Stress of open-plan offices

Open-plan offices could be making women feel stressed and isolated, research shows. Over the course of two years, Rachel Morrison, a senior research lecturer at Auckland University of Technology, looked at whether or not open office plans were promoting productivity. She found an interesting difference between the answers men and women gave. ‘‘I followed and surveyed 99 employees from a law firm as they were transitioning into an open-plan office space and I started noticing a trend in the answers I was receiving from women in the company,’’ Morrison said. While the male employees of the company saw the open-plan office as a positive change, many of the women said they felt ‘‘stressed’’, ‘‘watched’’ and ‘‘judged’’ in the new layout. I found it quite striking,’’ she added. ‘‘Those feelings of being watched were only on women’s radar, so many of the women reported feeling watched, viewed or monitored but not a single man did.’’ One woman who took part in the study said she felt as though she was working in a ‘‘fish bowl’’. Morrison was surprised at how stark the difference in response was between male and female employees. Overall, she found there were a few negative outcomes in an open-plan office. ‘‘I found relationships between coworkers were negatively affected as well as increased stress for women, which resulted in more sick days and less productivity.’’