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 Cubicles have a bad rap, thanks largely to pop culture. Any number of TV shows and movies ridicule cubicle setups, making the workstations seem responsible for work stress, mental breakdowns and psychopathic behaviour. Clearly something had to be done.
So the office environment went in the other direction completely. Down came the walls and in came open-plan collaborative spaces where workers shared desks or worked in 'pods'. Studies showed that these new spaces facilitated cooperation and creativity and improved morale - and all of that good stuff. Really out-of-the-box companies (Google) even made their executives work in open spaces, depriving them of coveted private corner offices. Some even had their CEOs working in the same 'pods' as the regular office Joes, presumably to show that everyone is equal, to invite communication, to breakdown hierarchies and to build healthy relationships.
As an added benefit, taking down the cubicles and embracing all things open allowed companies to put more employees in less space. It made financial sense.
But, other than saving money, did it achieve all that it was supposed to achieve?
Um.
Not really.
Not all walls are solid
What a lot of people have found is that with the walls gone, other problems creep in, and so workers come up with their own passive solutions. They pile up paperwork at self-demarcated borders between their workspace and their neighbour's. They bung in their earphones and block out everyone else's presence with Leonard Cohen, Nine Inch Nails or Miley Cyrus (whoever floats their particular boat). Usually this means that the person next to them has to don earphones just so that they don't have to vicariously listen to music not of their choice.
And, instead of facilitating communication, studies have shown that workers are less likely to talk out in the open, and are more likely to seek refuge in the kitchen or bathroom, or talk over Skype so that they won't be overheard.
In an article for the Washington Post Jena McGregor cites a recent study by researchers from the University of Sydney, which found that the cons of open office spaces might just outweigh the pros. The authors of the report, Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear, have found that open-plan offices can, in fact, have a negative impact on productivity and morale. The study was quite extensive: 42,000 responses across 303 office buildings, with roughly two thirds of respondents working in open spaces and one quarter in private offices.
When comparing open-plan spaces, cubicles and private offices, private offices are a clear winner, while open plan spaces fare very poorly. One of the biggest complaints is the lack of sound privacy. In other words, no one likes to be able to hear conversations fifty feet away and they don't like to have to make phone calls with their neighbours listening in.
This study supports findings by researchers at the University of California, Berkely in 2012. According to John Tierney, researchers surveyed 65,000 people in North America, Europe, Africa and Australia over a ten-year period and they found that speech privacy was the biggest problem among open-plan office workers. Tierney cites other studies which have found that people curtail the conversations and keep them superficial because they don't want to be overheard. He also cites a study from Finland's Institute of Occupational Health, which found that ambient noise in open-plan offices can result in a 5 - 10 per cent reduction in the performance of cognitive tasks.
What are the solutions?
Not everyone wants to return to cubicle-only working conditions. And this is fair enough. So what can companies do to make their workers happy without breaking the bank?
White noise-type solutions have been proven to work quite well, only in this instance it's called pink noise. Pink noise matches the frequency of human voices and so is quite good at masking other people's conversations, making them less noticeable and easier to ignore. Other soothing background noise, like a babbling stream, can also provide the illusion of sound privacy.
According to Tierney, office designers are also experimenting with dedicated rooms for phone calls and private conversations - but these can make the people using them feel conspicuous. They can also be hogged by privacy hounds, which is hardly fair. Another option is to create an alcove or booth for those more private moments.
In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Ben Kesling and James R. Hagerty also mention workstations with low walls, lower than the 4 - 7 feet of traditional cubicles. This provides the illusion of privacy while also allowing for easy communication and collaboration. It doesn't do much for sound privacy though.
There is a new trend on the horizon, however, according to Kesling and Hagerty, and that is for employees to be able to design their own workspaces thanks to customisable workstations. These may not be as cheap as open-plan offices, but the benefits to productivity could be worth it to the bottom line.
Editor's Note: Jemima Winslow has worked in pods, at desks with low walls and has shared a desk. She's even briefly had a private office. All of this experience allows her to say that there is nothing like having a workstation to yourself.
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Re: Cubicles Aren't As Bad As Dilbert Would Have You Believe
