create a physical and figurative barrier between employees from the same department or team and open space leads to lack of privacy and noise and distractions.