Space and workplace design have a decisive influence on health, well-being and performance: disturbances or interruptions in work due to conversations between colleagues or "quiet noise" are one of the causes of the increasing psychological stress in the office. Despite the fact that office buildings are designed in accordance with standards, they often do not meet the requirements of modern workplaces - because standards generally only guarantee a minimum quality. At the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, research projects are constantly being carried out to quantify the potential of acoustic disturbances in offices and to develop solutions together with industrial partners that enable employees to work happier, healthier and more productively. Which disturbances particularly affect employees at work and how can they be prevented by technological, room-acoustic and organisational measures? Some selected research projects of the Fraunhofer IBP will be presented in this lecture.