Unfortunately our office is small and open-plan. We have around 20 employees squeezed in and for the most part everyone just gets on and does their job.

However, one department has a group who never shut up. Rarely is their talk work-related, generally it's just chitchat about nothing in particular. I get that socialising at work is a good thing, I talk to everyone about my weekend etc. but then I get on with my work.

Sometimes this group talks about work which makes sense, it's more efficient than talking via slack but it almost always descends in to banter. They seem unable to appreciate a comfortable silence. Yesterday we had silence for 30 minutes as two of the group were away and the third member got uncomfortable saying it felt like a library. They attempted to start random conversations with other team members.

I've raised this issue with my manager and he agrees that it's a problem and he'll raise with the CEO. I guess this is all I can do?

Is there anything else I can do? I'm tempted to message/chat to them one to one and ask them to keep it down but this will probably lead to an awkward relationship.