Open office layouts have been trending for a while now—nearly 70 percent of offices have some type of open floor plan, with areas of partitionless, collaborative seating, or areas of low partitions. Some companies have done away with assigned seating altogether. But the question remains: How effective is an open office layout?

What was once seen as a collaborative, encouraging workspace seems to be suffering under its lack of privacy, confidentiality, and indeed, productivity. Open office workers report less satisfaction with their ease of interaction than those working in traditional office settings. No, an open office is not for everyone, especially those who value privacy, who get deeply involved in projects, and who desire minimal interruptions.

Workers may not be suited for an open-plan office if:

• They like coming to work healthy. One area where open offices lead: absenteeism due to illness. Workers in open-plan offices took 62 percent more days off than their private office counterparts. Could that mean illness spreads more easily in a partitionless, shared space, or that immunity is compromised by environmental stressors such as noise or lack of privacy?
• They like peace and quiet. Workers site noise as the number one detractor from an open-plan office. (Think about that next time you crunch a bag of Cheetos.) Phone calls, face-to-face chats, and your neighbor’s Ariana Grande obsession are on full display in an open office. Of course, there’s always earbuds, which are a popular way to reduce noise in an open office environment. In one ear or two, whether “in the zone” or “needing some space,” earbuds send the same message: Off limits. Do not disturb. Thanks, but no thanks. In a space designed for collaboration, do the benefits of earbuds outweigh their potentially career-damaging consequences?
• They like privacy. Feeling boxed in? Interactions, noise, and unwanted visibility all undermine privacy, comfort, and concentration. Shared facilities can also lead to a behavior-changing phenomenon called crowding—the psychological feeling of not having enough space available. In addition to causing stress, anxiety, frustration, and helplessness, crowding also changes social interactions, leading to irritability, aggression, and withdrawal from others. An open office without private areas of retreat are especially at risk.
• They like to get things done. Let’s be frank—distractions impact productivity. (Just think about the last project you tried to do with kids or pets around.) After only a brief interruption, workers make twice as many mistakes when they return to their work, and take twice as long to finish it. And when focus is broken on an intense project, workers spend a full 15 minutes getting back in the zone. Plus this decrease in productivity begins a spiral of unproductivity, in which workers take more breaks, delay returning to work, and create overtime.

Open-plan offices can have amazing benefits for collaboration and team building, but it needs to happen with workers who are able to adapt to that environment. If you’re an employer, talk to your employees about their work environment. When you hire, ask questions about how a candidate prefers to work, and include a preview of the office floor. (Potential employees may realize this environment is not for them, and take themselves out of the running.) Finally, if you’re transitioning to an open-plan office from a traditional one, examine your company’s employee wellness initiatives to devise ways to help employees physically and psychologically succeed.