The supposed benefits of open-plan offices do not outweigh the costs

(This post is courtesy of Christian Jarrett at the Research Digest, and is also found at that site.)

The worlds of business, office design and psychology really need to get their heads together. Large open-plan offices have become the norm across modern cities despite a sizeable literature documenting the disadvantages, including increased distraction and diminished worker satisfaction.

Open-plan offices are favoured by companies largely because of economic factors - more employees can be housed in a smaller space. But there are also supposed communication benefits. The idea is that open spaces foster more communication between staff and boost community spirit. A new study based on a survey of over 42,000 US office workers in 303 office buildings finds no evidence to support this supposition whatever.

Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear analysed the workers' answers to the industry standard "Post-occupancy Evaluation" that asks them to rate their satisfaction with seven aspects of their office environment including: temperature, lighting, privacy and ease of interaction, plus it asks about their overall satisfaction with their personal workspace. Two thirds of the surveyed workers were based in open-plan offices (with or without partial partitions); a quarter had private offices; and a small fraction shared a single room with co-workers.

Overall, workers in private offices were the most satisfied with their workspace. Workers in open-plan offices expressed strong dissatisfaction with sound privacy, and this was even more so the case in open-plan offices with partitions. This is probably because visual screens make ambient noise harder to predict and feel less controllable.

The most powerful individual factor, in terms of its association with workers' overall satisfaction levels, was "amount of space". Other factors varied in their association with overall satisfaction depending on the different office layouts. Noise was more strongly associated with overall satisfaction for open-plan office workers whereas light and ease of interaction were more strongly associated with overall satisfaction for workers in private offices.

But the key finding relates to whether the costs of lost privacy were outweighed for open-plan office workers by the benefits of ease of communication. There is in fact past field research to suggest that open-plan offices can discourage communication between colleagues due to lack of privacy. Consistent with this, there was a trend in the current study for workers in private offices to be more satisfied with ease of interaction than open-plan workers. Moreover, analysis showed that scores on ease of interaction did not offset open-plan workers' dissatisfaction with noise and privacy issues in terms of their overall satisfaction with their workspace.

"Our results categorically contradict the industry-accepted wisdom that open-plan layout enhances communication between colleagues and improves occupants' overall work environmental satisfaction," the researchers concluded. They added: "... considering previous researchers' finding that satisfaction with workspace environment is closely related to perceived productivity, job satisfaction and organisational outcomes, the open-plan proponents' argument that open-plan improves morale and productivity appears to have no basis in the research literature."

Jungsoo Kim, and Richard de Dear (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.06.007 

Fitting the office to our evolutionary niche

Imagine a workplace in harmony with our true nature. That's the aspiration held out by Carey Fitzgerald and Kimberley Danner in a recent paper surveying insights from environmental and evolutionary psychology and considering what they say about our work environments. The fundamental observation from which all else follows is that we are creatures evolved to live a life substantially in touch with nature and our own natural patterns. The workplace? Commonly, not so much...

Take greenery. There is evidence that exposure to natural environments improves our quality of life; for instance, jogging in a park is more effective than urban jogging for lowering anxiety and depression. In a workplace, this could translate to the presence of plants, and studies have shown that their presence can improve concentration and remove stress, presumably owing to their contributions to air quality as well as their immediate sensory effects. Similarly, access to windows is nigh-universally prized by workers.

Most workplaces, especially white collar ones, are sedentary environments that contrast with the lifestyles our species developed to cope with. One recent response to this within workplaces has been permitting or encouraging standing desks, which can make a substantial difference to health through upping 'non exercise activity thermogenesis' - the energy you burn off just through daily activities. Other approaches can include building opportunities to exercise, which if taken outdoors could kill two birds with one stone, something our ancestors were presumably more accomplished in than we were.

If we're going to be more permissive with working habits, how about allowing a nap? Inadequate sleep can impact motor skills, insight formation and language perception, and is a product of demanding environments that call for thinking, planning and anticipation, which constitute the bulk of workplaces. But we have a natural escape valve from overtiredness, and it's not sold at Starbucks. A short afternoon sleep is a feature of cultures worldwide, and is more effective than caffeine at improving performance in areas like motor and verbal tasks. It seems likely that napping is a feature of our circadian rhythms: it's a natural way to operate, not just a byproduct of a heavy lunch. 1/3 of surveyed workplaces say they would be ok with napping, but only 16% had provision for it, and only 10% of employees say they had done so at work, despite 48% napping in the last month (presumably on their own time).

