The choice between open plan and private offices isn't a design preference. It's a business decision that shapes how your team communicates, how productively they work, and what your fitout costs. Get it right and the layout supports the way your people actually work. Get it wrong and you'll spend years managing the friction it creates.
This guide covers both layouts objectively, including the hybrid approach most Australian businesses are moving toward, and gives you specific furniture guidance for each. Whether you're fitting out a new space or refurbishing an existing one, the goal is the same: a layout that matches your team's work patterns, not a trend. Start by browsing the EasyMart office furniture collection to understand what's available across both layout types.
An open plan office removes fixed walls between workstations, creating a shared floor space where teams work in proximity. It's the dominant layout in Australian commercial offices built or refurbished in the last 15 years, and for certain team types, it genuinely works well.
Open plan layouts reduce the friction of communication. When your team is in the same visual field, questions get answered faster, problems get spotted earlier, and informal collaboration happens without scheduling a meeting. For sales teams, customer support functions, creative agencies, and any role where real-time communication is part of the daily workflow, this is a genuine productivity advantage.
The layout also makes it easier for managers to observe team dynamics, identify bottlenecks, and maintain visibility across the floor without formal check-ins.
Open plan fitouts cost less per person than private office layouts. Without walls, doors, and individual HVAC runs, you can fit more workstations into the same floor area at a lower construction cost. For growing businesses managing fitout budgets carefully, this is a meaningful consideration.
Without internal walls blocking sightlines, natural light penetrates further into the floor plate. The space feels larger and more connected to the outside environment, which has measurable effects on mood and alertness over a full workday.
Open plan works less well for roles requiring sustained deep focus: legal work, financial analysis, software development, and any function involving confidential conversations. For these teams, the communication advantages of open plan become noise and interruption costs.
A private office layout allocates enclosed, individual rooms to one or more people. It's more expensive to build and fit out per person, but for certain industries and roles, it's not optional.
Roles that require sustained, uninterrupted concentration perform measurably better in private offices. The cognitive cost of interruption in deep-focus work is well documented: a single interruption can cost 15 to 20 minutes of recovery time before the previous level of focus is restored. For lawyers, accountants, analysts, and developers, this cost accumulates into significant productivity loss in open plan environments.
Medical practices, legal firms, HR functions, and financial advisers have confidentiality obligations that open plan layouts cannot meet. Client conversations, HR discussions, and legally privileged communications require enclosed spaces. For these businesses, private offices aren't a preference; they're a compliance requirement.
Executive and senior leadership roles benefit from private offices for both practical and symbolic reasons. The space provides a setting for confidential conversations, focused strategic work, and client meetings that require a professional, controlled environment. A private office also signals organisational structure in a way that a workstation in an open floor cannot.
Most modern Australian offices aren't purely one layout or the other. The hybrid approach, combining open plan workstations with enclosed spaces for focused work and private conversations, is increasingly the default for businesses that need both collaboration and concentration.
The most common hybrid configuration pairs an open plan workstation floor with one to three acoustic pods or phone booths for private calls, focused work sessions, and small meetings. The pods don't require building permits or significant construction; they're freestanding furniture units that can be repositioned as the team grows or changes.
The inverse approach works for organisations that are primarily private-office based: mostly enclosed offices with a shared collaborative hub, a larger open table or breakout area where cross-team work happens. Law firms and medical practices often use this model, maintaining private offices for individual work while creating a shared space for team meetings and informal collaboration.
The right balance depends on one question: what proportion of your team's daily work is independent versus collaborative? If the answer is mostly independent, lean toward private offices with shared meeting spaces. If it's mostly collaborative, open plan with acoustic pods for the exceptions is the more efficient layout.
The furniture choices in an open plan office determine whether the layout works or creates daily friction. These are the decisions that matter most.
Open plan workstations typically use a benching system: a continuous desk surface shared by multiple users, with individual positions defined by screen panels or simply by convention. Benching systems are space-efficient and cost-effective, but they require careful specification to avoid the desk feeling like a canteen table.
Each position should be at least 1,200mm wide, ideally 1,400 to 1,500mm, to give each person adequate working surface. Depth of 700 to 800mm is standard. For teams that use dual monitors or large reference materials, 800mm depth is worth specifying.
The EasyMart office workstation range works well here because the modular configurations allow you to scale from four-person benching systems to larger floor arrangements without replacing the core furniture.
Desk screens at 400 to 600mm height provide visual separation between adjacent workstations without blocking natural light or creating the enclosed feeling of a cubicle. They reduce visual distraction, give each person a defined personal space, and absorb some ambient noise.
Screens above 600mm start to feel like partitions and reduce the collaborative sightlines that make open plan work. Keep screens at the lower end of the range unless noise is a significant issue, in which case acoustic screen panels with sound-absorbing cores are worth specifying.
In an open plan environment, personal storage is often overlooked until it becomes a problem. Without designated storage, personal items accumulate on desk surfaces and in shared spaces, creating clutter and friction.
Each person should have a mobile pedestal under or beside their workstation for daily-use items, and access to a locker or shared filing cabinet for less frequently accessed documents and personal belongings. In hot-desk environments, lockers replace personal pedestals entirely, giving each person a secure storage point that isn't tied to a specific workstation.
