Physical considerations of office management

All office work causes mental fatigue, just as surely as manual work induces physical tiredness, and the result of this is a reduction in output, an increase in errors, and a lessening of the ability of the clerk to concentrate. The work of the clerical staff, whatever kinds of tasks they perform, is directly affected by their physical conditions, and in order to obtain maximum efficiency and to reduce mental fatigue as much as possible, careful attention must be paid to the physical environment of the office.

Conditions in the office are now to a large extent governed by the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963, and the main require­ments of this Act are summarised at the end of this chapter. Other statutes, such as the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974, also concern the office, but their provisions are much more general and are not suitable to be considered here. The office administrator will find the requirements of such statutes adequately dealt with in various publi­cations specifically written for the non-lawyer, such as the manual entitled Industrial Law, by N. Pendlebury, published by DP Publica­tions.

Legal requirements apart, therefore, the various aspects of the office environment may be examined under specific headings.

1. Lighting

With most form of clerical operation the hardest worked organs are the eyes, and, therefore, it is essential that the lighting provided be adequate for the task in hand. Without doubt natural lighting is to be preferred, especially where the work requires concentration of a high order. Direct sunlight, however, must be avoided as this causes considerable glare, which is very trying to the eyes and, in addition, can give rise to uncomfortable warmth in the summer. In situations where windows face in a southerly direction some means must be provided to reduce glare, and this can be done by sun-blinds. The continental kind fixed to the exterior of the building are to be preferred as they do not interfere with ventilation through open windows as do the usual roller blinds inside the window. Venetian blinds also provide shade without interfering unduly with ventilation but suffer from high initial cost and the difficulty of keeping them clean.

Daylight from a northerly direction provides the most comfortable working light, being diffused and free from shadows, and it is significant that draughtsmen and others doing similar work prefer this type of light. One important aspect of natural lighting is that the windows and fanlights through which it comes must be kept properly cleaned, otherwise a considerable loss of light will be experienced.

The most common form of lighting in general office use is fluorescent lighting. When properly installed this meets most of the requirements for efficient office lighting, being virtually shadowless, reasonably free from glare and approaching daylight in colour.

Clearly, office lighting is not the simple exercise it seems to be at first glance. Various levels of lighting are required for various purposes and whereas too dim a light leads to faulty work and fatigue, too bright a light is wasteful and to some staff can be distressing. It is an expert’s job to design a lighting installation and, fortunately, advice on this important matter is freely available from most of the lighting equipment manufac­turers as well as from the Illuminating Society of Great Britain.

However, the lighting installation alone is not the end of the matter: many subsidiary factors can help or mar a lighting scheme. Walls and ceilings should be light-coloured and of a non-glossy finish, both to aid reflection and to minimise glare. Similarly, desk tops and similar fittings should not be highly polished and where possible desks should be so positioned that light is not reflected into the workers’ eyes; nor should workers be working in their own shadows. Many authorities suggest that the working light should come from over the clerk’s left shoulder, but this is a very personal thing and many people prefer the light to come from the front, provided the actual source is screened.

The very papers and files worked upon should have consideration: pure white paper lit by a bright fluorescent tube can be quite a strain to the eyes. One eminent authority on organisation and method advocates the use of buff paper instead of white as being easier to read without strain.

To sum up, office lighting must be adequate for the tasks to be done under it, must be free from glare, must be acceptable to the staff subject to it, and must be economical in regard to costs of installation and of running. The quality of lighting provided has a very great effect upon the quality and quantity of work performed.

2. Noise

There is probably no greater single distraction to office workers than noise. Noise has become a serious problem under modern living condi­tions and the trend is for noise to increase rather than otherwise. Formerly noise was considered merely to be a nuisance, but of recent years it has been proved that it can actually damage health: certainly it can impair concentration and lead to a reduction in the quality and quantity of work produced by clerical staff. Those responsible for managing offices should, therefore, take whatever steps are possible to eliminate or reduce noise within the office.