Finally, Fitzgerald and Danner discuss the social factor of human existence. This is something better acknowledged within organisations - conflicts hurt wellbeing and performance, social support can buffer against stress - but what I found notable was a consideration of non-human companions. Bringing a pet to work can reduce your own stress, and a dog in the office can facilitate group cohesion, cooperation and trust.

If we're serious about wellbeing, engagement, and the better workplace, then these cornerstones of a life led adequately - light, air, movement, sleep and companionship - are things that organisations have got to put in place.


Fitzgerald CJ, & Danner KM (2012). Evolution in the office: how evolutionary psychology can increase employee health, happiness, and productivity. Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, 10 (5), 770-81 PMID: 23253786
 
Further reading:
See the Psychologist article (and mp3 audio) where Craig Knight discusses environmental design - link here

Why do job applicants behave the way they do?

Truth, lies and rolling dice. Not a Vegas weekend, but new research looking at applicant self-presentation: how individuals use behaviours to give a favourable account of themselves in job selection situations. We might call it faking, but are applicants just doing what recruiters expect of them?

The researchers, Anne Jansen and colleagues, drew on 53 recruiters (HR professionals)  from a range of Swiss companies, and two  adult student groups representing applicants (416 Masters students, replicated with 88 vocational apprentices). Both recruiters and applicants were presented with a set of self-presentation behaviours, such as "When applying for the job, I praised the organization" or "When applying for the job, I claimed to have experience that I didn’t actually have".

Recruiters were asked how appropriate the behaviours were, and agreement between their responses was high, strongly sharing expectations for half of the behaviours, and moderate agreement for virtually all the remaining. Collectively, they saw some behaviours, such as describing skills or knowledge, as appropriate and uncontroversial, with others definitely inappropriate, such as fabricating details, and still others, strategic ploys such as de-emphasising negative attributes, fell in between. This shared set of norms is what the research team expected, creating a job selection 'situational script' that recruiters expect to be followed. Did the applicants do so?

Enter the dice. Afraid of being tarred a faker, people are reluctant to admit to self-presentation, even for supposedly confidential, anonymous research. To address this, the applicants gave responses using the randomised response technique, which asked them only to reply truthfully to an item if they rolled a three or greater on a playing die - otherwise, they must respond affirmatively, regardless of the truth. This makes individual profiles impossible to identify whilst the aggregate data remains analysable, by looking at how responses differ from the base rate.

Jansen's team examined this data using correlation to compare frequency of applicant behaviour to recruiter judgement of that behaviour; they found high correlations at well above .8 (.9 in the larger Masters sample). The frequency of a self-presentation behaviour was strongly related to whether it was something that recruiters saw as acceptable.

The authors see this as the inevitable outcome of a 'strong situation', with right or wrong ways to behave - the shared attitude of the recruiters - where applicants are just trying to follow that script and do what they are 'supposed to', as learned from advice, previous experience, websites, or tacit feedback from the recruiter. Jansen and her colleagues conclude that common reactions to self-presentation behaviours, such as  moral condemnation or celebration as a social skill (not dissimilar to the concept of 'ability to identify criteria'), may be attempts to conjure individual qualities from what is mainly a situational phenomena. Conversely, it seems to me that, as understanding an individual's qualities is so useful in job selection, we would do well to experiment with meeting candidates in weaker, ambiguous situations with no right way to behave, to let them slide off-script and see the real them.

Jansen, A., König, C., Stadelmann, E., & Kleinmann, M. (2012). Applicants’ Self-Presentational Behavior Journal of Personnel Psychology, 11 (2), 77-85 DOI: 10.1027/1866-5888/a000046

What's the best way to deal with flare-ups of anger at work?

