Glossary · Workplace operations

What is an open-plan office?

Short answer

An open-plan office is a workplace layout in which most people work at desks in large shared areas, with few internal walls, private offices or cubicles. Organizations use it to fit more people into less space and to keep colleagues visible and reachable, although noise and interruptions can make focused work harder.

Also called open office, open floor plan, open-plan layout.

How it works

An open-plan floor groups desks into rows or clusters in one shared area, with meeting rooms, private rooms and support spaces around the edge or the core. Fewer walls means more desks per square foot, simpler reconfiguration and more daylight reaching the middle of the floor.

The trade-off is acoustic and visual privacy. Conversations carry, people are seen and interrupted, and many respond by wearing headphones or moving conversations to chat and email. A peer-reviewed study of two corporate headquarters that moved to more open space found that face-to-face interaction fell rather than rose.

Hybrid offices rarely run a pure open plan. They keep open desk areas but add enclosed settings for focus and calls, divide the floor into neighborhoods so teams sit together, and make desks bookable so people know where they will sit.

How to measure it

  1. Compare desk occupancy in open areas with booking demand for enclosed rooms and booths; full booths next to empty desks usually point to a noise problem.
  2. Ask employees whether they can concentrate and whether they can find colleagues.
  3. Track where teams actually sit on their office days to see whether the open floor supports the collaboration it was meant to.

Examples

  • A company turns a floor of cubicles into an open desk area, with phone booths along one wall and two quiet rooms at the far end.
  • An open floor is split into named neighborhoods so each team has a home zone while the desks stay shared.

Benchmarks

Common mistakes

  • Removing walls without adding enough enclosed space for calls and focused work.
  • Assuming visibility creates collaboration; people often withdraw to chat and email instead.
  • Planning an open floor to headcount rather than to the number of people in on a peak day.

How Kadence helps

Kadence lets workplace teams divide an open floor into team neighborhoods, change them by date with the Neighborhood Scheduler, and make desks, rooms and pods bookable on an interactive floor plan. Heatmaps in Workplace Insights show which parts of the floor people choose and which stay empty.

Desk booking software · Space management · Workplace analytics

Frequently asked questions

What are the pros and cons of an open-plan office?

The main advantages are a lower cost per person, flexible layouts and easy visibility of colleagues. The main drawbacks are noise, frequent interruptions and little privacy for calls or concentrated work. Most organizations keep open areas but add enclosed rooms, booths and quiet zones to balance them.

Do open-plan offices increase collaboration?

Not automatically. A peer-reviewed study of two headquarters that moved to more open space found that face-to-face interaction dropped and electronic messaging rose. Collaboration depends more on who sits near whom, and whether the right people are in on the same days, than on the absence of walls.

What are open office neighborhoods?

Neighborhoods divide an open floor into zones for teams, projects or activities. Desks stay shared, but each team has a home area, so people can find colleagues and the right equipment without a permanently assigned desk.

What is the difference between an open-plan office and a cubicle office?

A cubicle office divides the floor into individual workstations with partitions, which gives each person some privacy. An open-plan office removes most partitions so desks share one open area. Both usually assign desks; hybrid offices often replace both with shared, bookable desks.

  • Activity-based working (ABW) A workplace model in which people move between settings designed for different tasks instead of working at one assigned desk.
  • Workspace types The settings an office offers, such as desks, focus rooms, phone booths, huddle rooms and lounges, each suited to a kind of work.
  • Neighborhood A zone of an office set aside for a team, project or activity, often on set days, so people who work together sit together.

Sources

  1. The impact of the 'open' workspace on human collaboration, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B

Kadence editorial team · Last reviewed

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