New Study Shows Who Sits Where at Work Can Impact Employee Performance and Company Profits

To increase worker performance, employers invest in a number of tactics – from education and training and performance management, to rewards and incentives. But new data show that simply rearranging employee seating can be one of the fastest and lowest-cost ways of increasing the performance of an organization’s workforce. Research performed as a collaboration between Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ:CSOD) and researchers at Harvard Business School uncovers 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 percent increase in organizational performance.

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Research conducted by Cornerstone OnDemand and researchers at Harvard Business School examines how employee seating arrangements impact performance. Placing the right type of workers in close proximity to each other has been shown to generate up to a 15 percent increase in organizational performance. For an organization of 2,000 workers, strategic seating planning could add an estimated $1 million in per annum profit. (Graphic: Business Wire)

For organizations looking to increase returns on the human capital of their workforce, simply rearranging employee seating may be one of the most cost-effective resources at their disposal. For an organization of 2,000 workers, strategic seating planning could add up to an estimated $1 million per annum to profit.

Increasing Productivity in the Workplace by Optimizing Seating Plans

The first study of its kind, Cornerstone’s “Planning Strategic Seating to Maximize Employee Performance” report analyzed data from more than 2,000 employees over a two-year period provided by a large technology company with several locations in the U.S. and Europe. The analysis concluded that who an employee sits next to can have a significant impact on his/her 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.

The study found that performance Spillover effects are strongest for performance measures where the employee is weakest. Seating Productive and Quality workers together and seating Generalists separately in their own group shows a 13 percent gain in productivity and a 17 percent gain in effectiveness. In short, symbiotic relationships are created from pairing those with opposite strengths. It turns out that those strong in one dimension are not very affected by Spillover in that dimension; however, they are very sensitive to Spillover on their weak dimension.