Have you ever had someone flare up at you at work, or witnessed a colleague slam down the phone and reel off expletives? Traditionally, expressing anger in the workplace is seen as unprofessional, as sheer aggression. A model developed by Deanna Geddes takes a different tack, and receives empirical backing in a recent study in the journal Human Relations.

Geddes and co-author Lisa Stickney point out than rather than being uniformly toxic, anger is often provoked by a sense of mistreatment, and can point to problems in the workplace. Geddes has suggested a Dual-Threshold Model of workplace anger where the organisation can be harmed in two ways: when expressions of anger are so extreme and deviant that they break an 'impropriety threshold', or when anger fails to ever reach the expression threshold, meaning the feelings are unvoiced and the underlying issues fester. When the thresholds are too tightly stacked together in an organisation, any expression of anger is automatically considered deviant and muted by the threat of punishment.

In the present study, 194 participants completed a questionnaire that asked them to reflect and comment on an occasion when someone at work went 'too far' in expressing their anger. As well as the type of expression – verbal outburst, inappropriate communication or a physical act, participants recorded how the event was responded to, both formally and informally, and how the situation changed following the event. This last feature was critical: did the handling of the situation lead to resolution of the root problem or leave it hanging?

The authors predicted that outcomes should be most positive when the responses to anger are more supportive, rather than punitive, and indeed neither management sanctions (such as a written warning) nor coworker sanctions (distancing themselves from the individual or responding in kind) were more effective than doing nothing at all. Conversely, speaking to the individual and understanding their situation led to more situations taking a turn for the better.

It's worth noting that when the original event involved some physical acting-out of the anger, the underlying issue tended to be resolved better. This is surprising, seeing as physical expression often triggered sanctions due to their perceived high deviance. The authors speculate that the pure visibility of physical actions make it impossible to duck that there is an issue: sanctions may be applied, but the conversations that accompany it go deep enough to gain a full understanding and act.

Geddes and Stickney suggest that “anger expressions may be better viewed – conceptually and practically – as focused forms of employee dissent or voice by which the employee confronts inefficient, unjust, and/or offensive workplace situations.“ So when we witness anger, we should consider whether there may be just cause for the reaction. We should also be cautious of zero-tolerance approaches that automatically apply sanctions; if an employee already feels wronged, introducing further punishment can compound the strain on their relationship with coworkers and the organisation. Instead, we should train ourselves out of treating all charged expressions as aggressive behaviour. Anger can be a gift, if we choose to see it that way.


Geddes, D., & Stickney, L. (2010). The trouble with sanctions: Organizational responses to deviant anger displays at work Human Relations, 64 (2), 201-230 DOI: 10.1177/0018726710375482

Drinking habits of freelance musicians are a response to job demands

When we pore over biographies of Cobain, Mozart, or Shakur, are we getting a true insight into the psychology of musicians? Doubtful; dealing with rare figures whose musicianship is confounded with celebrity, the psychological autopsy is inadequate for understanding this ancient and valued profession. The stereotypes it can reinforce, such as the 'mad genius', are often dispelled by more rigorous investigation: a study of psychopathology in a sample including artists, writers and scientists revealed that composers had almost the lowest rate.

And how about the other stereotype, that musicians love to get trashed? It's true that jazz greats often got high, but their reasons were more varied than simply hedonism; many used drugs to deal with pressure from the job and from peers. A recent study suggests our current jazz and string musicians, in a similar spot, find themselves deep in the drink.

Melissa Dobson from the University of Sheffield conducted interviews with eighteen freelance musicians, half string players and half jazz musicians. Reviewing these reveals that a key professional capability for these musicians is social expertise with peers. If looking to draft in a cellist for an event, differences in talent between candidates may be too minor to matter for the audience, so the job may swing to whoever's a better laugh to hang with during the breaks. In their informal economy, musicians know the power of these fickle decisions and do what needs to be done to maintain a reputation that they “get on with people”.

Typically, that involves drinking. Partly a generational legacy, as hard drinking is tied into the subcultural furniture, it's also a fact of the environment, as venues for live music typically serve alcohol. It fills dull gaps between sets in unfamiliar places, and after the show offers a form of psychological detachment from work. Ultimately, it's socially self-perpetuating: if everyone drinks, then you need to develop a habit too. Some interviewees had mixed feelings about this: “lots of players that haven't been offered jobs.... [are those who] won't really go out for the whole sort of socializing thing... a bit sad, but that's sort of the way it works”.

