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The problem with open plan offices | Nudge Newsletter 🧠

Published about 1 month agoΒ β€’Β 1 min read

Open plan fallacy?

Do open-plan offices work?

Researchers Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber found out.

They monitored in-person interactions at the main offices of two Fortune 500 companies before and after implementing open-office plans.

In the open-plan office, face-to-face interactions didn't increase; they actually fell by 70%.

Bernstein was curious to see if making minor changes to privacy could have an impact.

He worked with supervisors at a Chinese factory to experiment with using curtains to separate work teams and see if it could increase productivity.

After putting up a trial curtain, Bernstein overheard an employee saying, "I wish they'd put those curtains up around the entire line. We could be so much more productive if they did that."

So, they decided to do just that, using curtains to divide the open factory into smaller units.

The implementation of curtains led to a 10 to 15% improvement in performance over the following months.

But there's a problem with both of these studies ... the Hawthorne Effect.

The Hawthorne studies were conducted between 1924 and 1932 at the Hawthorne Works, Chicago.

Workers' productivity improved when the lights were made brighter. Productivity dropped after the study ended.

So, bright lights boost productivity, right?

No.

Dimming the lights had the same effect. In fact, dimming them to just above moonlight levels still boosted productivity.

It turns out, the lighting wasn't altering productivity; it was the researchers.

Observing workers boosted performance in Hawthorne and perhaps in those open-plan offices, too.

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That's all for this week. What did you think? Hit reply and let me know.

Cheers,

Phill

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Nudge Newsletter

Phill Agnew

I spend 18 hours each week turning marketing psychology into readable newsletters.

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