Are open-office plans sexist?

Open-plan offices are supposed to encourage collaboration, improve communication, and encourage the free-flow of ideas, as well as offer (literal) transparency and flatten the usual corporate hierarchy. But it turns out there’s a sexist downside that could be impacting your current and potential future employees.

As a recent article from Fast Company explains, researchers Alison Hirst of Anglia Ruskin University and Christina Schwabenland of the University of Bedfordshire followed 1,100 U.K. government employees as they moved from a traditional office to a brand-new, open-plan office over the course of three years. The (male) architect who designed the plan apparently realized there were concerns about visibility, privacy, and productivity, but he argued that employees would eventually get over it —and then compared the open plan concept to that of a nudist beach.

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