Cubicle-dwellers will not be surprised by new research from the University of Sydney, Australia: Some 60% of workers who sit in cubicles and roughly half of those who sit in open-plan offices with no partitions, say they find a “lack of sound privacy” to be a source of frustration. Also not surprising: fewer than 20% of those in private offices complained that they were unable to hold private conversations or had to listen in on a neighbor’s chatter.
PhD candidate Jungsoo Kim and Professor Richard de Dear from the university’s faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning relied on a survey of 42,000 office workers in the U.S., Finland, Canada and Australia. They published their paper, Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in open-plan offices, in the December 2013 edition of the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
What they found: Cubicle workers are the least happy among us, though open plan dwellers are not far behind. In addition to the sound privacy complaint, more than 30% of people who don’t have their own offices feel frustrated by a lack of “visual privacy.” In other words, they have to look at their colleagues whether they like it or not. Almost as many find the general noise level frustrating.
Why are cubicle workers more frustrated about sound privacy than those who have no partitions? De Dear and Kim speculate that those who have no partitions are reassured by the fact that they can see where noise is coming from. It gives them a sense of control, even though they have none.
It’s striking though maybe not surprising that workers in open offices cite sound privacy as more important than noise level. We can block out noise by wearing a headset and listening to our favorite tunes. But when we need to talk, either on the phone or live, to a co-worker or boss, we have no way to prevent others from hearing us. Privacy goes out the window.
“Open plan office layouts have been touted as a way to boost workplace satisfaction and team effectiveness in recent years,” says researcher Kim in a statement. “We found people in open plan offices were less satisfied with their workplace environment than those in private offices.”
The idea behind open plan offices, of course, is that workers will be more likely to talk to each other and collaborate. But it turns out that was a theory that was not based on empirical evidence. More than two years ago, the Harvard Business Review ran a piece that described a study of employees at Scandinavian Airlines. The company had redesigned its headquarters back in 1987 to include a central thoroughfare that linked various amenities like a café, shopping, exercise areas and a medical center. There were also several “multirooms” with comfy furniture, coffeemakers, photocopiers and office supplies. Management encouraged employees to hold “impromptu meetings” and “creative encounters.” Instead only 9% of employee exchanges happened along the thoroughfare and the café and just 27% in all the other public spaces combined. Two thirds of employee exchanges still took place in private offices, most likely because people can hear each other better and protect themselves from being heard by unwanted ears.
Another unintended consequence of open office spaces: they aren’t good for people who tend to be more on top of their work, according to a study covered by Annie Murphy Paul in Time magazine last year. Open office planners thought that workers would help one another with challenging tasks. But it turns out that while those who need help do better, those who offer help fare worse. It’s not surprising when you think about it. If I know how to do a task, I’m better off getting on to the next thing, rather than losing time trying to teach a less-able coworker.
The bottom line of the new study: It looked at worker frustration in 15 categories from noise level to space to light and air quality. Workers in their own offices came out ahead in every category. Those who sit in cubicles are the most miserable, expressing the highest degree of dissatisfaction in 13 out of 15 categories.
