Do you love open plan offices?

Do you work in an open plan office – do you find them fun, stimulating and more dynamic, or are they irritating, noisy and even unhygienic?

Love them or hate them, open plan offices are probably here to stay. Organisations find them cheaper to run, more flexible when reorganising space, find that they increase communication between workers and that more people can fit in the same space.

A recent systematic review of the research concerned with open plan offices found that despite the many good aspects of open plan layouts for organisations, many people who worked in open plan offices were unhappy with their working environments. High levels of noise and distraction can easily lead to loss of concentration with consequences for productivity job dissatisfaction and irritation levels. More abstractly, but no less importantly people associated open offices with loss of privacy, feelings of insecurity and lack of status; if only the boss has a closed office how does that make you feel?

Perhaps more seriously open plan offices were found to be related to higher levels of reported stress, more communicable sicknesses such as flu, increased fatigue and increased blood pressure levels. Also worryingly they can actually lead to greater costs because of increased staff turnover.

Like much psychological research, if you wonder whether your office might be badly affected when going over to an open plan office, the answer is “it depends”, the answer being influenced by a complex interaction between your personality, the type of tasks you have to do and the organisation’s attitude and flexibility in using such workspaces.

At QoWL we analyse comments from thousands of office workers, and open plan offices are often singled out for criticism which includes many of the issues described above. It seems however, if the task employees need to complete requires a high level of social interaction and is facilitated by a high level of easy communication: "Hey, Bob someone here wants to know what grade we got on that big review?" then open plan offices are generally very good. However, if a job is characterised by periods of intense concentration, especially when personally or commercially sensitive information is being used, a more private office space works best.

Indeed, some people love open-plan offices with all their attendant problems, as where else can you catch up with gossip, pass round sweeties and work all at the same time!


Reference

Oommen, V. G., Knowles, M., Zhao, I. (2008). Should health service managers embrace open plan work environments? A review. Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management. 3 (2),37-43.