Open-plan office layouts were created to foster communication and cut bureaucracy, but they can leave you with nowhere to hide, and can even foster sexism at work, according to one researcher.
"There was one example of quite bad behaviour that I heard about: a group of men ranking female job applicants as they came in for interviews," said Alison Hirst, director of postgraduate research at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, U.K.
Alison Hirst felt compelled to borrow an expensive suit and wear make-up while working in an open-plan office. (Submitted by Alison Hirst)
Based on an applicant's attractiveness, the men gave them "marks out of 10," she said.
Hirst spent three years studying the transition of 1,100 employees from a traditional government office in Britain to a new open-plan environment. The resulting research, co-authored by Christina Schwabenland, was published in the journal Gender, Work and Organization in March.
What they discovered, Hirst told The Current's guest host Mike Finnerty, is that open-plan offices inadvertently lead to sexism at work.
The women she encountered were more aware of the possibility of "being observed at any time and any place in the building," she said.