The Open-plan Office

Open-plan offices are less productive
In a literature review of studies on open-plan offices, researchers from Virginia State University and North Carolina State University found evidence to suggest that they’re linked to lower productivity. Scanning work from the Journal of Human Ecology, Academy of Management Journal and Administrative Science Quarterly, Tonya Smith-Jackson and Katherine Klein identified reduced motivation, decreased job satisfaction and lower perceived privacy as factors negatively affecting productivity in open-plan environments. Similar to Mak and Lui findings, the resounding message in the research is that overhearing conversations in the office is very intrusive and distracting for workers.

Do you work in an open-plan office? Would you be better off in a cubicle? Quartz explains why open-plan offices make us less productive (and also more likely to get sick). Personally, I like the open-plan office (as long as there is a room for people to make phone calls/conduct interviews).

Photo: Jaysin Trevino

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