Open plan offices

Everyone who has ever worked in an open plan office environment has heard the phrase above – many times.

It is usually punctuated with several expletives, and the volume is loud. The person delivering this message is frustrated, embarrassed, angry and disillusioned.

They are trying to do their job by delivering good service to a customer, supplier or stakeholder, but are hampered by unthinking colleagues and a workplace design that seems ill-suited for the job at hand.

So, who’s driving the push for more open plan workplaces?

Whilst none of these messages are likely to be a shock, what is surprising is the lack of innovation to do something about it.

Architects and office design experts can mount strong arguments for the benefits of an open plan. 

Perhaps the most compelling is the ability to get more people into a smaller space, therefore, saving cost by lowering the amount of floor space needed.

This benefit is almost certainly true. Less true are the arguments about open plan workplaces increasing worker collaboration.

Even a quick glance across the sea of workers in an open plan office will reveal a different truth from the promised freestyle collaboration, with a wide range of headphones, ear-pods and other noise-cancelling devices on show.

Those who don’t like the headwear will opt for having their personal radio on throughout the day. So much for increased collaboration.

The office designers will point to the addition of several quiet rooms and meeting pods that have been included in their redesign to facilitate collaboration.

This feels like an admission that the open plan area is not the place for collaboration.

The meeting rooms are also problematic because there are never enough of them, they are always booked by others and they require deliberate, planned collaboration rather than the more spontaneous collaboration that is more common. 

Some of the research around open plan layouts goes further to suggest email traffic actually increases in these supposedly collaborative environments.

Rather than interrupting a colleague at the next desk who is focused under their headphones, or risking the conversation being heard by a dozen other people located nearby, the research indicates people opt for sending an email instead.

With these barriers to collaboration in place, it’s no wonder that working from home feels like a better option.

Is hot desking the answer?

Probably not. Anecdotally, architects and senior managers (who have their own office) really like the hot desk idea – everyone else hates it.

It’s often touted as a cost saver, as a means to allow the workers greater autonomy and, once again, as a way to increase collaboration.

The autonomy argument falls away quickly when rules need to be put in place to ensure everyone has a “home neighbourhood” and to stop people just going to the same desk every day.

Collaboration is also less likely if your colleagues are spread out over several floors or interspersed between people from different teams.

Customised workspaces may solve the problem

Rather than lumping all office workers into the same layout, a better option might be to tailor the layouts to suit the role.

For example, a data entry worker might be quite comfortable working alongside other data entry people. They are all relatively quiet, with few phone or colleague interruptions.

By contrast, call centre workers would most likely appreciate a quieter space where they aren’t competing with others answering the phone or with the office banter of nearby colleagues. 

A culture of consideration

It’s unlikely open plan designs are going to change radically in the short term. Therefore, a conscious effort is required for us to be more considerate of our colleagues at the next desk.

The regaling of weekend adventures, or sporting post-mortems at high volume is great if you’re included but can be very annoying if you’re on the phone trying to do your job.

A culture of consideration towards each other will go a long way to ease the angst created by an office layout that is unfit for purpose.