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Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

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Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#41

Post by lxcfan »

t-writescode wrote: post #13
rgblambda wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never really worked in a cubicle (once had a mid tower PC and dual monitors acting as partitions to the front and left) but wouldn't an advantage of an open plan office over a cubicle be that you can see your manager walking towards you from a mile off and be able to quickly look like you're working.

These issues sound a lot like managers not trusting employees to get work done, which sounds like a bigger issue.

This, but, for both sides.

Managers should trust their employees to get stuff done, and not micromanage their time. Employees should get stuff done whether their managers are watching their every move or not, and, trust their managers to not be micromanaging their time. We both need to create a trustworthy relationship.

I have no sympathy for employees who do not do work without being forced to any more than I do for bosses who want to micromanage every minute of employee time or every website they visit. You're both hurting all of us.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#42

Post by WhompingWindows »

monkeynotes wrote: post #7

I am not sure why employees would message and email more if they can just turn their chair around to chat about something they are working on. Does anyone have experience of this? I have worked in open plan offices since 1999 and I've never experienced productivity problems. If anything I'd expect working in a cube would lead to more time wasted cruising websites since your screen is more obscured. I dunno, I've only…

I worked in an open-office for a year and my experience there was pretty bad. I was in a deep-work, heavy focus department sandwiched between two walking paths (we called our desks "Review Island") and literally anyone in the company including CEO could walk within 2 feet of you when they headed for coffee or water. So, you're on edge, your peripheral vision is a ton of people walking by. Then, the two departments next to us were very collaborative, they involved a lot of conversations...and yet, they also hated the open-office.

People want to have conversations when they want to; at other times, they want silence. I think there was an effect where no one wanted to interrupt others' silence, so they just emailed or chatted when a simple walk-over-and-chat would suffice...if we had had more space and more individuals with offices, I think a lot more productive collaboration would've occurred.

So, in summary, the noise/distraction was already so bad, we didn't want to make it worse.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#43

Post by rcthompson »

tannerc wrote: post #9

Not every solution will solve every problem for every person. Some people thrive in open environments, some don’t. Some people need accidental encounters to propel innovative change, some don’t. To say these types of cultures are “dumb” (or even the opposite) is akin saying “peanut butter is the worst possible thing you could ever eat!” just because you’re allergic to it.

The OP's point is that open plan offices don't even encourage things they claim to encourage, like those "accidental encounters" that may be helpful for some people. In an open-plan office, everyone ends up avoiding in-person interaction because of how distracting it can be to those around them.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#44

Post by LanceH »

agentultra wrote: post #21

More than Agile? Snark aside, I have a personal office and I love it. I don't like to listen to constant noise/music to cancel out the other noise/music. I like being able to have private calls without all of the noise in the background. If I'm working on something particularly difficult I like closing my door and having peace and quiet. I also enjoy the sense of ownership and prestige. It's nice feeling like I matte…

I understand you're joking about Agile, but the previous holy path was waterfall, which was a hideously expensive way to get to failure.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#46

Post by idiot900 »

venantius wrote: post #2

This article is from 2018 and gets posted pretty regularly. I happen to agree with its core thesis but I'm not sure we get anything out of having it on the front page again.

Those new to the site in the past couple years may not have seen it before.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#47

Post by abawany »

I was reading "Bloomberg by Bloomberg" over the weekend and I thought his opinion on the topic was relevant since I believe Bloomberg was one of the first major workplaces that placed everyone in tight open-office type environments. My understanding of his opinion on the topic was: yes there are distractions but you also learn new things. Fundamentally I think there is considerable misunderstanding between people who subscribe to the above view and people (like me) who see considerable personal performance improvements when allowed to work distraction-free. It is not clear to me that "concentration spaces" and etc. are a solution/concession since IME most of the time they are filled with people on phone meetings; even if you find an empty one, you will still hear the people next to you due to the thin walls and the necessary loudness. Edit: the relevant part in the book was at page 163 for my edition in the chapter "Management 101".

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#48

Post by Androider »

monkeynotes wrote: post #7

I am not sure why employees would message and email more if they can just turn their chair around to chat about something they are working on. Does anyone have experience of this? I have worked in open plan offices since 1999 and I've never experienced productivity problems. If anything I'd expect working in a cube would lead to more time wasted cruising websites since your screen is more obscured. I dunno, I've only…

Simple, when you go visit someone in a private office you can close the door and have a long conversation about your topic and really hash out the details. If you turn around and start blabbering to one of your teammates in an open office plan, everyone within hearing distance will want to murder you. If you're not aware of this, I guarantee everyone within 30 feet of you is already wearing headphones and hates you.

So now you have to coordinate on Slack to go to one of the shared team meeting rooms instead. At that point you might as well have your conversation in Slack, even if the person is sitting right next to you. And that's the state of open offices today, co-located but void of any actual collaboration.

I've worked in single person offices, 2-3 person offices and open offices. 2-3 person offices where everyone works on the same thing is the best, by far. Remote work is the new private office, not quite as good as a 2-3 person office, but infinitely better than an open office.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#49

Post by commandlinefan »

ryandrake wrote: post #35
agentultra wrote: post #21

More than Agile? Snark aside, I have a personal office and I love it. I don't like to listen to constant noise/music to cancel out the other noise/music. I like being able to have private calls without all of the noise in the background. If I'm working on something particularly difficult I like closing my door and having peace and quiet. I also enjoy the sense of ownership and prestige. It's nice feeling like I matte…

Just to get the alternate view out there too: I had an office once with a door that closed. As an extrovert it was awful. I felt lonely all day. The only way to get any human contact besides email and text was to leave and go walk the halls or find some common area. I ended up pretty much never using it and instead worked from the break room. From time to time they’d give me an officemate to share the office, but the…

As a thought experiment, imagine that a company offered each employee a choice - a private work area or a cacophonous open bullpen. You and I both know that 90% of the employees would choose the private work areas, and all five of you “extroverts” would move into the open area. What we have is an extremely tiny minority forcing their preferences on everybody else, not caring much about the negative impact. Of course, we also all know that open offices are about surveillance and saving a few dollars (on paper) and not about collaboration anyway.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#50

Post by whatsmyusername »

achow wrote: post #37

> The Harvard study, by contrast, undercuts the entire premise that justifies the fad. And that leaves companies with only one justification for moving to an open plan office: less floor space, and therefore a lower rent. From beginning this was the reason - because when planning for the office the cost difference between open/close office would show up in the Excel files - loss of productivity no Excel or Project Mg…

Yep, and I've used those arguments to justify working from home permanently before.

Last time I just found out when the bean counters were coming around and worked from home the days they were in the office. When the plan came out and they hadn't figure out a slot for me I just told them I work from home and started doing it full time. Problem solved.

Caveat: It helped we were an acquisition. Roles and norms were very in flux. I'd done work in other areas to pass off all my onsite responsibilities to the purchaser.

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