Why do companies choose to have an open office plan when it clearly hurts the productivity of some significant percentage of employees? I think there has to be some benefit that offsets the disadvantages. Noting that it doesn't have to be true benefit for the company, only a perceived benefit for the people making the decisions on office plans, what could this be? I don't know, but here are some ideas that seem at least plausible.
Perhaps the harm to the noise sensitive individuals is offset by the improvement to others. Is it better to have one individual at 100% and the other browsing the web all day, or to have both individuals at 60%? It depends on the work being done. Is it better to prevent 1 employee out of 100 from embezzling a hundred million dollars? Yes, but I'd suspect the risk isn't actually that high.
I'd guess that many managers (correctly or not) find it easier to supervise (micromanage) workers when they can see them constantly. If they are being judged (and promoted) by how "in control" they appear rather than the actual productivity of their department, I can see they'd push for large "panopticon" work spaces. It also seems likely that a manager would feel more secure in their position if they can monitor those who might seek to take it from them.
Maybe it's a combination of social status and cost? Such that providing tiny private offices for the lower level workers would be affordable, but the "obligation" to provide larger and more luxurious offices all the way up the chain would be prohibitive? It's possible that the possibility of being promoted to have an office is an significant incentive for some.
The pro-open-plan side is armed with hard numbers; cost-per-employee for one buildout vs. another is easy to measure up front. The anti-open-plan side has no way of generating the equivalent numbers for lost productivity and even their best attempts at estimating them (relying on studies, etc.) are vulnerable to being dismissed as "just guessing". Hard numbers win over soft numbers.
The main benefit that companies, pushing for open office plans, espouse is that it makes it easier for people to communicate face to face.
I'm pretty sure a big factor in the rationale for an open office is that it's even cheaper than having cubicles and (initially) the idea is sexier. For the companies in this mindset, they're probably ignoring the costs associated with decreased productivity.
There probably wasn't enough research on it at the time the open office started to become fashionable.
I find it much more difficult to communicate face to face in an open office. I don't want to bother everyone else so I communicate in a whisper and I don't really like that.
Perhaps the harm to the noise sensitive individuals is offset by the improvement to others. Is it better to have one individual at 100% and the other browsing the web all day, or to have both individuals at 60%? It depends on the work being done. Is it better to prevent 1 employee out of 100 from embezzling a hundred million dollars? Yes, but I'd suspect the risk isn't actually that high.
I'd guess that many managers (correctly or not) find it easier to supervise (micromanage) workers when they can see them constantly. If they are being judged (and promoted) by how "in control" they appear rather than the actual productivity of their department, I can see they'd push for large "panopticon" work spaces. It also seems likely that a manager would feel more secure in their position if they can monitor those who might seek to take it from them.
Maybe it's a combination of social status and cost? Such that providing tiny private offices for the lower level workers would be affordable, but the "obligation" to provide larger and more luxurious offices all the way up the chain would be prohibitive? It's possible that the possibility of being promoted to have an office is an significant incentive for some.
What else?