Back to the drawing board!

Results of the ILO Staff Union survey on the building renovation

Building renovation survey – who responded?

• 702 respondents• Mainly women (64%)• P staff 53%, GS staff 40%, 4.5% D+ and a few

“others”• Approximately 30% 20-39, 33% 40-49, 34% 50-

59, 3% 60+

Experience in different office layouts – over working lifetime

Individual Shared Open Plan0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Very NegativeSomewhat NegNeutralSomewhat PositiveVery Positive

The present situation in the ILO

Open plan Shared Individual

Yes 41.3% 58.2% 97.6%

No 58.7% 41.8% 2.4%

Do you like working in your present office?

• 70.5% work in individual offices• 20.7% in shared offices• 8.8% in open plan

The myth of the young open planner…

• Young staff are more than twice as likely to report a positive experience in individual offices than in open plan (96% vs. 48%)

• 1.3% of young respondents professed negative feelings about work in individual offices and 57% for open plan

Collaboration and teamwork:

Open plan shared individual

Increases collaboration/is not a constraint against collaboration

42.6% 54% 82.7%

Does not increase collaboration/constraint against collaboration

31.9% 21.3% 10%

Neither agree nor disagree 25.5% 24.8% 7.2%

Does your type of office lead to greater collaboration/ Is working in your type of office a constraint to collaboration?

The need to concentrate Open plan shared individualYes, it is difficult to concentrate 74.4% 67% 2.8%No, it is not difficult to concentrate

21.3% 21.7% 93.4%

Neither agree nor disagree 4.3% 11.3% 3.7%

And the young ‘uns?• 58% find it difficult to concentrate in open plan• 73% in shared offices• BUT, 96% think that individual offices are good for concentration

What is it that bothers you in your present office setup?

• Open plan

• Shared offices

• Individual offices

• Noise (72.3%)• Lack of privacy (72.3%)• Interruptions (59.6%)• Odours (40.4%)• Nothing (17%)

• Lack of privacy (56.8%)• Interruptions (54.1%)• Noise (51.4%)• Nothing (13.5%)

• Nothing (94.6%)• Noise (3.2%)• Interruptions (2.7%)

I paid from my own pocket for very expensive

noise cancelling headphones to use while

I work.

Aller travailler dans une salle de réunion –

d’ailleurs c’est ce qui nous a été conseillé !

Stress, conflict and staff morale

• Stress:– Most stressful is open plan– Least stressful is individual office– Ambivalence in shared offices

• Conflict:– Less potential for conflict in individual offices– Open plan and shared offices increase possibility of conflict

• Morale:– Individual offices contribute to morale– open plan does not– 24-28% of respondents in all groups think their setup doesn’t have

any effect on morale

Happy employees are productive employees!

Looking to the future – office space should be a function of the work you do

The main purpose of an office environment is to support employees in performing their job – preferably to maximum satisfaction and minimum cost.

Office arrangements you would be comfortable with

What sort of office layout best suits your work?

“Noisy people should be confined!”(General Secretary of UNI, one of the organisations visited by the Working Group on Office Layout)

What do you feel are important elements for the future office space?

Other considerations for the future

• Dedicated collaboration areas– Yes, they would be useful– Improvements in communication (78%), collaboration

(66.5%), staff morale (42%)– However, only 34% feel that productivity will be improved

• Same size office space– Opinions divided– Younger people more egalitarian– 83.5% of staff against a layout where GS and P staff are in

open plan and Directors in individual offices

Managing change