2.1. External noise

Beyond the office administrator’s personal control are those noises that arise outside the office building such as traffic noises, aircraft noises and the like. Strictly speaking, the solution to this should have been found before the building was erected, or dealt with during construction. Initially, the building should be sited well back from any busy road, and if possible some sound-deadening barrier such as a row of trees provided. The construction of some modern buildings is suspect, dense concrete units being very efficient conductors of sound. Cavity walling or some other form of insulation should be incorporated in the design, and it is interesting to note here that, generally speaking, whatever gives sound insulation also provides effective thermal insulation, so a double benefit is gained from good construction from this point of view.

Unfortunately, most office managers take over an existing building with the problem of external noise still unsolved. In these circumstances the remedial measures available include accommodating workers requir­ing the quietest working conditions in areas of the building furthest away from the noise – for example, at the top of the premises or at the back – providing heavy curtains at the windows and, where feasible, installing double glazing. A great deal of outside noise enters through windows, and many of the latest office blocks have double-glazed fixed windows coupled with air-conditioning. In offices where opening win­dows are relied upon for ventilation, double glazing is effective only when the windows are closed.

2.2. Internal noise

The problem of internal noise is very much more under the control of the office manager and it will be useful to examine the sources and their treatment.

Noisy machines

These include typewriters, accounting machines, teleprinters and so on. Where possible they are best segregated from the people doing other office work, but where this is not possible sound can be reduced by standing the machines on felt or rubber mats; it is important that the mats be larger all round than the machines for best effect. For machines that work automatically, for instance teleprinters when receiving mess­ages, there are available transparent covers that effectively damp down the sound but do not interfere with the machines’ operation. Another sound-reducing aid is the acoustic booth for machines, which houses both machine and operator. This is a three-sided construction of sound­absorbing material, the side at the operator’s back being open. Some of these booths are pleasantly decorated and can be fitted with lighting. Whilst effectively performing the task for which they are designed, they are not popular with most operators: even with the open side most workers tend to feel hemmed in. It should also be mentioned that when a new office machine of any kind is purchased the noise factor should be taken into consideration in making a choice.

Telephones

Noise arises from two factors here; the first is the telephone bell and the second the user’s conversation. It is possible to have buzzers or light signals fitted in lieu of bells, the latter being absolutely silent, of course. Many people, even otherwise softly spoken, have a tendency to talk loudly on the telephone, and it is a habit difficult to break. Where this is distracting to other workers an acoustic booth can be fitted (in this case much smaller than those for machines and usually transparent), whilst if the use of the telephone is fairly constant consideration can be given to housing this staff in a separate office, or to separating them from the general office by partititons. The acoustic telephone booth, of course, is also useful for preventing extraneous noises from interfering with the person actually using the telephone, and is valuable in cases such as factory offices and despatch offices where the office workers are subject to a great deal of noise from production machinery, vehicles and the like.

Noisy doors and windows

Slamming doors are an occasional distraction as are, in older buildings, rattling windows. The usual cure for banging doors is to fit door checks which automatically close the door without banging it. A door that hits a wall when opened can be arrested by a rubber doorstop, preferably sprung, and where doors are in constant use swing doors may be fitted, the elimination of the stop in the frame eliminating the possibility of slamming. However, it must be remembered that it is extremely difficult to make swing doors draughtproof, so this question must also be considered before they are fitted. Further, swing-door fittings become worn with age and become noisy, so maintenance and renewal must be allowed for. Rattling windows should be refitted by a skilled carpenter to eliminate noise, but as an expedient rubber or wooden wedges can be pushed between the sashes and the frames.

Communal noise

Conversations in the office, in the course of duty or otherwise, tend to rise in volume unless checked, and the simple answer here is good supervision. Especially, shouting across the office from one desk to another should be curbed. Where interviews are necessary, either with visitors or staff, consideration should be given to the provision of a separate interviewing room.

Generally

In addition to the local palliatives, internal noise can be considerably reduced by general deadening. Floor coverings can be sound-absorbent to reduce the noise made by people walking about, shifting chairs and the like. There are many plastic floor coverings which help with this problem and which are easy to keep clean. All kinds of carpet, particularly if laid over a felt or sponge underlay, are especially effective. The disadvan­tages of carpet are that the thickness required for office use is expensive, and carpets are difficult to keep really clean.

