According to numerous peer-reviewed studies over the past three decades, open plan offices decrease productivity, make employees sick, and reduce morale. They neither save money nor increase "collaboration."
In recent years, open-plan office spaces became a trend that businesses were quickly jumping on. Many large corporations redid their office design just to accommodate the newly desired open work spaces. But this has actually proved to be the dumbest management idea of all time.
Today, studies show that these open work spaces have the opposite effect they were meant to, and actually reduce productivity and lower employee morale.
Decreased Face-to-Face interactions
In a recent study funded by Harvard Business School, findings showed that open office spaces with limited spatial boundaries, actually decreased the volume of face-to-face interaction significantly, by approximately 70%. And virtual interaction, via email and instant messenger, increased.
Lack Of Privacy
Decreased Productivity And Transparency
Job Dissatisfaction
Harvard professor Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban found two Fortune 500 multinationals with intentions to redesign their office spaces.
What Bernstein and Turban found would likely dissuade any CEO from adopting a more open model.
“Contrary to common belief,” they write, “the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases, with an associated increase in electronic interaction. In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human response to socially withdraw from office mates and interact instead over email and IM.”
Bernstein and Turban’s research marks a breakthrough in understanding open offices, as they used an empirical model to back their claims instead of relying on subjective surveys or observations as most past studies have done. And so their conclusions signal an even starker reality for the open office.
So, the future of work may not look like broad open spaces, may be remote offices, only time will tell.
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