Work with two sugars: coffee shops are the offices of the future

They were supposed to generate a sense of camaraderie, enhance teamwork and encourage an open flow of ideas between colleagues after decades of segregation in booths.

But open-plan offices are actually bad for productivity, allowing workers to be interrupted every three minutes by a range of distractions, a futurologist at BT has warned.

Nicole Millard, an expert in data, analytics and emerging technology, said that large offices were inefficient, especially for introverts who work better when they are not disturbed, and predicted them to soon die out.

Instead, she forecast that employees in future will become "shoulder-bag workers", carrying their offices in backpacks and collaborating in coffee shops - or "coffices".

"Our technology has shrunk so we can literally get our office in a small bag. We don't have to have a desk any more."

Though many firms believe large, open-plan workspaces help collaboration, in fact, unless staff are close "you might as well be in Belgium", said Millard.

"The trouble with open-plan offices is they are a one-size-fits-all model which actually fits nobody," she said at New Scientist Live in London on Monday.

"We're interrupted every three minutes. It takes us between eight and 20 minutes to get back into that thought process. E-mail. We get too much. Meetings, colleagues. It's all distracting.

"Is being switched on making us more productive? The answer is no. The problem of the future is switching off. The big damage is task-switching. You can tell you have been task- switching when you switch off your computer at night and find unsent e-mails still there because you were interrupted.

"So, we will become shoulderbag workers. Our technology has shrunk so we can literally get our office in a small bag."

However, Millard said offices were still important, if only for socialising.

"We need a balance between we and me," she added. - The Daily Telegraph