Why Open Plan Offices Make Everyone Worse at Their Jobs

While writing my book ‘The Hapiness Code’, I researched dozens of contexts and how they affect our wellbeing. Homes, neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools, public spaces, every environment shapes how we feel and behave in ways we rarely notice. 

But one context stood out as particularly destructive: the open plan office. 

The research was so consistent, so damning, that I kept thinking I must be missing something. Surely there's an upside that justifies why 70% of offices now use this layout? 

There isn't. 

I visited a client's office last month that confirmed everything I'd read. Beautiful space. Glass everywhere. Open plan. Very modern. Also: completely unusable for actual thinking. 

People wore headphones like armour. Booking a meeting room required planning days ahead. Corners were colonised by anyone desperate for a private call. And everywhere, the low hum of distraction. 

The client wanted to talk about improving team collaboration. But their real problem wasn't collaboration. It was that they'd designed an environment that made deep work impossible, and was quietly eroding their people's wellbeing. 

Researchers Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban studied what happens when companies switch to open plan offices. The assumption was that removing walls would increase face-to-face interaction. The opposite happened. Face-to-face interaction dropped by 70%. Email and messaging increased by 50%. 

When people feel exposed, they withdraw. They put on headphones. They communicate through screens instead of speech. The transparency that was supposed to foster connection actually killed it. 

This is Behavioural Design working against you. The physical environment sends signals about what behaviour is appropriate. An open space with no barriers says: you can be interrupted at any time. And people respond by building invisible walls instead. 

How to use this insight: 

Environment isn't just backdrop, it's behaviour architecture. Every space is designed, whether intentionally or not. The question is whether it's designed for the behaviour you actually want. 

If you're responsible for office design: The goal isn't "open" or "closed", it's matching space to activity. Deep work needs protection from interruption. Collaboration needs easy visibility and access. The mistake is designing for one mode and expecting the other to happen anyway. Consider: what does each type of work actually require, and have we made that possible? 

If you're stuck in a bad office: You can't redesign the floor plan, but you can design your micro-environment. Headphones are a start, but they're defensive. Better: identify when you need focus and physically remove yourself. Work from a café, a library, an empty meeting room. The commute might cost you time, but you'll get more real work done in two focused hours than eight fragmented ones. 

If you're leading a team: Watch where your people actually go when they need to concentrate. If they're fleeing the office, that's data. If they're coming in early or staying late to get quiet time, that's data. You might not control the architecture, but you can control norms: "No meetings before 11am" or "Thursdays are focus days" can create temporal boundaries when spatial ones don't exist. 

If you work from home: The same principles apply. If your "office" is also where you relax, eat, and watch TV, you're fighting constant context confusion. The brain uses environmental cues to know what mode to be in. Create separation, even if it's symbolic: a specific chair, a specific playlist, a door you close. The ritual signals: now we work. 

If you're designing any shared space: Think about the signals. A library says "quiet" without posting rules—the architecture itself communicates. What does your space communicate? If you want collaboration, create magnets: coffee machines, comfortable seating, whiteboards. If you want focus, create buffers: visual barriers, acoustic dampening, clear "do not disturb" signals. Don't expect behaviour that your environment is actively discouraging. 

Your office isn't where work happens. It's shaping what kind of work can happen, and how happy people are while doing it. 

Why We're More Creative in High Ceilings 

Give people the same problem in two different rooms, one with high ceilings, one with low, and watch what happens. 

Researcher Joan Meyers-Levy found that high ceilings activate abstract thinking. People generate more creative, conceptual ideas. Low ceilings activate detail-oriented thinking. People become more focused and precise. 

Neither is better. But the mismatch matters. 

Brainstorming in a cramped meeting room? The ceiling is working against you. Proofreading in a cathedral? Same problem. The insight isn't "high ceilings good", it's "match the space to the task." 

Next time you're stuck, before blaming yourself, look around. The room might be the problem. 

Until next week,

Astrid Groenewegen

Co-Founder of SUE | Behavioural Design Academy, Author of 'The Art of Designing Behaviour' / 'De Kunst van Gedrag Ontwerpen' and ‘De Gelukscode’.