Community Manager

Open plan offices: the productivity paradox 🏢

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
June 4, 2026
1 reply
125 views

Hi everyone,

Following on from the previous conversation about the four-day work week, I've been thinking about something that feels like the flip side of the same coin. How we work, but also where we work.

Most of us here are probably no strangers to the open plan office. It's been the default for most collaborative spaces for years now. The idea being that fewer walls means more team work, more spontaneous conversations, better team culture. Sounds great in theory.

Except the research keeps suggesting it doesn't really work out that way.

A Harvard Business School* study tracked employees at two large companies before and after moving to open plan layouts using wearable sensors and communication data. Rather than seeing more face-to-face interaction, they found it dropped by around 70%*. People weren't talking more, they were retreating to email and instant messages instead, because the open environment actually made conversation feel more exposed.

And then there's the noise side of it. A survey of 2,000 knowledge workers across the US, UK, Germany and France found that 63%** struggle with concentration because of workplace noise. Another study found workers can lose up to 66%** of their productivity from just one nearby conversation, and that after any noise-driven interruption it takes on average 23 minutes to fully get back into what they were doing.

For the kind of work a lot of people in this community do, configuring policies, reviewing deployments, working through a complex issue, that kind of constant interruption isn't just annoying it’s a tangible resource cost too.

Now with hybrid working being so common, a lot of us have more control over where we do our more in-depth work than we used to. Which maybe makes the open plan question feel a bit less urgent day to day.

But I'm curious about how you folks find the experience:

Is the open plan still a reality for you on your office days, and if so how do you manage around it?
Do you think it actually helps with collaboration or has it quietly become something companies just do because it's cheaper?
And if you could redesign your office setup tomorrow, what would it look like?

Would love to hear how people are working around it, or whether you've just fully leaned into the headphones-on-do-not-disturb approach (like me! 😄)

🔗* The Impact of the Open Workspace on Human Collaboration — Harvard Business School / Royal Society

🔗** Workplace Noise Statistics 2026: Open Office Decibels, Concentration Loss and Acoustic Distraction — Speakwise

Speak soon,

Kirk

Alex_Muc

Level 3.0: Honeycomb

We have introduced something similar here. When it was presented, the term “open plan office” was consistently avoided, and it was instead called "Multi Space" and they tried to explain the difference.

To be fair: At Multi Spaces, they don't pack the place to the max with as many tables as possible and there's a bit of thought put into the acoustics and layout. So it's definitely better than a traditional open plan office.
Since we have both traditional office spaces and multi-spaces, I personally have a clear favorite: traditional offices. Why?

a significantly quieter work environment
fewer rules and considerations (e.g., music, clean desk policy, etc.) required
uncomplicated, confidential conversations by simply closing the door
No special precautions are needed for confidential screen content, since no one can look at the monitor from behind without being noticed.
Multi-space workstations are wasteful in terms of space. Private offices are significantly more space-efficient. The space issue stems from the numerous acoustic panels and various work zones in the Multi Space.
For open workspaces, you need special solutions for individual meetings or focused work. You often have to look for or book rooms for such activities, which results in time lost to coordination.
When working with a lot of hardware, an open layout isn't ideal, since the hardware has to be locked away whenever you leave the room.

Larger offices appear more open, and a shared-desk setup helps prevent employees from getting too attached to “their” usual workstations.

Open-plan offices are probably more cost-effective and space-efficient. However, even with the better version, I simply see too many drawbacks for my day-to-day work. But there are certainly people who are very happy in a larger office and don’t experience many of the downsides. That’s why I think it’s important to design offices based on the needs of employees and their roles.

Kirk

Author

Community Manager

Thanks for your insights @Alex_Muc some great points.

I’ve never had the privilege of working in my own office but I think I would likely agree with your preference. Being a naturally chattier and curious person (Community Manager….) I do tend to get easily distracted so having my own space would help there I think.

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