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Is the open office layout dead?

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Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#181

Post by irishasaurus »

hota_mazi wrote: post #173
throwaway0255 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. And how much does it cost to have your entire engineering team audibly and visually distracted and annoyed 100% of the time? Environmental factors that decrease engineer productivity may not show up on a balance sheet, but the cost is massive. Can you get an engineer an office for less than $40k/year? Then it's…

You're painting open offices in a completely negative light without seeing that they also have upsides. I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible. What's more, a lot of engineers actually voiced a preference for open space plans over individual offices. Cubicles are on the table as an acceptable compromise but…

I don't understand how nobody here can compromise. Build quiet spaces into your office floorplan and eat the cost up front. If you can't afford to provide a place to work quietly for those that want it you can't afford space in that office building. Or you can't afford that number of employees. It's getting ridiculous, If you're going to keep saying it's expensive take the cost from somewhere else, like payroll. Provide a great workspace for your employees and in return you'll get great work. Poor planning upfront is going to cost you so much more on the back end.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#183

Post by cosmie »

Roritharr wrote: post #64
davb wrote: post #7

> No designated desks I hate hot desking. I know it's very subjective but when I come into an office for eight hours a day, five days a week, I like to personalise my workspace. I don't drive, I take public transport and walk, and hate carting my laptop and charger around with me. I want my own space, with meeting rooms and collaboration spaces for when I need those things. I may be alone in saying so, but I'd happil…

We've recently moved into new offices in Frankfurt/Germany and being the CTO of our 40 Person Startup gave me an in-depth look at all the calculations involved. It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. I've fought tooth and nail to keep everyone in small team offices( We've got two small rooms set aside as flex-desks(complete with 2 4K Monitors & Gigabit…

Landlords won't generally let you make structural/material changes to a floorplan without a longterm lease to justify it. However, you can make some pretty snazzy temporary office space that doesn't require permanent modifications to the space using privacy walls and glass partitions[1].

From a structural standpoint, they're basically fancy cubicles, and made by the same companies as standard cubicles. The most damaging thing they do to the structure is mount the tracks for the glass into the floor and ceiling. But that's usually considered normal wear and tear since it's easily fixable on move-out.

From an aesthetics perspective, they're effectively mini offices and can be done very well, making a space look nice and chic and making employees a lot happier. All with what amounts to some fancy cubicles.

[1]http://spaceplus.com/products/glass-office-partitions/

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#184

Post by lazerwalker »

hota_mazi wrote: post #178
concede_pluto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a face-to-face conversation is important, one of us will spend two minutes finding a good time and booking a meeting. If it's an emergency, my team has a pagerduty rotation. Showing up at my desk is not the best way to do anything.

That's adding a lot of paperwork and process for something that should be done in a few minutes. You're excessively reducing productivity if you require each face to face to require a meeting booking.

I think both sides here have a point.

One argument: For many kinds of knowledge work, unnecessary unplanned distractions are a huge drain on productivity. Tapping someone on the shoulder is far more damaging than sending them a message they can reply to asynchronously, even if you're defining expected response time in minutes rather than hours. If there's something that really does require face-to-face time, great, plan a meeting.

Another argument: face-to-face communication is so much higher bandwidth than voice or text chat that it's worth prioritizing. Tapping someone on the shoulder and hashing something out over two minutes can save an hour of online back-and-forth.

Both of these are totally true! It's really about how an individual, and a team, work together best. To me, the frustration is that most modern team environments tend to implicitly choose the latter value system without it being a conscious choice.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#185

Post by michaelmrose »

jaggederest wrote: post #54
sundvor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own personal U3415W for my Visual Studio programming. I have brought it up in interviews, if any issues to my bringing it in. (At home I have the Acer X34 Predator. The Dell came first; when I realised how good it was for programming I knew I needed one at work.)

I use an X34 at home, aside from quality issues (needed a warantee repair after 6 weeks, nontrivial shipping and hassle), it's a fantastic monitor for every task. I've never understood the tendency towards multiple monitors over one larger monitor.

Its easier to independently change the workspace running on a secondary monitor than it is to rearrange individual applications.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#186

Post by concede_pluto »

lazerwalker wrote: post #184
hota_mazi wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's adding a lot of paperwork and process for something that should be done in a few minutes. You're excessively reducing productivity if you require each face to face to require a meeting booking.

I think both sides here have a point. One argument: For many kinds of knowledge work, unnecessary unplanned distractions are a huge drain on productivity. Tapping someone on the shoulder is far more damaging than sending them a message they can reply to asynchronously, even if you're defining expected response time in minutes rather than hours. If there's something that really does require face-to-face time, great, p…

> hashing something out over two minutes can save an hour of online back-and-forth

I should hope so, since the cost of a two-minute conversation is at least one engineer-hour for two people to each get back into the zone and start being useful.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#187

Post by gardnr »

sqldba wrote: post #165
emerged wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?

It depends on the cubicle. Having a partial back wall, and being able to personalise it, are all better than open plans. The taller the walls the more it's like a mini office.

I need a wall in front of me. It's really distracting to have things move in my peripheral vision while trying to focus on a screen. I just built a wall out of monitors and cabinets to block out the front of my desk and wear noise cancelling headphones.

I still get way more work done at home.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#188

Post by chrisper »

gargarplex wrote: post #179

I rented a private office in Manhattan for $900/month. i.e., <10% of my salary. This is a no-brainer... Why not just rent each individual engineer a private office? Why the need to own the office space? Company identity/"cult"ure?

You can't seriously expect me to also rent my own office space as an employee. What is next? Have to buy my own gear out of my own money? The very reason I am an employee of a company and not self-employed is to not have to worry about these things.

Unless you can somehow provide each employee an additional budget. But what I have seen so far is that that "extra" budget comes out of the pay roll.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#189

Post by [deleted] »

hota_mazi wrote: post #176
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company How do you quantify the loss in productivity and quality that could be associated with a noisy work environment?

It's quantified, along with the gains from ease of access to everyone and the increased communications and social geling of everyone. Individual offices are simply not worth it, financially, culturally and physically.

[deleted]

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#190

Post by djsumdog »

rhizome wrote: post #115
emerged wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?

Compared to open plan? Absolutely. Even half-walls are better.

I find even half walls to be as bad as open layouts.

I hated the cube for years until 2012 when I had my first open workspace job. It was a small shop and space was limited. The next two shops I worked at were also in open floor plan layouts. At least with the most recent one I could work from home 3 to 4 days out of the week.

I have to admit, I started to miss the cube. I don't want to see other people pick their noses. I don't want other people to see me pick my nose if I'm not thinking about it. I hate having another person in my peripheral.

In both cubes and open work spaces, I wear headphones for most of the day. Sometimes the music is paused but I keep them on anyway. Music is really the only thing that keeps me sane in IT jobs.

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