Loretta Platts
Sociologist of work and health whose study is the reason this publication dropped the health argument against open-plan offices.
Who they are
Platts and colleagues noticed that the evidence linking open-plan offices to sickness absence rested largely on self-reports, which are vulnerable to how people remember and how they feel about their workplace when asked.
They tested it against absence records held by employers, across three Swedish organisations in the private and public sectors.
Key papers
Platts, L. G., Seddigh, A., Berntson, E., & Westerlund, H. (2020). Sickness absence and sickness presence in relation to office type: an observational study of employer-recorded and self-reported data from Sweden. PLoS ONE, 15(4), e0231934.
Key ideas
Office type was generally not associated with the number of episodes or days of sickness absence in the employer records.
Office type was not associated with sickness presence, meaning attending work while ill.
The authors conclude that it is not possible to conclude from this study that open-plan offices are associated with greater sickness absence or presence than cell offices. The Swedish setting limits how far that travels.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0231934