How an office seating plan can affect the bottom line

Office seating plans may generally be decided on a practical basis, but a new study has found that where staff sit can have a serious effect on morale and productivity.

Researchers at Cornerstone OnDemand and Harvard Business School uncovered how the distance between two employees’ desks affects various performance measures, and how placing the right type of workers in close proximity to each other has been shown to generate up to a 15% increase in organisational performance – Business Wire reports.

The report analysed data from more than 2,000 employees over a two-year period and concluded that who an employee sits next to can have a significant impact on their performance, for both positive and negative situations.

Research uncovered three types of workers: Productive, Generalists and Quality. Productive workers are very productive but lack in quality. In contrast, Quality workers produce superior quality but lack in productivity. All the while, Generalists are average on both dimensions.