Open-plan offices make us miserable

IT is the modern way of working, meant to make us all more efficient.

But open-plan offices are affecting employees’ job satisfaction, a study found.

Being surrounded by others – with the accompanying noise and smells of food – makes staff less happy and is linked to increased sick leave and stress levels, researchers said.

The study led by Karlstad University in Sweden surveyed 271 workers, and found their satisfaction dropped as the number of people they shared an office with rose.

It is best to have your own office – which researchers call a ‘cellular’ space – or share with only one or two people to better enjoy the working day, the results suggest.

The authors, led by Dr Tobias Otterbring, wrote: ‘Extensive research shows that openplan (vs cellular) offices are linked to decreased ease of interaction among co- workers, decreased levels of job satisfaction, and decreased job performance and productivity.

‘In addition, compared to cellular offices, such open-plan workspaces are linked to decreased wellbeing and other negative health-related outcomes, such as increased sickness absence, and higher levels of stress, distraction, and disturbance.’

A group of estate agents were asked about their office arrangements, rating their wellbeing at work from tired to alert, bored to enthusiastic and fed-up to engaged, among other measures. They were also asked how satisfied they were in their job, on an eight-point scale from very dissatisfied to very satisfied. The results show those in their own office or working with one or two colleagues had the best job satisfaction and wellbeing.

This fell for those in a small open-plan office, with three to nine co-workers, and dropped further if they shared a medium open-plan office with 10 to 20 people.

Despite open-plan offices being intended to get colleagues to communicate better, ease of interaction was ranked more poorly for those in larger shared offices.

The research concludes: ‘ Companies may wish to consider these findings before switching to such open office layouts, since their purported financial savings may be substantially lower than the costs associated with decreased job satisfaction and wellbeing … impaired job performance, increased sickness absence, and higher degrees of stress and distraction.’