Open plan offices need defined zones for collaboration that aren't the workstation floor. A collaborative table with four to six chairs creates a meeting zone that can be used for team discussions, client briefings, and working sessions without requiring a formal meeting room booking.
Soft seating in a breakout area provides an informal space for one-on-one conversations and short breaks that don't disrupt the workstation floor. These zones don't need to be large; a 3 x 3 metre area with the right furniture is enough to create a functional alternative to the desk.
Private offices require a different furniture approach. The space is smaller, the use is more individual, and the furniture needs to communicate professionalism while supporting focused work.
A private office desk should be larger than a standard open plan workstation: 1,600 to 1,800mm wide is the typical range, with 800mm depth to accommodate dual monitors, documents, and working space simultaneously. An L-shaped configuration is often the most practical choice, using the corner of the room to maximise surface area without dominating the floor space.
Executive desks with a more substantial profile, solid timber or high-quality laminate finishes, and integrated cable management suit senior roles and client-facing offices where the desk is part of the professional impression the space creates.
Every private office needs two visitor chairs positioned across the desk from the primary user. These chairs should be comfortable for a 30 to 60 minute meeting, with a back height that provides support without being so large that they dominate the room.
In client-facing offices, the visitor chairs are part of the professional presentation of the space. Choose chairs that match the desk finish and the overall aesthetic of the office rather than defaulting to a standard task chair.
A private office typically needs three types of storage: a credenza or low cabinet behind the main chair for frequently accessed files and equipment, a bookcase for reference materials and professional credentials, and a lockable filing cabinet for confidential documents.
The credenza serves double duty as a surface for a printer, secondary monitor, or display items, and as a visual anchor for the back wall of the office. A two-door credenza at 1,200 to 1,600mm wide suits most private office configurations without overwhelming the space.
Noise is the most consistently cited problem with open plan offices, and it's not just a comfort issue. Ambient noise above 65 decibels measurably reduces cognitive performance on complex tasks. In a busy open plan office, this threshold is regularly exceeded.
Furniture-based solutions address noise without construction:
Desk screens with acoustic cores absorb sound at the workstation level, reducing the transmission of keyboard noise, phone conversations, and ambient chatter between adjacent positions.
Acoustic panels mounted to walls or suspended from ceilings reduce reverberation across the floor plate. Hard surfaces, including glass partitions, polished concrete, and open ceilings, reflect sound and amplify ambient noise. Acoustic panels counteract this without requiring structural changes.
Acoustic pods and phone booths are the most effective furniture-based solution for private conversations and focused work in an open plan environment. A pod provides a fully enclosed space for one to four people, with sound-absorbing internal surfaces that reduce both incoming and outgoing noise. They're increasingly standard in Australian office fitouts and can be installed without building permits.
Designated quiet zones within the open plan floor, defined by signage and furniture arrangement rather than walls, establish a social norm around noise levels in specific areas. A quiet zone with lower desk screens and no collaborative furniture signals that the area is for focused work.
It depends on the type of work. Open plan layouts improve productivity for collaborative, communication-heavy roles where real-time interaction is part of the daily workflow. Private offices improve productivity for deep-focus roles where sustained concentration is required and interruption is costly. The most productive offices match the layout to the actual work patterns of the team rather than defaulting to one model for the entire floor.
Safe Work Australia recommends a minimum of 4.6 square metres per person in an office environment, including the workstation, chair, and immediate circulation space. In practice, 6 to 8 square metres per person is more comfortable and allows for adequate walkway widths, storage, and some buffer between workstations. Fitting out below 4.6 square metres per person creates both a compliance issue and a daily discomfort that affects retention and morale.
The most effective options are desk screens at 400 to 600mm height for visual separation, acoustic panels for sound absorption, and acoustic pods or phone booths for private conversations and focused work sessions. Designated quiet zones with clear social norms around noise levels also help. None of these require construction permits or significant structural changes, and all can be repositioned as the team grows or the layout changes.
A hybrid layout needs furniture that supports both modes of work. Open plan workstations with mobile pedestals and desk screens for individual work, combined with acoustic pods for private calls and focused sessions, and a collaborative table or breakout area for team meetings. The key is ensuring the transition between modes is frictionless: people should be able to move from workstation to pod to meeting zone without significant disruption to their workflow.
A general guideline for small offices is one meeting room per 10 to 15 people, with at least one room that accommodates four to six people for team meetings and client briefings. For offices under 20 people, one formal meeting room combined with one or two acoustic pods or phone booths typically covers most needs. If your business involves frequent client meetings, prioritise a well-furnished, professional meeting room over additional workstation space.
Open plan and private office layouts each serve clear purposes. The best fitout decision isn't about which layout is currently fashionable; it's about which layout matches the actual daily work patterns of your team. Collaborative teams benefit from open plan. Deep-focus and confidential roles benefit from private offices. Most businesses benefit from a hybrid that gives people access to both.
Get the layout right first, then furnish it specifically for how it will be used. Browse the full EasyMart office furniture range to find workstations, storage, seating, and meeting furniture suited to your layout. For bulk orders and fitout inquiries, contact the EasyMart team directly for expert guidance and volume pricing.
