Open plan offices a global problem – Today’s News

     
     
     
 
 
     
 

     Published today 10:24
     
 

 
     
     
     
     

         

             
 

     
     
 

 
         

         

                 

The biggest complaint in the workplace is the lack of opportunity to turn the world around. According to a new study, we average interrupted every 11 minutes, which not only affect industrial peace but also productivity.

                 
             

                         
         
         
         
 
         
         

             
                 
                 

                     

 

The biggest complaint in the workplace is the lack of opportunity to turn the world around. According to a new study, we average interrupted every 11 minutes, which not only affect industrial peace but also productivity.

In the open-plan offices can work that requires concentration to stand back. Constant noise from the discussions at the desk a meter away, ringing phones and employees who show up on time and out of season is something that most people in the environment recognize themselves in. So much so that some even take into gear as headphones and earmuffs. And this is a global problem. In a study of office furniture company Steelcase, 85 percent said they can not concentrate on their work.

– What was startling was how extremely big the problem is. It’s a bit like if you were living together with your grandparents, parents and children in the same room, says Zoe Humphries, research manager at Steelcase.

 
        
             

     
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Very few studies shows that the open floor plan has something positive to offer the individual worker, according to Gunnar Aronsson, professor of work and organizational psychology at Stockholm University. Besides disturbance torque, studies have also shown that sickness absence of people in the open-plan offices are more common than for those working individually. However, open-plan offices is still the most common structure in large workplaces.

– I can be surprised that, given what we know, but it is the second considerations made at a higher level, says Gunnar Aronsson.

When the idea of ​​open plan was hatched in the 1950s was to increase employee collaboration and innovation. Now it’s more about saving money, space and make the office more flexibly to changes. But the economic incentives for having open landscape comes with a caveat – difficulty concentrating reduce employee productivity. A Gallup survey shows that in the US alone cost unfocused employees businesses 450-500 billion dollars each year.

In addition to the productivity is also affected involvement. According to the study, those who could work undisturbed even those who were most engaged in their work. Although industrial peace is only one of several reasons that you feel committed to what you do so, the relationship clearly and alarmingly, according to Zoe Humphries. At a time when the work is seen as an extension of oneself believe Gunnar Aronsson that distractions have a greater effect than when the majority worked on more repetitive tasks.

– Today, many people have a job that they feel personally involved in and prevented it from pursuing what you want to get done, it creates frustration, he says.