Noisy offices for simple tasks and quiet offices for complex tasks?

Many current office plans are designed as open environments to increase knowledge sharing, which is supposed to increase performance through more informal interactions between workers. However, according to workplace surveys, poor acoustics in open office environments have been reported to decrease workers performances. The literature regarding performance with quiet, ambient, and masking sound in offices show that the kinds of performed tasks in organizations or groups may be the main factor to decide whether open or closed office environments are appropriate. People engaged in simple office tasks perform better with masking sounds than with quiet or ambient office sound conditions [Loewen et al., ‘‘Cognitive and arousal effects of masking office noise,’’ Environment and Behavior 24, 381–395 (1992)]. However, when people need to use serial-recall functions in their complex tasks, quiet conditions may be better than other sound environments in offices [Banbury et al., ‘‘Disruption of office-related tasks by speech and office noise,’’ Br. J. Psychol. 499–517 (1998)].