The sick office: is a hot desk a sick desk?

Are open plan offices making people sick? Open plan offices create space, promote communication, enable collaboration, and lead to greater productivity for some teams. The disadvantages are that they are noisy, distracting, and lack privacy. However, there may be another disadvantage.

Swedish research found that open plan offices also make workers sicker than if they were in private rooms. Women appeared to be more at risk (Sydney Morning Herald, March 16, 2014). The Stockholm University study (published in the Ergonomics journal) of almost 2,000 workers revealed that office layout had a significant impact on the amount of sick leave they took. Workers in open plan offices were more likely to take sick days, and women in open plan offices took more extended leave for health reasons than those in separate offices. The study also revealed that men who hot-desk recorded the highest amount of total annual sick days taken. Hot-desking is when several workers use the same workspace on a rotational basis or whenever it is available as a means of saving space and cutting costs to accommodate part-time or seasonal workers).

The Swedish study concluded that the risk of infection and transfer of bacteria was highest among people sharing workspaces, and workers in open plan offices were more exposed to environmental stressors, such as noise. The research indicated that people in open spaced offices had elevated stress levels, higher blood pressure, got the flu more often, and struggled with the lack of privacy.

The disadvantages of open planned offices far outweighed the advantages were the findings of a University of Sydney study. University of Sydney researchers surveyed 42,000 workers in America, Finland, Canada, and Australia. Open plan offices scored ‘considerably low’ on a satisfaction scale for visual privacy, noise, and space. Furthermore, workers in open plan offices were no more satisfied than those in private offices when asked about the ease of interactions with colleagues.

Sydney Morning Herald reports that the University of Queensland’s (UQ) Business School, in conjunction with the Melbourne Business School (MBS), is developing a training program for managers on how to maximize employee productivity in open plan offices. Researchers are surveying employees in open plan offices about their productivity, well-being, conflict, performance, and their level of satisfaction with support services. In addition, the surveyed workers will be split into different personality types to determine whether some personality types are more adversely affected than others. Preliminary research by UQ and MBS showed that, for workers who found open plan offices stressful, they exhibitied territorial behaviour. In other words, they created their ‘own space’ with photos, plants, and personal objects, which they said made them more productive. This, in turn, created conflict with other workers in the office who viewed the territorial behaviour as selfish.

But is there really a link between the number of sick days and the layout of an office? A report published in the Medical Journal of Australia stated that a worker contracted tuberculosis (TB), and said an open plan office with hot desking was the cause. The Department of Health in the state of Victoria, Australia, conducted a health screening of the person’s family and 89 work colleagues. The result was that 25% of the person’s work colleagues also tested positive for TB. Discounting those who had previous exposure to TB, there were 10% who tested positive, and 2 of them were also hot-deskers – using the same desk as the person who contracted TB. The health officials concluded that ‘workplace transmission’ had occurred, and indicated that the office practice of hot-desking was partly to blame for the spread of TB. However, there were other factors – such as closed air-conditioning and the general plan of the open space office.

 http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/workers-complain-open-plan-offices-have-serious-flaws-20140315-34tnz.html#ixzz2w6Fh2uP4