Band 6+: The graph below shows a typical American and a Japanese office. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and comparisons where relevant.

The diagram highlights the differences in the design of offices in Japan and in the US.

Overall, it can be seen that these offices are vastly different, with the American work space as having multiple rooms serving different functions, while the Japanese one share the same space for every personnel. Both of these designs have seats for employees, section managers and a department manager.

Regarding the commonly-seen Japanese office, the department manager sit the closest to the window, with a bird’s eye view of the entire office. The section managers, on the other hand, overlooks their perspective teams that work in the same team area. Finally, the employees sit facing each other, perhaps to aid communication or supervision.

In contrast to the Japanese way of positioning the office, the American method allows much more functionality and separability. First, closest to the left are areas or rooms for different purposes, which includes printing, storage and meetings. Next, in the middle of the room, employees sit in separate desks without facing each other. The section managers and department manager stay in different rooms to the left of the room, allowing more freedom to employees and less supervision.