When designing an office space, the GXI Group ensures that we know what your team does and how they’re going to be using that space. Based on different work arrangements, different works can be more effective. This is especially true of customer service teams who are going to spend so much time of their day on their headsets. Here, we’re going to look into the best office space planning for those teams, the pros, the cons, and what you might want to prioritise.
Cubicles
The cubicle crush does get a bad rap, and it’s not untrue that It can feel very lonely sitting in a square where you can’t see your co-workers. However, it’s also one of the most cost effective and space effective layouts available. Recently, cubicles have been improved with things like glass partitions, which raise the cost a little but are still excellent for providing noise reduction and the privacy your team may need to get productive.
Clusters
Clusters of long desks attached to one another, without partitions between co-workers is another highly cost and space effective manoeuvre. However, if it’s a large team without any kind of partition between different zones, it can be a very distracting place to work. Furthermore, setting up your tech can get messy as, without the right management, all the wires between the desks will become a tangled nightmare. However, it’s also incredibly easy to add and remove desks to clusters so the set up can react to your team’s needs for collaborative efforts.
Pods
With a pod, several workstations surround a central circular or hexagonal area, each of them with partitions between them. In terms of privacy and communicability, they offer the best of both worlds, since you can lead in and shut out when the world when necessary or wheel back slightly and connect with your co-workers. Plus, they have a more modern look that might suit the culture of a more innovative startup that focuses on creating a contemporary space. However, they’re more expensive that both cubicles and clusters, and they take up more space, so they’re better suited for smaller customer service teams.
Zigzags
These are somewhere between straight-up cubicle layouts and pods. As the name suggests, it involves using triangular desks with a zig-zag partition running between them. As such, it allows for the same blend of openness and privacy that pods do, which can be great for both productivity and morale. It also isn’t as difficult to fit into an office as a pod, so it’s better suited for larger teams. However, the furniture for a zigzag layout can be harder to get your hands on, so it will almost always be more expensive than the other options.
Each of the layouts above can help or hinder depending on the team and the priorities of how you want to arrange them. Whether your aim is to keep costs down, make the office more interactive, encourage productivity, or otherwise, hopefully we’ve helped you come to a decision about which works best for you.
