Conflict and
tension appear to be generated by certain popular office design concepts,
namely combo- and
flex-offices.
(September 10, 2015) Your
likelihood of squabbling with co-workers could be due to the design of your
office, a new study suggests.
A recent survey of Swedish office workers shows that,
particularly for women, the risk of conflict at work increases in so-called
combi- and flex-offices. And what's worse, women are more bothered by noise in
these types of office plans than men are.
The findings were published recently in the Journal of
Environmental Psychology, by co-authors Christina Bodin Danielsson, a
researcher at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology School of
Architecture & Built Environment and Stockholm University's Stress Research
Institute; Töres Theorell from SU's Stress Research Institute; Lennart Bodin
from Karolinska Institute; and Cornelia Wulff, from Mäldardalen University.
Increasingly popular combi- and flex-offices are
activity-based designs that offer employees a choice of work environments for
different activities. Flex-offices also mean no one has their own, individual
workstation. Combi-offices, on the other hand, offer individual workspaces but
are designed for team-based work. They're highly stressful, too, says Bodin
Danielsson.
"In a combi-office, the fact that you work as a team
could be a possible explanation for the environment's negative impact on
conflicts, Bodin Danielsson says. "Group work itself shown to lead to
conflicts."
Surprisingly perhaps, the study also found that
significantly fewer conflicts arise in large open office plans, where 25 more
people work. This was especially true for women, Bodin Danielsson says.
"Men appear to be less sensitive to the influence of office type for
workplace conflicts."