Großraumbüros erhöhen das Risiko von Mobbing am Arbeitsplatz im Vergleich zu Mitarbeitern, die über eigene Büroräume verfügen. Arbeitgeber rechtfertigen Großraumbüros mit der Förderung kreativer Interaktionen, Untersuchungen zeigen jedoch, dass Großraumbüros weder Gesundheit noch Arbeitszufriedenheit oder Produktivität fördern.

>Open-plan offices entail a clearly increased risk of workplace bullying compared with employees having their own office or sharing with just a few colleagues. This is shown in [research](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41542-025-00246-x) from Linköping University, Sweden.

>“Increased bullying is a tangible negative consequence of how you choose to organise the workplace. It’s important to highlight this, as it hasn’t previously been examined,” says Michael Rosander, professor at the Division of Psychology at Linköping University.

>Open-plan offices, where many employees share the same space, have become increasingly common. Employers often justify this development as a way to use premises more efficiently and to encourage creative interactions between employees. However, research has shown that open-plan offices do not promote health, job satisfaction or productivity.

>Until now, it has been unclear whether open-plan offices also affect the risk of bullying and employees’ motivation to look for another job. Through surveys of more than 3,300 randomly selected individuals in employment in Sweden, Michael Rosander has now provided an answer. The results are published in the journal Occupational Health Science.

>Twenty-one per cent of those with some form of office-based work reported that they worked in a traditional open-plan office with no access to private space. Nine per cent worked in so-called activity-based offices, where employees spend part of their time in an open-plan environment but also have access to designated rooms for tasks requiring peace and quiet. The remainder had their own office or shared one with only a few colleagues.

>For traditional open-plan offices, the survey responses showed a clearly increased risk of bullying compared with those who had their own office or shared an office with only a few colleagues. The difference remained regardless of factors such as personality traits and the extent of remote working. This suggests that the problems are indeed caused by the work environment in the office.

Makes sense. My old team moved to a 90 desk open office space over a year ago and I immediately started looking for other opportunities. There’s no way you can be effective when 90 other people are talking at the same time sitting side by side. The constant visual and auditory distractions were draining and made me feel like I’d moved to a call center.