Here is an interesting article describing the challenges that most people experience in open offices. “If you’ve ever felt your noisy open – plan office makes you cranky and sends your heart racing, our new research shows you aren’t imagining it.”
“Prior to the pandemic 70% of office-based employees worked in open-plan offices. Employee complaints about this design are rife. Yet there is little experimental research investigating the effects of office noise on things like cognitive performance, physiological stress, and mood.”
“The results of our study—in experimentally controlled conditions using heart rate, skin conductivity, and AI facial emotion recognition—show the effects of that noise are very real. We’ve found a significant causal relationship between open-plan office noise and physiological stress.”
“Our results show such noise heightens negative mood by 25%—and these results come from testing participants in a simulated open-plan office for just eight minutes at a time. In a real office, where workers are exposed to noise continuously during the day, we would expect the effects on stress and mood to be even greater.”
“While there was no immediate effect on reduced work performance, it is reasonable to assume such hidden stress over the longer term is detrimental to well-being and productivity.”
“The pandemic has changed our tolerance for office work. Surveys show up to 70% of employees will seek new jobs if their employer does not offer flexibility to work from home some of the time. So creating a healthy work environment is more important than ever.”
“One advantage of more employees working from home at least some of the time is a less-crowded office, reducing both visual and auditory distractions. But there are other things that can be done. Acoustic treatments and sound-masking technologies—ambient sounds designed to make other people talking less intrusive—can help. Good old-fashioned walls or partitions may also assist. Such interventions can be costly, but so is the impact of poor office environmental quality on productivity.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90652947/science-confirms-it-open-offices-are-a-nightmare
Elaine Korngold, LPC, offers career counseling to help people find better working opportunities that fit their needs and their dreams. Contact Elaine to schedule your free 20 minute phone consultation.