Open-plan office noise has made work unbearable for some employees.

It can get too noisy at the office, says John, an employee with one of the big four banks. Most of the chatter happens on Monday and Friday mornings and if John can't block it out, it can mean he has to restart tasks. Sometimes, he says, the situation can even drive him to drastic measures.

"I schedule my routine tasks for the expected 'noisy' times of the day or week and save quieter times for the more complex tasks," he says. "In extreme circumstances, I will move from my workstation into quiet areas such as a meeting room, another floor where I am not well known by work colleagues or even schedule my working week to spend time working from home."

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) research into open-plan offices, published this year in the Asia-Pacific Journal Of Health Management, found that noise distractions in the office are linked to declines in productivity, lower privacy, job dissatisfaction and an increase in the likelihood of workplace conflict. The research states the open-plan office is to blame for what amounts to an average of two hours' worth of distraction per employee per day.

But why do businesses continue to operate in workplaces that make concentration difficult? Ergonomist and occupational health and safety (OHS) consultant David Caple says rising real estate prices in CBDs in the past 30 or so years have driven businesses to create open-plan offices to cut costs.

"What has happened is that work organisational structures have changed as well, so rather than working on the assumption that an individual has private and confidential work matters, the assumption now is that each person belongs to a team and the team needs to hear and work together as a team," he says. "So over the last 15 years we've seen a progressive lowering of partition types between workspaces and this is to facilitate team work."

The QUT research also found the open-plan office could raise blood pressure among employees. Caple says most organisations have health and safety representatives who can be approached to complain about noise distraction but Marnie Douglas, a physiotherapist and consultant with Ergoworks, says many employees would rather put up with noise than make a fuss about it.

"Because offices are open-plan now, the chances of having some sort of distraction in your week is very likely, so I think it's part of the employer's obligation to let the employee know what their alternatives are if they have a problem whether the point of contact for their problem is OHS, health and safety or someone in HR," she says.

John says he's never raised the subject of noise with his employer.

"I think we're accepting of the need for people to communicate professionally and socially," he says.

Peta Tumpey, an industrial relations lawyer at TressCox Lawyers, says the number of inquiries she's fielding from businesses looking at clarifying their responsibilities for managing noise distractions is changing.

"As more offices are cutting costs and reducing rentals on office space, they're going more for open-plan," she says. "So I'm getting a lot more questions now."

According to Tracey Hodgkins, a business etiquette expert and chief executive of the Australian Experiential Learning Centre in Perth, odds are that the guy a few desks up who drives you nuts with chatter may have no idea. "Absent-mindedness is a big part and some people just don't care about the people around them," she says.

Caple disputes that businesses are likely to abandon open-plan offices but says new trends in the way businesses deal with office noise are emerging.

"I see the office having more and more open-plan but more and more alternative places for people to go where they can have private conversations if they need to," he says. "People are being given more flexibility around their working situation ... so they don't have to be tied to the desk. For some people, this gives them an 'out'."

Zip it

Try business etiquette expert Tracey Hodgkins's tips to stop you being the office noise pest:

• Don't approach colleagues while they're on the phone. This happens too often, she says.
• Don't speak at them when they're concentrating - regaining concentration is time consuming.
• Try making an appointment for a conversation.

Wanting the colleague a few desks away to zip it is one thing but taking action without creating a war is another.

"There's always some sort of inter-office meeting and that's the most appropriate time to bring these situations to the attention of your boss," she says. "If you single someone out, it becomes rather ugly."