As well as alcohol, the interviews revealed the highly political nature of the freelance music world, where musicians both compete against and depend upon each other for work, and can find themselves trading disparaging judgements on absent peers to shore up their in-crowd position - another form of social currency.

Melissa Dobson concludes that the professional training that musicians undertake focuses on technical development over the challenges of navigating a freelance career, leaving them to figure out how to maintain reputation through a 'hidden curriculum' that operates out of sight of the convervatoire. Is this the only form of professional training that this critique applies to?

Dobson, M. (2010). Insecurity, professional sociability, and alcohol: Young freelance musicians' perspectives on work and life in the music profession Psychology of Music, 39 (2), 240-260 DOI: 10.1177/0305735610373562

Booster breaks at work enhance health and energy, and could ripple through organisations

Many of us in developed countries know that our lifestyle gets in the way of achieving a level of health in line with our level of wealth. With around half our waking hours spent in work settings, Wendell C. Taylor recommends an evidence-based workplace policy aimed to boost our health, with follow-on benefits for the organisation.

Taylor's paper, an eclectic review of research and practises including US federal recommendations, yogic techniques and sports science, points out that the modern workplace is laced with health hazards. These include a lack of strenuous physical activity, prolonged bouts of sitting still, weight gain (often due to unhealthy consumption), and of course stress. His solution is to take fifteen minute 'booster breaks' that involve health-promoting behaviours such as physical activity, meditation and breath training.

Fifteen minutes may seem like small beer, but Taylor lays out the evidence that these small efforts may have big effects. The US Department of Health and Humans Services, through a review of hundreds of studies, concluded that having some moderate-to-heavy physical activity in your routine improves health, even when the doses are small; indeed, no minimum level has been identified for producing health benefits.

Sedentary behaviour has serious effects on health - the risk of obesity increases by five percent for every two hours spent sitting at work - and the effects are worse when not interrupted; luckily, that's just what taking a booster break will do. Snacking and smoking, both common ways to use or even to justify work breaks, are suppressed when alternatives are promoted to fill our time. Given that on average we can prevent weight gain by tipping our energy intake-outtake by 100 kilocalories, these small effects matter.

We can also put in time to change our state of mind. Meditation can reduce anxiety and increase clarity of thought, and it can be hacked to fit even the short times of work breaks. Taylor asserts that rhythmic breathing can affect stress and immune function as well as reduce depression, and cites evidence for decreases in blood pressure from three months of practice of a few daily fifteen-minute sessions. Of course, all these types of break can increase blood flow and energy levels, which are both important for work effectiveness.

Taylor recommends sanctioning and promoting these health-enhancing practises in the workplace as booster breaks where employees get together to breathe, work out, or experience Big Mind together. He argues that such a policy can have multiple effects in a ripple-like fashion: the primary impact is at the centre, on individual behaviours; a smaller but profound effect takes place for individual outcomes like health, stress, energy, fun; then increasingly smaller effects occur for organisational morale, productivity, healthcare costs, and even for the organisation's image.

Taylor argues that breaks can enhance daily productivity even if they reduce the total time working, citing research conducted with data entry workers. This might seem strange if we see the capacity for work purely in terms of 'time available', but once we see energy as a major limiting factor this makes a lot of sense. Organisational morale is boosted partly by the group design, which encourages worker cohesiveness and a sense of collective fun.

We all want to stay well at work - the challenge is to know what we can do within our busy schedules. This article argues that even as little as fifteen minutes from our day can make a personal difference, and by taking our colleagues along we can multiply that impact, for ourselves and for the organisation. The full Booster Break methodology is currently being assessed using an ongoing randomised control trial - rest assured we'll bring you a follow-up once it's completed.

Taylor, W. (2011). Booster Breaks: An Easy-to-Implement Workplace Policy Designed to Improve Employee Health, Increase Productivity, and Lower Health Care Costs Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 26 (1), 70-84 DOI: 10.1080/15555240.2011.540991