開放式辦公室不能增進合作

For the first time, scientists have measured what actually happens with face-to-face interactions when employees start to work at an open-plan office - and their results show these modern workspaces are not as collaborative as you'd think.

在開放式辦公室工作真的能增加面對面交流嗎？科學家首次對此展開了研究，結果顯示，這種現代辦公室並不像你想的那樣能夠增進合作。

Two researchers from Harvard Business School and Harvard University wanted to empirically test whether removing walls at a real-world workplace really does increase interactions between co-workers.

來自哈佛商學院和哈佛大學的兩名研究人員想通過實證檢驗知道，現實世界中的辦公室如果沒有了“牆”，是否真的能增進同事間的互動。

"To our knowledge, no prior study has directly measured the effect on actual interaction that results from removing spatial boundaries to create an open office environment," Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban write in the paper.

伊桑?S?伯恩斯坦和史蒂芬?圖爾班在論文中寫道：“據我們所知，沒有任何先前的研究曾直接衡量過沒有空間邊界的開放式辦公環境對實際互動的效果。”

To that end, they approached two multinational companies that were re-organising their office spaces at the global headquarters, and enlisted small groups of employees for two studies.

爲此，他們聯繫了兩家正在重新規劃全球總部辦公空間的跨國公司，並徵募了一小羣公司職員來參與兩項調查。

For eight weeks before the office redesign and eight weeks afterward, the researchers tracked employees' social interactions using sociometric badges, and location using Bluetooth sensors.

在公司重新設計辦公室前的8周以及設計完辦公室後的8周時間內，研究人員分別用社交計量儀和藍牙傳感器跟蹤調查了職員的社交互動情況和互動位置。

This data was analysed together with email and instant messaging info from the company's servers to measure differences in how people were communicating with each other.

研究人員分析了這部分數據以及來自公司服務器的電郵和即時通訊信息，以衡量人們彼此交流的前後差異。

What they found was a pretty staggering difference in face-to-face interactions - but not in the direction you might think.

他們發現，面對面互動的前後差異相當明顯，不過也許和你所想的背道而馳。

Across both experiments, employees' social interactions in person decreased by a crazy 70 percent, while emails saw an uptick by roughly 20 to 50 percent.

在兩次試驗中，職員面對面的社交互動減少了70%之多，而發送的電郵數量增加了約20%到50%。

So, instead of spending more time "collaborating" with co-workers in the sprawling new space where everyone could see them, people got their heads down and tried to preserve their privacy any way they could (hello, huge headphones).

也就是說，在每個人都能看見自己的開闊辦公空間裏，人們不是花更多時間與同事“合作”，反而是埋頭於自己的事情，試圖用各種方式保護自己的隱私（比如頭戴式大耳機）。

According to these results, it appears that being forced into a more open-plan environment can make people switch from chatting to others in person to sending an email or using instant messaging instead.

從結果看來，被迫在更開放的辦公環境內工作，會讓人們將面對面聊天改爲用電子郵箱或即時通訊軟件發信息。

As the team notes, it's not automatically a negative thing, but it can certainly change work dynamics in an unexpected way.

研究團隊指出，這不一定是壞事，但是肯定會以意想不到的方式改變工作氣場。

"That can have profound consequences for how - and how productively - work gets done," the researchers conclude.

研究人員得出結論說：“這對於如何完成以及如何有效地完成工作將產生深遠的影響。”

It's really starting to look like this whole open plan shtick needs more investigation. According to the team, previous studies using surveys have shown that open plan offices can have some negative psychological effects, reducing employee satisfaction, focus, and their feelings of having privacy at work.

看起來開放辦公空間的噱頭確實值得商榷。研究團隊指出，先前的調查顯示，開放式辦公室會對職員的心理造成負面影響，降低職員滿意度、注意力水平和職場私密感。

And don't even get us started on hot-desking.

至於公用辦公桌（辦公桌輪用制）就更別提了。

You know the pain if you're one of those folks whose management once shook things up by taking away your desk and forcing you to scrounge for space in a "flexible workspace" area with weird lighting fixtures and oddly shaped furniture.

如果你曾經被管理層剝奪了固定辦公桌，被迫在“靈活辦公區”找一張桌子用，忍受詭異的燈具和奇形怪狀的桌椅，你將會深知其苦。

Studies have shown that people forced to share workspaces reported feeling marginalised, experienced more distractions, negative relationships and uncooperative behaviour, not to mention feeling like their supervisors were being less supportive.

研究顯示，被迫共享辦公空間的人報告稱感覺受排擠，更容易分心，人際關係不佳，難以和他人合作，且會覺得上司不待見自己。

"While these [shared workspace] environments can work well for some employees – those who are highly mobile and autonomous, for instance – the research shows that many employees do not work well in these environments," organisational behaviour researcher Libby Sander wrote in The Conversation last year.

組織行爲研究員莉比去年在The Conversation網站的文章中寫道：“儘管共享辦公環境對某些員工可能還行——比如經常走動的自主性強的人——但研究顯示，許多員工在這種環境下都無法很好地工作。”

But since companies can save money on walls, doors, and general floor space by cramming us all together, we're not sure if open plan trends are going away any time soon - so it could be worthwhile to hone your skills on how to minimise distractions at work.

不過，因爲大家聚在一起工作可以讓公司省下牆壁、門和佔地面積的錢，我們不確定開放式辦公室這股風潮何時纔會過去，所以，現在只能磨鍊自己的專注技能，儘量不在工作時分神。

The study has been published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

該研究發表在《皇家學會哲學彙刊B輯》上。