In case you still needed persuading that open-plan offices were devised by Satan himself in one of the deepest caverns of hell, the Harvard Business Review delves into new research showing just how frustrating people find them – and just how paltry, on the other side of the scale, are the benefits they bring. Using data from surveys of 42,700 American office workers, researchers Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear conclude that it’s not other people’s mess that bothers us the most, nor lack of personal space, nor even noise level per se, so much as a “lack of sound privacy” – hearing other people’s conversations, and perhaps equally crucially, knowing that other people can hear yours.
Anyone who’s experienced the paralysing self-consciousness of trying to conduct a sensitive phone call in the knowledge that four or five colleagues can follow every word won't be surprised by the results: almost 60% of cubicle workers and half of all those in fully open-plan offices cited lack of sound privacy as a frustration, making it the most prevalent annoyance by far. That cubicle-dwellers are even more likely to be bothered than their “partition-less” colleagues suggests it’s even worse when you can’t see who’s talking – or who might be listening in.