Study finds open-plan offices put stress on women

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’’ ‘‘judged’’ in the new layout.

‘‘I found it quite striking,’’ Morrison said. ‘‘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’’ and in the new office space. ‘‘Back at [my previous office] there was more of a motto of getting the work done in the time needed and then going home. Now I have noticed a subtle pressure to stay later even if I don’t technically need to – based on looks some seniors, even from entirely different teams, give you. I don’t like how exposed certain desks are to those walking past.’’

Morrison said she 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 co-workers were negatively affected as well as increased stress for women, which resulted in more sick days and less productivity,’’ she said.