Window curtains have already been mentioned in connection with external sounds, but are also useful to help deaden internal noise. Any matt treatment to the walls of an office seems to reduce the amount of reflected sound – emulsion paint or, better still, wallpaper instead of glossy or semi-glossy treatments, for example.

If the incidence of noise is very great, insulating materials such as insulating wallboard or special tiles can be fixed to walls and ceilings, but as with lighting, for a specific problem expert advice should be sought.

3. Heating

It has been said that workers should not be conscious of themselves if they are to work in comfort and efficiently, and this entails the proper heating of the work area. There is a modern tendency to warm buildings to a higher temperature (towards 21°C (70°F)) than hitherto, but it is expertly considered that about 18°C (65°F) is to be recommended. The Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963, lays down a minimum of 16°C (60.8°F). It must be remembered that an office that is too warm induces drowsiness in staff, and one that is too cold is uncomfortable and slows down work. This particularly applies to keyboard machine operators such as typists, where an unduly low temperature interferes with the flexibility of their fingers. It must be remembered, also, that a preferred temperature is essentially subjective and, further, that female staff usually like a warmer office than do men. In a mixed office it is often desirable, where possible, to position the female workers near the sources of heat.

In modern offices the heating problem will already have been solved by the architects, and provision will have been made by central heating, electric floor warming or by air-conditioning. In older offices other methods are often used, such as electric panels or radiators, electric tubes, and sometimes electric fires or gas fires. On the grounds of safety, convenience and expense, the two last are not to be recommended.

In examining the heating problem, consideration must be given to the questions of convenience, installation costs, running costs and costs of maintenance, as well as to the amount of control provided. Most forms heat the atmosphere without inducing a supply of fresh air, thus drying it and inducing drowsiness in the workers. This drying action can now be overcome by installing humidifiers, which are reasonably inexpensive and reintroduce a certain amount of moisture into the air.

The most efficient heating installation will be wastefully employed unless due attention is paid to insulating the building. Thermal insulation is achieved by cavity walling or by insulation linings to walls and roof spaces. A significant heat loss is through the glass of ordinary windows, and double glazing – that is, two skins of glass separated by an air space – is an effective way of preventing this.

Temperature is not all heating, however, and in certain circumstances some means of cooling an office may be desirable – for instance, in large-windowed rooms facing south. The usual solutions are electric fans and window shades, and sometimes Venetian blinds. Shades and blinds have already been discussed previously under lighting.

4. Air-conditioning

Heating and ventilation are to a very great extent interconnected, and air-conditioning is a system which links both. Essentially it is an installation which introduces external air, cleans it, warms it to the desired temperature and provides it with what is considered to be the correct level of humidity, circulates it round the building and then expels it. Thus it both heats and ventilates. Very popular in places where extremes of climate are experienced, it is only just finding favour in this country for office buildings though it has been used for many years in places of public entertainment. It is expensive to install and is usually economically possible only in new constructions. It is interesting to note that members of staff working in new London office blocks using air-conditioning have been known to complain that they cannot open the windows.

5. Ventilation

This presents the office manager with one of the most intractable problems, which is rarely, if ever, solved to everyone’s satisfaction. An adequate flow of fresh air is essential, as stagnant stale air induces drowsiness in staff with a consequent lowering of the quality and quantity of work produced. The problem is to ensure an airflow without causing draughts.

The usual way to provide natural ventilation is by opening windows and, unfortunately, the modern side-hung casements and pivoted sashes are the worst possible designs for inducing draughts. A partial solution is to fit glass or plastic screens at the bottoms of the sashes so that the incoming air will not impinge directly on the working staff. A few of the modern sideways sliding sashes are so constructed that outer and inner panes slide over each other to form a trapped ventilation space, and these should be installed wherever possible.

Doors are also a cause of draughts when opened. A number of solutions are possible here including heating the passageway outside the door to about the same temperature as the office concerned, providing an entrance lobby with an additional door so that one door is opened and closed before the second one, and, as a last and inconvenient resort where there is a great deal of traffic, a screen can be erected inside the doorway. External doors admit a great deal of cold air, especially in winter, and either heated lobbies or revolving doors are the most satisfactory answers.

