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Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#71

Post by zebraflask »

geff82 wrote: post #23

Just a personal observation: when I first moved into a giant-open plan office in 2015 in a big German company, I got significantly more sick. It was horror. Also, bathrooms were unusually crowded, probably helping spread diseases. Since then, it seems my body got a bit used to it and I am sick less often. But is is still more than the times before. What might also increase days that people are not there: at least in…

This fits with my experience. My department has some cubicle farms and some shared but much more private office suites. The cube farm people are always getting sick. Somebody comes in with a cough and promptly spreads it. It then can take weeks before there's a week without somebody sick.

Getting people to stay home when they are sick has been harder to implement than you'd think. I've tried with my work team. A number of the developers are from cultures that have what I would call a very stubborn "must work at all costs" mentality. It can take some persuasion (berating?) to get some of them to see that taking a sick day doesn't make them a "bad worker," but showing up sick, getting other people sick, and pushing buggy code because they're sick does.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#72

Post by damontal »

maxxxxx wrote: post #61
ElectronShak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy Yeah, I too think this could explain it better. Say a work day is 8 hours, ideally, you cannot work on the same thing for 8 hours. But an open-plan office forces you to do this, or pretend to, because you are being "watched"...and this can be exhausting. A cellular office plan, gives you the privacy to relax, and maybe do…

"An open-office plan encourages collaboration" They always say that but from my observation this is simply not true.

2nd day in our new open office and I'm trying to work while 2 guys are having a catch with a football over my head.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#73

Post by fizgig »

sheepmullet wrote: post #70
ghaff wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it's mostly worked to my personal advantage, I generally loathe the combined PTO plan that's the current style. It's somewhat understandable from an employer's perspective--time you're not working is time you're not working and they don't need to potentially police abuses of sick time--but I still don't like it. "Sorry kids. We can't take that family vacation this year because daddy caught that bad flu last…

I find combined PTO is great as long as you have enough of it. I get 35 days PTO and I don't have a problem taking a day off when I'm sick. Now if I only had 15 days PTO....

Yeah, if I had that much I'd be much less conservative for sure. You work for a European company or do you just have clout to ask for that much?

Compounding this is the fact that I can only carry over 5 days per year, so at most I can only use 20 days in a calendar year). In a few years my PTO gets a bump to 20 days a year.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#74

Post by ghaff »

sheepmullet wrote: post #70
ghaff wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it's mostly worked to my personal advantage, I generally loathe the combined PTO plan that's the current style. It's somewhat understandable from an employer's perspective--time you're not working is time you're not working and they don't need to potentially police abuses of sick time--but I still don't like it. "Sorry kids. We can't take that family vacation this year because daddy caught that bad flu last…

I find combined PTO is great as long as you have enough of it. I get 35 days PTO and I don't have a problem taking a day off when I'm sick. Now if I only had 15 days PTO....

That is indeed a nice chunk of time. I wouldn't have any issue in that case either. I can't really complain too much about mine but 15 days is basically just middling vacation time for a mid-career US professional with no sick/personal time on top of it.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#75

Post by aedron »

brightfog wrote: post #41

I don't think it's about open-offices or not: Work environments just don't reflect work anymore. There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office. There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.

No remote working solution comes close to in-person collaboration, in my opinion. I can explain someone something in probably less than half the time in person than over some electronic link-up.

I'm not sure what it is (lack of body language? Lack of shared physical presence and tools?) or if it can be remedied by better technical solutions (it's possible), but it's the reality right now.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#76

Post by katastic »

make3 wrote: post #42
sjcsjc wrote: post #34

It would be interesting, but perhaps not terribly useful, to see how sickness absence varies between contract and permanent staff. In the past, when contracting, I have dragged myself to work when feeling dreadful.

that's funny, at work (a large, well known & appreciated software company) contract workers take pride in coming to work at 11h+ or just not coming in unless really required

That sounds a lot more like people who are trying super hard to become full-time workers.

That the situation one of my college buddies (and all his fellow contractors) endured for a couple years. They did everything the normal workers did, but since they were technically "contractors" in title, everyone treated them like second-class citizens. (Caveat: Major japanese company--but still in the USA.)

If that's not the case with yours, I'm glad they're not in the same situation. My friend eventually moved up to one of the top contracters and still couldn't get into the company proper so he had to seek employment elsewhere.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#77

Post by brightfog »

aedron wrote: post #75
brightfog wrote: post #41

I don't think it's about open-offices or not: Work environments just don't reflect work anymore. There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office. There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.

No remote working solution comes close to in-person collaboration, in my opinion. I can explain someone something in probably less than half the time in person than over some electronic link-up. I'm not sure what it is (lack of body language? Lack of shared physical presence and tools?) or if it can be remedied by better technical solutions (it's possible), but it's the reality right now.

Yes and no. You can build great working relationships in the office but also remotely. You can have really bad conflicts in the office but also remotely.

I think the difference is that once you got attached to some people from your work that the motivation to see and talk to them is one key driver to work for the company every day. This attachemnt might develop faster in an office environment.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#78

Post by gourou »

brightfog wrote: post #77
aedron wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No remote working solution comes close to in-person collaboration, in my opinion. I can explain someone something in probably less than half the time in person than over some electronic link-up. I'm not sure what it is (lack of body language? Lack of shared physical presence and tools?) or if it can be remedied by better technical solutions (it's possible), but it's the reality right now.

Yes and no. You can build great working relationships in the office but also remotely. You can have really bad conflicts in the office but also remotely. I think the difference is that once you got attached to some people from your work that the motivation to see and talk to them is one key driver to work for the company every day. This attachemnt might develop faster in an office environment.

Nothings beats a white board for explaining something

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#79

Post by louprado »

PSA of the day: With practice you can learn to delay your sneeze by a second or two. That gives you time exhale all the air from your lungs so the sneeze has minimal power[1].

Tilt your head down too and with further practice you can learn to open your throat in order to minimize air velocity.

[1] Source: me, a former obnoxiously loud sneezer that always dismissed it as an unavoidable and comical physiological quirk because I am too big and manly to sneeze quietly. It isn't, it wasn't, and I'm not.

edit: added a step.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#80

Post by p-funk »

brightfog wrote: post #41

I don't think it's about open-offices or not: Work environments just don't reflect work anymore. There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office. There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.

You can be a knowledge worker and have a job that involves working on physical product / working with equipment you can't take home with you.
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