Differences in industry can be an important factor to consider when ordering furniture and deciding which office design will work for you and your employees. It can be easy for business owners and managers to look at office designs as some extraneous and nebulous aspect of work that has a negligible impact on workers, but it's much harder to argue with the results.
More so than discovering an office plan that encourages creativity, it's important to avoid an office setup that hinders progress. The traditional "cube farm" setup has been a known morale and productivity killer, so even though this may seem like the most economical decision, it could be costing you money in the long run, when employee productivity is taken into account.
Although creative industries like film and publishing have managed to find success with an open office environment, studies show that it may not be necessarily advantageous for every single job. For instance, writers often find that they cannot concentrate when the room is noisy with words that have nothing to do with the sentence they're writing. Project managers may be distracted during phone calls by impromptu meetings happening near their desks, and the overall chatter of busy people may subconsciously distract everyone from their work.
Finding a balance and discovering what works for the employees of your industry is the key to understanding what makes the best team environment. Why not try a semi-open office environment that utilizes low walls and room separators to give just enough privacy to those who need it? It could also help to talk to employees that require silence to get their work done and group them all in an environment separate from all the hustle and bustle. In the end, it's not so much about the overall design of the office space, as much as it's about the employees and what type of environment will be best for their work.