An old-fashioned but effective remedy for the ventilation problem was the glass hit-and-miss ventilator fitted to window panes. The modern version of this is the ventilator fan fitted either in the window or, preferably, in the wall.

To prevent draughts only, it is usual to fit rubber or plastic draught excluders round doors and windows, but it should be remembered that no room, however large, should be completely sealed.

Staff, especially female staff, frequently complain of draughts to feet and legs. Feet can be kept warm by the provision of mats at desks and, where possible, desks should be fitted with so-called modesty panels that screen the worker’s legs.

6. Decorations and Cleanliness

The physical appearance of an office does much for morale and output, and it has been proved that suitable decorative schemes and clean surroundings promote more and better quality work and a more con­tented staff than neglect in these directions.

Colour schemes should be bright and cheerful, and in dull rooms should have high light-reflecting properties. Offices receiving little or no sunlight are best decorated in the so-called warm colours – cream, yellow, biscuit, pale pink and so on – whilst sunny situations will bear the colder colours such as pale blues and light greys. Modern decorative materials are made to stand frequent washing and there is no need nowadays to use drab browns and dark greens ‘because they do not show the dirt’. In any case, they become dirty whether they show it or not.

Neither is it necessary to use glossy paint on the walls, which is not only hard looking but also gives rise to glare: present-day emulsion paints are equally washable, are kinder to the eyes and are available in more subtle shades.

Part of decoration is the wall furniture – calendars, notices and so on – and attention must be paid to this if the office is to remain attractive and tidy. There should be proper provision by way of notice-boards for the fixing of calendars and notices and strict rules should be laid down that these may be placed only on the boards provided. Desk calendars help to keep walls clear; the block form variety can take the place of the usual desk diary.

The indiscriminate hanging of pictures should be banned. One large international company provides reproductions of paintings for wall decoration and these are most effective, helping to break up large expanses of plain walls. The choice of picture, however, must be carefully made.

Attractive decorations and rules for tidiness must be supported by adequate and regular cleaning. Offices should be swept and dusted daily and floors (where suitable) washed at least once a week. An adequate supply of wastepaper baskets and ashtrays should be supplied, and it should be a rule that desk tops should be cleared each night so that the cleaners can easily dust (and occasionally polish) the desks. Furniture and equipment should be of such design and so arranged that dust traps are as few as possible: built-in furniture is helpful here. At least once or twice a year there should be a thorough spring-clean, when heavy equipment is moved out, drawers emptied and cleaned, and so on. A regular programme of decorating should also be laid down and adhered to so that decorations are kept fresh.

The cleaning operation should be under the direction of a proper supervisor, and it is usually preferable to make use of the services of a reliable firm of professional office cleaners, who are specialists in this work.

7. Safety

The safety of office personnel is partly an aspect of physical conditions and partly an aspect of proper supervision.

Electricity is a grave potential danger to staff, particularly in view of the increasing use of machines powered by electricity, and attention should be paid to the following points:

1. All machines should be properly earthed. Particular attention must be paid to equipment from abroad, as sometimes the colour codings of the flexes are different from the British system. Sufficient plug points of the correct ratings should be provided to avoid cables trailing across office floors, and also to prevent overloading of outlets.

Staff should be trained to switch off machines when work is finished and to take the plugs from their outlet sockets. Above all, no member of staff should be allowed to tamper with the mechanics of electrical machinery, and connections to machines and plugs should be in­spected frequently to ensure that they have not become potentially unsafe.

2. Physical hazards which should be watched for and remedied promptly are torn or worn floor coverings, loose floorboards, stairs and handrails. Passages and stairs should be adequately lighted at all times and handrails provided wherever necessary. Swing doors should be fitted with peep windows and where it is necessary for staff to use high shelves and cupboards step-ladders or proper portable platforms should be provided and their use enforced. On no account should personnel be allowed to climb on chairs or boxes to reach high shelves.

Badly loaded filing cabinets can easily be pulled over, and attention must be paid to even filing so that top drawers do not become over-heavy. Better still, filing cabinets can be fixed back to walls. Staff should also be trained to close one drawer before another is opened, to be sure to close all drawers, especially the bottom one, when the file is finished with, and to consult folders in the drawer by standing at the side of the cabinet and not at the front.

