The Open Floor Plan Nobody Asked For

Two resources worth bookmarking before we start:

I've walked into plenty of offices where the first thing people do after sitting down is put on headphones. Sometimes nothing's playing. The headphones are doing the job the room stopped doing: drawing a small boundary around someone trying to concentrate.

I've also watched people move from their desks to meeting rooms and back again. They need forty minutes to finish something without interruption. After a while, finding somewhere to work becomes part of the work, and people get very good at it.

You may know the routine. You arrive early because the first hour is easier. You save the difficult analysis for home. Eventually the workaround becomes so normal that nobody asks why you need one.

Few teams agree on deep work rules out loud. So people write their own, with headphones and empty meeting rooms.

If you already worry about looking unapproachable, asking for a quiet room can feel like one more thing to explain. You want to finish the work without reassuring anyone that you still like them.

What bothers me is how easily that extra effort disappears from view. The analysis gets finished. Only the person who went looking for an empty room knows what it took.

There's nothing wrong with learning where you concentrate well. The problem starts when a company reads every workaround as proof that the environment is working. If people keep leaving the space to concentrate, the space is telling you something.

Open offices are usually explained through collaboration. Putting people closer together should make conversation easier. Someone can turn their chair instead of arranging a meeting, and ideas can move between people with less effort.

I can see the appeal. I also want to know what happens when the person in the next chair needs to finish something.

Bernstein and Turban used wearable devices and communication-server data at two corporate headquarters moving to more open layouts. In both studies, face-to-face interaction fell by roughly 70%, while electronic communication increased.

I wouldn't use two redesigns to predict every office. I would want a stronger case than "people will talk more" before removing the spaces where people can work undisturbed.

The gap between sitting closer and talking more matters on both sides of the desk. If you're finding it harder to concentrate, you can describe what's happening to the work. You don't have to prove that your personality needs special treatment.

A manager can look beyond whether a floor feels busy. The better question is whether the people on it can do the different kinds of work their jobs require.

Gerlitz and Hülsbeck reviewed 46 empirical studies. They concluded that open-plan offices can carry performance costs alongside real-estate savings, and that single-person offices generally came out ahead for knowledge workers. They also found that activity-based working, where people use different areas for different tasks, depends on proactive management.

Space costs money. So does putting down a piece of work every time the person beside you starts another call. I want both costs in the conversation.

Helena Jahncke and David Hallman studied 113 employees across five office sites. They used a memory task to measure performance on work that demands concentration. In the activity-based workplaces, people scored lower in the active zone with no noise restrictions than in the other areas tested.

A memory task is one measure, and a workday involves much more. It still makes me want to check the setting before deciding that someone needs to try harder.

It also gives you a more useful conversation with your manager. Skip "open offices don't work for me." Try something closer to this: "I've noticed the analysis takes much longer when I do it on the main floor. Could I use the focus room from 9 to 11 twice this week and compare the output?"

Now you both have something to examine.

Managers need to make sure the alternative is real. If twelve people are competing for one small room that's booked all day, "use the focus spaces" isn't much of an answer. A focus room that's always booked leaves the employee with the same problem and another calendar to check.

The health question deserves attention too. Daniel Mauss and colleagues reviewed five studies covering 13,277 workers. They found a possible link between open-plan offices and more sick leave, though the results weren't precise enough to rule out no difference.

Those studies can't show that an office caused anyone's illness. I would still put health on the list of questions a redesign has to answer before the furniture arrives.

For one week, choose one type of work that needs sustained concentration. Notice where you do it, how often you're interrupted, and whether moving somewhere else changes the time or the quality of the result. You don't need to record your entire working day.

If a pattern appears, describe it to your manager and agree on a short trial of a different setup. That's enough to start a practical conversation. You shouldn't need to become a workplace researcher to ask for an hour without interruption.

At some point, the individual workaround runs out. Several people may need the same alternative space. Concentration-heavy work may routinely move home because the office can't accommodate it. At that point, facilities and leadership need to look at the design. The person doing the work can provide evidence, but they can't add another room to the building.

If you lead a team, ask where people go to finish the work they struggle to do at their desks. Agree on a few deep work rules with them, such as protected hours or a simple signal for "not now." Then make sure people can use those spaces without having to defend their absence from the main floor.

If you get energy from an active office, easy access to colleagues may be why you like being there. That experience is real, and a better workplace shouldn't ask you to give it up.

The task can still change what you need. The same person who enjoys talking through a problem at 10am may want fewer interruptions while writing the final recommendation at 2pm.

If a colleague moves to a quieter room, give them the time they went there to find. Agree how to reach each other for something urgent, and let the other questions wait.

Managers can make room for both without turning personality into a seating plan. Give people interaction when the work benefits from it. Give them concentration when the work demands it. Then judge what gets produced.

When concentration gets harder, my first instinct has always been to blame myself. This prompt helps you test that instinct before you test the office.

Remove names, confidential information and sensitive company details before using this in a work-approved AI tool.

Take the answer into your next one-on-one as a single, specific request.

Take one concentration-heavy task and complete it in a low-distraction space you can reasonably access. Compare the time, interruptions and finished work with the last time you did something similar on the main floor.

Treat the comparison as a starting point for a conversation. Allow for differences in the task and the day.

If you manage people, try it yourself. Notice how easy it is to find a suitable space, and whether the interruptions follow you there.

The Person They Call an Over-thinker


Some decisions need more time than the meeting allows.

You can wear headphones and change rooms. Sometimes that's all you need. Other times you keep finding workarounds because the workplace keeps handing you the same problem.

I want people to finish difficult work during the workday. If it keeps getting saved for the evening, the arrangement needs a proper look.

An employee can describe what's happening. The company has to be willing to change something when the answer is inconvenient. If people can only concentrate by leaving the office they were asked to work from, the floor plan is giving the company feedback too.

In your corner,
— Steven

P.S. Know a colleague who does their real work after everyone's gone home? Forward this to them. They deserve an office that lets them think.

P.P.S. Worried that working from the quiet room makes you less visible? The free Be Seen five-day email course helps you get credit for the work you do, wherever you do it.