Millennials hate open offices just as much as you do.

Why you need to get rid of that open office

1. An open office is a productivity nightmare

The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present.

-Glen Hansard

Hansard repeats a sentiment widely felt by the majority of people over thirty (as well as at least some below). Technology has ruined us, they say. We can’t concentrate anymore, they say. Whether this is true is a subject of another blog post. But the reality is that the concept of concentration is not popular these days. Whereas the ability to focus for eight hours a day was valued once upon a time, the ability to multitask for fourteen hours a day is now king (I’m looking at you, startups).

And this is where the dreaded open office comes in. Guess what happens when there are no cubicle walls? You can hear everything, whether or not it’s intended for your ears. So every time Dave in accounting asks if anyone wants a coffee, half the office chimes in. Every time Nora in HR has to double check someone’s PTO status, everyone gets to hear about it. That document Stan needs before the end of the week? Instead of a quick email, he stops by to chat about it and, while he’s here, asks what you think about Margot Robbie and, well, there goes the rest of the hour.

Anytime anyone has to talk to each other about anything, the entire office is looped in. This isn’t so much a privacy issue as a distraction one. There aren’t many people who can tune out conversation completely, and the ones that can are wearing headphones and labelled as anti-social.

In order to get anything done, your employees have to become multitasking geniuses. Going back and forth between your Slack window, your email, Sam’s weekend plans, and that spreadsheet, Illustrator file, IDE or whatever the hell it is you work on during the day is bloody murder for your productivity. I’m not saying it’s impossible — I’ve done it myself — but it’s one of those things that you’re only aware of after you’ve learned to focus on one thing at a time.

Take, for example, my time at Startup That Shall Not Be Named (STSNBN for short). Part of my position involved updating a spreadsheet containing customer information every day. That was my job. That was what I was paid to do. I figured it would take an hour every morning to update. Three separate projects were also part of my job. Totally manageable, I thought.

But as soon as I started at STSNBN, that changed. Instead of sending email updates or convening at certain points during the day to discuss the projects, my coworkers and I chatted about them throughout the day. I know that doesn’t sound bad on paper. But the constant switching between projects was mentally exhausting (I didn’t realize just how much until after I’d left the company). Just when I was getting in the flow with project 1, my project 2 coworkers had to chat real quick. Just when I was almost done with that spreadsheet, my project 3 buddies decided to convene. The switching back and forth meant that I was constantly having to mentally reorganize.

I am not bad at multitasking. According to my supervisor’s review, I did splendidly in that position. But I can’t help but think about how much more I could have accomplished had simply been in my own office or cubicle with walls.

2. An open office forbids privacy whether you want it to or not

Did you come up with the open office idea because you think all of your employees are lying sneaks who watch porn and gamble all day when you’re not looking? No, didn’t think so. So why are you denying them basic privacy?

Guess what — I don’t solely do work for eight hours a day. That’s right, sometimes I check my bank account. I’ve been known to double-check movie times for later that night. You can even find me on Reddit once in a while. This does not make me a bad employee. This lets you know that I am a real human and not a robot (I’m not discounting those of you who can do nothing but real work for four hours at a time, but just keep in mind that you’re the purple unicorns and certainly not the majority of the workforce).

But guess what happens when everyone in the office can see my monitor. Yep, I don’t take those little five-minute breaks anymore. I know that getting caught on Reddit just might ruin my reputation despite my otherwise fantastic work habits. And I don’t want everyone in the office to know the number next to “checking account.” So I trudge right through my work duties every day.

Here’s the thing: those breaks are essential to my productivity. Without them, I burn out — fast. A project that I’m ordinarily passionate turns into a monotonous form of torture. Plus, the amount of work I can accomplish in eight 30-minute chunks is way, way higher than the amount I can do in one four-hour chunk. That’s a normal thing. As an employer, you should want your employees to do what they need to do to be more productive. Here, read this.

3. An open office denies your employees their right to personal space

We all have personal bubbles. Some are large, some are small, but we all have them. And we all function best when those boundaries are honored. This isn’t some New Age-y crap. Personal space is a real thing and when people infringe upon it, we suffer.

The psychologist Robert Sommer suggested we do it [cope with personal space intrusions] by temporarily dehumanizing those around us, avoiding eye contact and pretending they’re inanimate until the moment comes when we spot an escape route. After all, it’s not uncomfortable to stand inches from a wall.

When I worked at STSNBN, I sat about eighteen inches from my coworkers on either side. Because they weren’t people involved in the same projects that I was, we didn’t interact too much. We sat next to each other every day and completely ignored each other. Not because they hated me or because I hated them. But because having two people right next to you all day means you hear every click of their mouse, every involuntary sigh, every slight squeak of their chair. In order to preserve my sanity, I blocked them out, which I’ll admit was done mostly subconsciously. It was so bad that when we did need to talk, we actually communicated through Slack rather than by speaking to one another.

This was how I worked. But I’m able to recognize now that getting in the habit of ignoring the people you work with is not a good thing. It’s not healthy. It makes for a very strange work environment. I certainly don’t recommend it.