Why we’re not all open to open-plan offices

Working together in the same space can encourage interaction and sharing of ideas, but it can also push quieter people further into their ‘shells’

Open-plan offices can make teamwork easier, but they do not suit employees who perform better with minimal distractions. Picture: iStock

META’S headquarters in Menlo Park, California, has the world’s biggest open-plan office. MPK 20 consists of a single 430,000 sq ft room and is designed to accommodate 2,800 people.

It was built in 2015, when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was tearing down the traditional office and opting for a large open-plan design to encourage employee interaction and allow collaboration and creativity to flourish.

Dr Annette Clancy, an assistant professor of management at University College Dublin, isn’t convinced the case for open-plan offices is open and shut. She regards Zuckerberg’s statement as a classic example of “tech bro culture: Chuck everyone in a room together and something amazing will come out of it”.

“I’ve worked in open-plan offices and found them challenging at times,” Clancy says. “I can see the benefits for employers, in terms of reduced costs and heating bills. There’s also the assumption that bringing down walls will lead to more informal chats, stronger team cohesion, and enhanced creativity.”

These potential benefits explain why 70% of offices in the US and Britain are now open-plan. But Clancy’s personal experience makes her question whether they deliver on their promises.

“The bright lights in these offices can trigger my migraines,” she says. “I’m also introverted and find being surrounded by others emotionally exhausting. I need to replenish my energy in quiet spaces by myself. It makes me wonder how many others are like me and whether employers are really getting the best out of employees in open-plan offices.”

Open-plan, open minds?

John Walsh is the head of the School of Art and Design at Technological University (TU) Dublin. A product and industrial designer, he spent years designing offices in London and in 2018 published an academic paper about open-plan offices.

He says: When open-plan offices were introduced over a century ago, they were “like classrooms, with managers facing one way and everyone else the other, so they could make sure that the likes of clerical workers were doing their jobs”.

In the 1960s, when the cost of renting office space started to rise, open-plan offices became more common. At first, they were divided into cubicles, but, by the 1990s, even the low cubicle walls were considered too divisive.

Walsh notes that in the 1990s, Steve Jobs embraced the open-plan concept with gusto. Like Zuckerberg, he thought being surrounded by others led to a greater sharing of ideas.

Walsh recognises that Zuckerberg and Jobs have a point: open-plan offices have benefits. “There is tacit knowledge shared, and employees learn from things they see around them in open-plan offices in a way they don’t when everyone has private offices,” he says. “They can also have more empathy for colleagues as they see what’s involved in doing their jobs.”

Yet, he says, “for every upside, there is a downside”.

He recounts a time when he overheard a colleague speaking on the phone, which reminded him of a task he needed to complete. 

“I wouldn’t have remembered if I weren’t in an open-plan office,” he says. “But, on the flipside, there have been many times I’ve struggled to get work done because of someone beside me talking on the phone.”

That noise can be a distraction. A 2011 British study found that employees in open-plan offices were more exposed to interruptions and their motivation and concentration suffered.

Clancy cites Australian research from 2018, which showed that open-plan offices don’t improve communication.

Paradoxically, it seems removing physical walls can make people put up psychological ones. 

“Rather than increasing spontaneous interaction and face-to-face communication, this study found more electronic communication, through email and Slack, in open-plan offices.”

Stress can also rise in these offices. A 2021 study, published in the Journal of Management and Organisation,demonstrated that workers’ sweat response (a physiological marker of stress) jumped by 34% after just eight minutes in an open-plan office. That finding was not replicated when the workers were moved to a private office.

Could this stress be caused by what a 2010 Cornell University study called ‘the irrelevant speech effect’? Our brains are hardwired to prioritise human speech, which makes it difficult for us to filter out half-heard conversations. So, if we spend our workday trying to focus, while also trying to ignore conversations around us, this might explain why we feel burned out by day’s end.

Annette Clancy: 'Some people have to expand a huge amount of effort to drown out what's happening around them in order to do their job.'

According to Clancy, the research indicates that open-plan offices don’t work for everyone. 

“People in open-plan offices have to expend a huge amount of effort just to drown out what’s happening around them, and that’s on top of the energy they need to get their actual job done,” she says.

What she would like to see, instead, is “opportunities for quiet spaces at work and for people to be able to exercise some control over when they can be interrupted”.

Such accommodations would be especially beneficial for introverted and neurodiverse employees. “They are the ones who thrive least in an open-plan environment, where there’s a lot of sensory overload,” she says.

“Creating quiet zones and allowing people the option of working on their own will enable more people to work to their optimal capacity, which will, in turn, enable organisations to benefit from the creativity of a more diverse workforce.”

For the most part, it’s being left up to individual employees to figure out their own way of working in an open-plan office.

“The tactic many people use to manage the stress of working in an open-plan office is wearing headphones,” she says.

“Headphones allow people to control sensory input and function as a visual signal that people don’t want to be interrupted. I’ve been in offices where most people were wearing headphones, and there was very little communication happening at all.”

A balanced approach

Walsh, who often wears headphones at work, believes the solution lies in better design. “Businesses these days are under pressure when it comes to cost and space, so they’re unlikely to go back to building separate offices for everyone,” he says.

“So they will have to look at how to make open-plan offices work better for people.”

He advises employers to start with acoustics. “That way, people might not have to wear headphones all the time to filter out noise.”

John Walsh, who wears headphones at work, believes the solution lies in better design of office space.

Walsh also recommends building private breakout spaces for quiet, focused work. “More considered design features like this can allow the upsides of open-plan offices to be maximised and the downsides to be minimised, allowing people to be happier and more productive at work,” he says.

Karen Donohoe, a project delivery lead at TU Dublin, enjoys a choice of workspaces.

Most of her office is open plan, which, she says, “allows for collaboration on common goals and works well for projects. It also gives rise to informal discussions and information sharing.”

However, there are times when noise levels become too much. When this happens, she avails of quiet zones, if they are available.

“We also have a casual seating area with a laptop table that’s away from the main, open-plan space that can help create a quieter, more focused workspace,” she says.

Donohoe says that if people are working on a hybrid basis, like she is, the best tactic is to “control your diary,” so that you can do quiet, focused work at home and make the most of seeing colleagues in person when you have an office day.

“Don’t sit with your headphones on all day and avoid eye contact,” she advises. “Seize the opportunity to share ideas and build alliances, particularly with new employees, who can find large open-plan offices intimidating.”