Discussion with supervisor in shared office distracts coworkers - what to do?

Question

My supervisor rather often (every 1-2 days) comes to my (shared) office to discuss results with me, and these discussions can last up to 1h each. Recently my co-worker has addressed that these discussions are distracting her a lot and she can't concentrate.
I'm fully understanding of how this is annoying for her, but I am a bit of a loss about what I can to do help her with this, or whether she has just to accept this.

• Discussing in a meeting room / empty office is not an option typically since we are working at the PC where we need specific software installed.
• Toning down our voices is not an option or going to help.
• Moving discussions to my supervisor's office is done whenever possible, but he is also sharing with a co-worker on his rank level and thus we all agree that my office is preferable when both spaces are occupied.

I have tried explaining that I am not in a situation that I can change much as far as I can tell (and the points above concerned) and ultimately my colleague has already / will soon ask for a transfer to another office (on friendly terms with me I hope).

I want to be as conducive to a good work environment to everyone who is sharing the office space with me (surely someone else would move in with me eventually, space is limited). So ...

• What else could I do to avoid the disturbance to my co-workers?
• Does my co-worker rather need to accept the discussions every now and then as they are part of the workplace routine?

I have not yet addressed this to my supervisor, since I can't place / evaluate the issue yet (thus seeking help here). Since I am profiting a lot from our discussions (we are getting good work done and I am hoping to be able to benefit from it for my own career), I fear that bringing it up might reduce our interaction.

Answer 1

I think that in the future, you will need to address this issue anyway. You cannot expect people to work in a noisy environment.

A couple of things you can do

• Get laptops with the software
• Get meeting rooms with the specific software installed
• Go to the office of your boss, which is most likely isolated.

But most important, talk about it. Talk to your boss, have a team meeting addressing the issue and how it can be resolved. You cannot expect your collegue to solve her issue with the noise, the noise itself should be addressed

Answer 2

My supervisor rather often (every 1-2 days) comes to my (shared) office to discuss results with me, and these discussions can last up to 1h each. Recently my co-worker has addressed that these discussions are distracting her a lot and she can't concentrate.

Ultimately the only thing you need to do is raise this with your supervisor - it's then up to him to fix the issue. You don't need to go straight to him with a solution (though if you can think of one to suggest, there's nothing wrong with that.)

In terms of another suggestion of a solution though, could you alter your lunch breaks to have this meeting while she's at lunch?