3. Fire is an ever-present risk, and precautions must be taken to minimise this. Smokers should be provided with ashtrays and made to use them, and no smoking should be allowed within half-an-hour before finishing time: this enables any potential fire from this cause to be noticed whilst the office is still occupied. Fire extinguishers must be provided and the staff made conversant with their use. Staff should also be properly trained in the action to be taken in the event of a fire breaking out, the best way of achieving this being to have periodic fire drills with precisely laid down procedures for all departments.
4. Some machinery and equipment used in offices is, by its very nature, potentially dangerous, the most obvious being the guillotine. Such equipment should be used only by properly trained personnel, and kept secure against unauthorised interference when not in use.
5. A member of the staff should be trained in first aid and be equipped with adequate first aid requisites and, most important, all members of staff should be aware of the facilities available in this direction. Finally, the telephone operator must know how to contact quickly the local doctor, the hospital, the fire brigade and the police.

8. Visual Display Units

The problems attendant upon the use of VDUs, now widespread in offices, warrants special consideration. Many workers who have to use VDUs many hours a day complain of eyestrain, headaches and similar discomforts. There is evidence that suggests that these problems are directly the result of looking at the screen and are aggravated by the necessity to transfer the eyes constantly between the brightly lit screen and the relatively less brightly lit documents being used in connection with the work.

The manufacturers of VDUs are alive to this problem and try to offer screens where the contrast between the characters and the background is not too marked, a common example being green instead of white characters on a black ground, so relieving strain on the eyes whilst retaining sufficient contrast to aid easy reading. Another method offered by some manufacturers is to show black characters on a white background. Raising the level of ambient lighting and the illumination of working documents also helps. The main difficulty, however, which is not generally realised, is that the worker views transmitted light directly from the screen, that is he or she looks directly into the light source, whereas documents are read by reflected light which is less demanding on the eyes. One palliative on offer to minimise eyestrain is an anti-glare screen that fits over the screen of the VDU.

To relieve the strain on staff working constantly with VDUs it is advisable that frequent regular rests from the screen are built into the daily work programme: the British TUC recommends 20 minutes rest for every two hours operation, for example. In addition, attention should be paid to the lighting of the work stations, a problem properly for the expert as mentioned earlier in this chapter under Lighting.

It is also often suggested that workers may be affected by the rays emitted from the screen, but so far there appears to be no positive evidence that this is so.

Other circumstances that may affect staff using VDUs, of course, are those common to all office furniture and equipment and already dealt with in Chapter 5. These include the design of seats for operators, especially in regard to back support, desk heights, keyboard heights and angles and similar matters.

9. Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963

This is a long and complicated Act, and only brief notes on its main provisions as they affect offices can be given here. Detailed information should be sought from the Act itself, and it should be mentioned that the HMSO does publish a fairly comprehensive guide to its provisions.

The premises covered by the Act are all offices or parts of premises where clerical operations are carried out, unless already covered by the Factories Acts. Exemptions from the provisions of the Act are granted where a business is entirely staffed by close relatives of a family and where the hours worked do not exceed 21 per week. It is interesting to observe that the ‘family exemption’ does not apply if the business is an incorporated company, because in this case the employer is a separate legal entity from the family.

Cleanliness, lighting, heating and ventilation must be to a minimum standard (a minimum temperature of 16°C is given, for instance). There must be no overcrowding: this is stated as a minimum allowance of 400 cubic feet per person, no ceiling height over 10 feet being counted. Sufficient and suitable washing and sanitary facilities must be provided and drinking water must be available.

Workers must be allowed to work sitting down if this is practicable.

The premises must be maintained in a safe condition and there are special regulations relating to dangerous machinery and the provision of first aid. The Act also covers the question of fire risk and accidents to employees.

Severe penalties are prescribed in the Act for non-compliance with any of its provisions.

Various exemptions from compliance with sections of the Act can be applied for where circumstances warrant, though such exemptions are not lightly given. The Act also provides that statutory instruments may be issued from time to time to amplify some of the sections of the Act, and to lay down precise standards where these are not already covered.

Source: Eyre E. C. (1989), Office Administration, Palgrave Macmillan.