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ABSTRACT
AIM: To carry out a systematic review of recent research into the effects of workplace design, comparing individual with shared workspaces, on the health of employees.
METHODS: The research question was "Does workplace design (specifically individual offices compared with shared workspaces) affect the health of workers?" A literature search limited to articles published between 2000 and 2017 was undertaken. A systematic review was carried out, and the findings of the reviewed studies grouped into themes according to the primary outcomes measured in the studies.
RESULTS: The literature search identified 15 relevant studies addressing health effects of shared or open-plan offices compared with individual offices. Our systematic review found that, compared with individual offices, shared or open-plan office space is not beneficial to employees' health, with consistent findings of deleterious effects on staff health, wellbeing and productivity. Our findings are also consistent with those of earlier reviews.
CONCLUSION: These findings have public health implications for the New Zealand workforce. Decisions about workplace design should include weighing the short-term financial benefits of open-plan or shared workspaces against the significant harms, including increased sickness absence, lower job satisfaction and productivity, and possible threats to recruitment and retention of staff.
In the government, health, and tertiary education sectors of many countries including New Zealand, workplace design is changing from the provision of individual offices for employees, to shared or open-plan workspaces. Open-plan offices can range from large areas with desks arranged in rows, sometimes called "bull pens", to desks separated by dividers of varying heights.1 Previous reviews of the literature have suggested that open-plan workspaces have deleterious effects on employees,2'3 so the increasing use of shared workspaces may have public health implications for the New Zealand workforce.
The increasing use of open-plan offices in the public sector reflects earlier changes in corporate workplace design, where open-plan offices were introduced from the 1920s, becoming common by the 1970s.1'4 Cost-saving is a major driver for open-plan offices, because this design is cheaper to construct, and makes it possible to accommodate more employees in a given area.5,6 For example, it has been reported that 10-20% of a university's total expenditure can be taken up in space provision, and that cost savings can be made by re-evaluating the amount of space...