An article called “The Open-Office Trap” published in the New Yorker in 2014 explains the drawbacks of the now near-ubiquitous open-office floor plan http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-trap,. The author, Maria Konnikova, hearkens back to her high school days, when the school she attended in Acton, Massachusetts had door-less classrooms that lead to lots of students to feel extremely distracted and frustrated. The initial reasoning behind having open offices was to promote idea flow and open communication between employees, according to the article, but that’s not what always happens. Like the Acton high school, is it possible you’re putting your employees at a disadvantage by having an open floor plan?

The New Yorker article cites a 1997 study of a large oil and gas company in Canada that transitioned from a traditional office setup to a more open one, and found that workers experienced an increase in stress, disruption, and instead of leading to greater communication, the workers felt more distant, dissatisfied, and resentful. Productivity also decreased in the new space.

Interestingly, it also explains that organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than 100 studies about office setups and found that employees in open floor plans experienced increased levels of stress and decreased levels of concentration and motivation. With an open floor plan, employees felt more distracted by other people around them and work interruptions were much more frequent.

Even younger workers, who are used to multitasking at all times, were negatively impacted by open floor plans. Davis found that the better someone is at tuning out distractions, the more frantically they work in an open office. But when people multitask too quickly, when they are interrupted by something in their environment, it takes them longer to get back into what they were doing, so their productivity dips drastically. So it seems that even young people aren’t benefited by the open office environment, either.

This study is one of many, so don’t take it as absolute truth. Do some more research if you’d like, and just do what seems best for your office. The good news is that at PnP Office Furniture, you can talk about your office culture and the designers will help you figure out the best office setup to ensure the most satisfaction and productivity among your employees as possible. And if you purchase furniture from PnP Office Furniture and it isn’t working out for you, no problem—you can always return it within 30 days of purchase. At PnP Office Furniture, your satisfaction is our bottom line.

Stop by our showroom at 840 S. Rochester Ave, Suite B, Ontario CA or give us a ring at 909-390-0428.