For over two years, employees around the world worked in the confines of the four walls of their apartments and houses. While the trend of working remotely has skyrocketed, professionals had been yearning for physical collaborations at workspaces.

Now that employees have returned to their offices and have the luxury of working on-premise, several businesses have decided to remove the barriers between them at workspaces.

This has given rise to the increasing adoption of open floor plans in new interior briefs.

What Are Open Floor Plans?

As the name suggests, open floor plans are commercial interior designs that remove walls and cubicles in offices. It involves getting rid of barriers and making offices more spacious.

In an open floor plan, employees can see others as they work while having their desks. In essence, it maintains the look, feel, and appeal of your workspace without putting walls or any barriers separating the dedicated workstations of your employees.

While open floor plans have been subject to some criticism, more and more companies are opting for such open office spaces to ensure seamless collaboration between employees.

Why Are Open Floor Plans The Go-to Options In The Current Era?

We live in a post-pandemic world, which has completely changed the norms of commercial workspaces. With new trends like hybrid models gaining momentum, companies are doing their best to stay in sync with the ongoing work culture.

Here are some of the key reasons why open floor plans are the go-to options for commercial designs in the current era:

Better Communication And Collaboration

Naturally, removing walls makes it easier for your employees to communicate and collaborate. With workers returning to their offices, they are no longer willing to work within four walls.

Instead of working all by themselves, open floor plans help your employees to interact with their peers effortlessly. It also creates a collaborative work atmosphere, allowing your teams to work in perfect sync with each other. Employees often send emails and text messages to each other despite working in the same office. An open floor plan eliminates the need to do so by enhancing communication between your staff.

Spatial Flexibility

Open floor plans increase the flexibility offered to your office in terms of space. This gives better agility to your employees and increases the options in which you can utilize the space.

With an open floor plan, you can install movable furniture articles that can be rearranged as per your requirements. Depending on the arrangement of your desks, you can make the most of the open office space available to you and your team. This makes it easier to adapt to the space as per the specific needs of your employees.

The spatial flexibility of an open floor comes in handy when there is a need to rearrange the layout for specific teams to work together.

Free Flow Of Thoughts

Having an open office space helps you open the minds of your employees as well! Open office plans facilitate free-flowing thoughts, encouraging creative thinking. Confining employees in their respective cabins and cubicles restricts the exchange of ideas and thoughts.

When you remove the barriers between your workers, they can engage in productive conversations with each other. Such impromptu brainstorming sessions often prove immensely rewarding, especially when trying to think out of the box.

If some of your employees wish to work in private or attend important meetings, you can build dedicated booths or pods for them to work in silence, away from all distractions and disturbances.

Wholesome Company Culture

Over the last few years, the company culture as we know it was getting hampered due to the inability of people to meet in person. The nature of your company culture directly affects your productivity, engagement, and prosperity.

An open floor plan indeed leads to wholesome company culture. Instead of staying locked in their cabins and cubicles, it allows them to interact with each other openly. With seamless collaboration and conversations, people across different departments get to bond with each other. This creates a conducive environment to work in.

Open floor plans prevent your employees from feeling as if they need to show up at work alone every day. Whether they are celebrating an achievement or dealing with hardships (both professional and personal), open office spaces make people feel that they belong where they work. This leads to lifelong friendships and beautiful camaraderie between your workers.

Improved Mental Health

Staying indoors during the COVID crisis had a significant impact on the mental health of employees. It led to burnout and exhaustion across the board. In 2022, employees are looking for the much-needed breath of fresh air that keeps them mentally sound.

When you remove barriers between your workers and have them work with each other, it improves their mental well-being. It allows your employees to share their joys and sorrows with each other. It makes it easier for them to ask for help in the projects they are working on. Overall, it keeps your employees mentally stimulated and motivated to come to work every day.

How To Make An Open Floor Plan More Productive?

While there are several benefits of an open floor plan, it also has its share of drawbacks. By making your workspace more productive, you can deal with these issues effectively.

Here are some important ways in which you can make an open floor plan more productive:

• Install office pods for your employees to work privately
• Focus on the acoustics of your office to manage noise
• Schedule important meetings and tasks when the office is quiet
• Create dedicated breakout spaces for your employees to have casual conversations

The Final Word

These were some of the most important reasons companies choose open floor plans for their commercial designs in the current era. Switching to an open floor plan enhances collaboration, improves creativity, and allows your company culture to flourish.