Three plausible reasons off the top of my head on why open offices would experience less reported sick days. One: the same reason as experienced by garbage men or sewer guys; greater exposure causing improved immune systems. Two: being in an open office increases the top-down butts-in-seat observability, causing employees to come into the office even while sick to keep up a better work image. Three: (what happens at…
Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
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Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#12Three plausible reasons off the top of my head on why open offices would experience less reported sick days. One: the same reason as experienced by garbage men or sewer guys; greater exposure causing improved immune systems. Two: being in an open office increases the top-down butts-in-seat observability, causing employees to come into the office even while sick to keep up a better work image. Three: (what happens at…
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#13Three plausible reasons off the top of my head on why open offices would experience less reported sick days. One: the same reason as experienced by garbage men or sewer guys; greater exposure causing improved immune systems. Two: being in an open office increases the top-down butts-in-seat observability, causing employees to come into the office even while sick to keep up a better work image. Three: (what happens at…
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#14Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy while they work or because they are actually are getting sick more often? I would think its the former, tbh
I know it's a stretch, but the former could be analyzed in terms of sickness.
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#15Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy while they work or because they are actually are getting sick more often? I would think its the former, tbh
"Sick leaves were self-reported ... as number of short and long (medically certified) sick leaves... A significant excess risk for sickness absence was found only in terms of short sick leaves." Which supports your hypothesis.
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#16Noise, permanent distraction, regular interruption, no privacy, and people spreading germs all over the place. No wonder that people get sick! I would rather be poor than work in a shared office one more time. (I have experienced both, so I know what I'm talking about.)
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#17Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy while they work or because they are actually are getting sick more often? I would think its the former, tbh
Yeah, I too think this could explain it better. Say a work day is 8 hours, ideally, you cannot work on the same thing for 8 hours. But an open-plan office forces you to do this, or pretend to, because you are being "watched"...and this can be exhausting.
A cellular office plan, gives you the privacy to relax, and maybe do something else, then say when you feel refreshed, you get back to working.
An open-office plan encourages collaboration, but that's based on the assumption that we all work the same way.
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#18Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy while they work or because they are actually are getting sick more often? I would think its the former, tbh
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#19Table 2: median days of sickness in single person offices in last year: 1.0. Median days of sickness in 6+ person offices: 2.0. Respective means are 4.9 and 8.1.
Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)
#20Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy while they work or because they are actually are getting sick more often? I would think its the former, tbh
Office design's impact on sick leave rates (2014) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24460745 investigated this question. "Sick leaves were self-reported ... as number of short and long (medically certified) sick leaves... A significant excess risk for sickness absence was found only in terms of short sick leaves." Which supports your hypothesis.