Open-plan offices are making people sick, with workers more likely to suffer stress, catch a cold and be less productive, Australian researchers said.
A review of global studies into the impact of modern office design found the switch to open-plan spaces had been overwhelmingly negative, with 90 percent reporting adverse health and psychological effects.
High levels of stress and conflict, elevated blood pressure and rapid staff turnover were associated with open-plan environments, review author Vinesh Oommen said.
PROBLEMS
“Employees face a multitude of problems such as the loss of privacy, loss of identity, low work productivity, various health issues, overstimulation and low job satisfaction when working in an open plan work environment,” Oommen wrote in the latest Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management.
Workers were plagued by insecurity, he said, ever-conscious of their colleagues’ ability to see what they were doing on the computer and eavesdrop on their phone calls.
High noise levels led to impaired concentration and low productivity, he said.
There was a higher incidence of workplace conflict, with people sitting so close to their neighbor that even a ringing phone could irritate.
GERM TRANSMISSION
Ease of germ transmission also meant illnesses such as influenza were more swiftly passed around.
“It is estimated that organizations can save up to 20 percent in development costs when creating an open-plan work environment,” Oommen wrote.
“[But] workplace design must go beyond cost-saving to cater [to] the multifaceted social and psychological needs of employees,” he said.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
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