The workplace needs to be something in-between and then some, with a commitment to balance.
“Until recently, everyone thought they wanted to move to completely open office environments,” says Christopher K. M. Leach, president of Contract Furnishings in Denver, Colorado. “I think we’re now seeing the pendulum swing back to the middle, where we’ll find some balance between providing quiet spaces for those who need privacy, while still keeping collaborative places for more social workers to gather.”
Changing the space could help CEOs retain talent
Employees affected by noise pollution in office environments are more likely to say they may leave their job in the next six months.
Rearranging or remodeling an office space to better accommodate employees spatial preferences may sound like an unwieldy investment, but in a tight labor market, companies should consider it. Oxford Economic’s report also found that employees affected by noise pollution in office environments are more likely to say they may leave their job in the next six months.
Additionally, the solutions don’t have to include tearing down (or putting up) walls. There are a number of individual workstation screens and portable cubicles (for lack of a less dreadful sounding term) available for purchase. ROOM is a company that makes soundproof phone booths made of recycled plastic bottles, an innovation that co-founder Morten Meisner-Jensen says was inspired by a rising need among managers to provide personal space to workers in open office environments.
“It’s a problem for the little startup as well as for some of the largest companies in the world,” Meisner-Jensen tells NBC News Better.
How to improve your open office environment
In my experience with an open office, the chances of any kind of office redesign were low, to say the least. I once complained about the chronic noise (and the fact that I was literally rubbing elbows with the person beside me, who worked in another department) to my manager, but he simply shrugged at his apparent helplessness in the matter. Others were also unhappy, but this was a company of some 400 people who were working crazy hours. Architectural adjustments just weren’t on the table at the time.
What can you do when you’ve got no choice but to work in this noisy, chaotic environment?
Here’s what Jamie Gruman, Ph.D., a psychologist and a professor of organizational behavior at the College of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph suggests:
- Take a break. “Research shows that the noise associated with open offices can be stressful, [so] you should consider periodically leaving the office during regularly scheduled breaks to escape the stress and let your physiological systems return to baseline levels. Short breaks from an open office, such as getting outside for a few minutes to read a magazine or relax in a park, can give you a boost and make you better at your tasks when you get back to work.”
- Get some alone time. “Given that the need for privacy and solitude is breached in an open office, make an effort to recapture these. Go for a walk alone on your lunch break. If there are rooms available for meetings or for when you need to concentrate, reserve them for getting some work done. If there are quiet corners in which you can work, use them. If working from home is an option, exploit it.”
- Keep a pair of headphones at your desk. “Use headphones to either play music or cancel out ambient noise.” (If you like working with music, you may want to create a positivity soundtrack.)
- Put in some face time. “Given that open offices have been shown to compromise performance because they stimulate more electronically-mediated communication, make sure that key information you send to team members is understood properly. Spend enough time face-to-face to get work done right. The last thing you want to do is spend more time in the open office fixing problems that arose due to miscommunication.”
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