Managers, Your Office is Working Against You

Before we dive in, two resources worth bookmarking:

I was in a newly restored office with a senior leader who was quite pleased with his work.
There were long communal tables, small meeting booths, glass partitions and a coffee station positioned to put casual contact within reach. The intent was to have people bump into each other during the day and work together without friction.

But we also saw how the floor was actually being used. Headphones were on half the time. Two colleagues close enough to hold a conversation were texting instead. I watched an employee take a call by the printer because the booths were occupied. Another woman shut her laptop whenever someone walked past, not because she was hiding anything, but because being observed changes how you work.

That is what gets overlooked in these redesigns. They're good at counting seats and gauging energy, but they don't account for the work that's been pushed out of the building because it can't happen in here.

An analyst told me she no longer does her complex forecasting in the office. She saves that for home or the late train ride back. In the office, she sticks to quick replies and visible work, because the environment won't let her think. She hadn't lost discipline. The building had taken away the conditions her best work required.

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Open offices were sold as a fix for collaboration, but the evidence tells a less flattering story. An article in the Harvard Gazette found that face-to-face contact declined sharply while electronic communication rose. Proximity failed to translate into useful connection.

There's a second problem too. The body still has to work in the space. Bond University's summary of open-plan noise research reported significant increases in negative mood and stress response after exposure to typical open-office noise.

None of this means an office should be walled off, or that everyone should work from home. The setting has to suit the task. Introverts feel the mismatch first. Our value sits in the sustained attention it takes to spot a flaw in a plan or build a version that will hold up over time. That kind of work doesn't improve with someone trailing past holding a coffee.

Interruption adds its own cost. UC Irvine researchers found it takes around 23 minutes to return to a concentrated state after an interruption, and that typical workers get interrupted or switch tasks every few minutes. From the outside, the office can look full of activity. In reality, it's working against the work it's meant to support.

The wrong move is to make this sound like a personality complaint. A manager will wave off "I can't focus here" as a preference, even when it's the truth. Build your case on output instead, using your own deep work rules rather than someone else's assumptions.

Track a focus map for five working days. Split your work into two categories: deep work and interactive work. Deep work needs an unbroken chain of thought. Interactive work improves with quick contact from others. Record where each type actually performs better. You may find the office suits handovers and quick clarification well, but works against analysis or writing that needs sustained judgement.

That map turns the conversation into something concrete. You're not asking for special treatment. You're showing which setting produces which result.

The Gensler Research Institute's Global Workplace Survey 2024 found that in top-tier workplaces, 94% of staff have a say in where they work. These companies don't treat space as one-size-fits-all. They let people match their work to the environment. Hybrid research tells a similar story: a randomised trial at trip.com, published in Nature, showed hybrid arrangements cut attrition by a third with no hit to performance. It also changed how managers viewed hybrid productivity once they saw the results.

Start by identifying your most productive window of the day, then pick a block this week that calls for deep work. Put it on your calendar as a firm commitment, not open time for others to claim.

Find a setting that suits the task. It doesn't need to be luxurious, just a good fit. That could be a desk away from foot traffic, a library, or a quiet room at home.

To bring your manager on board, try something like this: "I'm testing where my analytical work comes out strongest. For the next 30 days, I'd like to protect this focus block and compare output across office and low-interruption settings." You're not rejecting the office. You're framing it as an experiment to use it better.

Be explicit with your team about what to expect. Let them know headphones mean leave me alone unless it's urgent, or put a note on your calendar for when the block ends. People shouldn't have to guess your operating rules. When the 30 days are up, share the results: time saved, rework avoided, and interruptions logged.

If you're more extroverted, the office may energise you. A quick conversation can help you think things through. Seeing people can make the work feel alive. There's truth in that, though it isn't the whole story.

The colleague who pulls back from the open floor may not be disengaged. They may be protecting the part of their work that can't survive constant access. Treat availability as commitment and you'll misread them completely. A useful question is, "Which parts of your work are better here, and which need a different setting?" Another is, "What would make your best work easier to produce?" Questions like these put the focus on design, not personality.

If you're trying to make a practical case for better work settings, here's a prompt Steven uses with his own team:

The point is to shift the conversation away from preference and onto pattern.

Track one deep work task this week. Record where you did it, how long it took, how many interruptions happened, and whether the output needed rework. Then repeat a similar task in a different setting.

You're looking for a pattern, not a scientific study. If the pattern holds, write one sentence from the data: "This task takes less time and needs less rework when I do it in a low-interruption setting."

That sentence is the start of a better workplace conversation.

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The office is an integral part of how you perform. If the space breaks your attention all day, that's a design problem, not a discipline problem. You may not be able to bring the walls back. But for the tasks that need depth, there's still room to build a more effective way of working. The office isn't going to redesign itself around your best thinking. Bring the data, and make it someone else's job to argue with it.

In your corner,
— Steven

P.S. If this resonated, forward it to someone who's convinced the open office is working just fine.

P.P.S. If getting noticed for the deep work you do (without burning your energy to do it) sounds useful, Be Seen is a free five-day email course built for exactly that.