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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

#51

Post by bachmeier »

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…

> Just to get the alternate view out there too

This always comes up in these discussions. Extroverts say they prefer the open office format because they can talk to others. That's nice and all, but shouldn't you be working rather than satisfying your desire to talk to others? (The same goes for workers not in an open office not playing on HN all day.)

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

#52

Post by collyw »

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…

The best situation I had was two in an office (it was an academic institution just being started and there was plently of space at the time).

One other person means company if you both want to chat, and generally silence when you need to get stuff done.

As the institute grew I think they squeezed 5 people into tHe same office. Which meant random informal meetings appearing frequently. My productivity plumeted.

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

#53

Post by brianpayne2 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #6
rrauenza wrote: post #4

Isn't increasing workspace density the real reason this is done with collaboration just used as the public rationale?

Pretty much. Real estate is expensive.

I was talking with a friend who works at a company HQ'd in NYC and he said that the average cost per person/desk was over 60k/yr. It was a lot higher than I was expecting.

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

#54

Post by commandlinefan »

ergothus wrote: post #38
LeSaucy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally I am sure that the decision makers would love to hear about your concerns, in their closed offices.

Another trend I've seen is "our CEO/VP sits in the same open floor plan" ...except they are actually in meetings 90% of the time, and may even have a dedicated meeting room (which is just an office by another name). Actually hours at their open floor plan desk are easily in the single digits per week, of not per month.

> actually in meetings 90% of the time

Or working from their home office. Which isn't an option for the common people.

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

#57

Post by collyw »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #6
rrauenza wrote: post #4

Isn't increasing workspace density the real reason this is done with collaboration just used as the public rationale?

Pretty much. Real estate is expensive.

So is developer time. You would think someone would try and cost the difference in productivity drop (maybe they did already).

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

#58

Post by raindropm »

and here I am, at my newly renovate office with gasp open plan. We have some cliché things like table tennis desk, rock climbing space(that no one have a time to climb, of course) and garden plot with fresh vegetable(just for show off at new office opening day), that HR staff told us that employee can plant their own after that(good luck with that) Everything about it screams pretentious and dumb.

What's better, we have a meeting room that decorate like a kitchen, with no door and the wall that is not rise to the ceiling, if you know what I mean. The noise level comes from that 'meeting room' is just unbearable. The worst meeting room design I've seen in my life.

The only thing I can do is put on my trusty noise-cancelling headphones, thanks god for this miraculous technology in this noisy world.

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

#59

Post by bluGill »

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…

If you have an office environment you should NEVER have an open office policy. The extroverts who like interaction/interruptions won't be in their office in the first place, while those who hate it need their door closed.

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

#60

Post by commandlinefan »

joncrane wrote: post #14
joegahona wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recently went from a personal office to an open plan and find the new situation devoid of merit. Noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones are a must, and phone calls are impossible. Since meeting rooms are minimal, that's an issue too. I've done a handful of meetings in my car.

Are you looking for a new job?

Even if he was, it’s a waste of time - even if the company started out with sane working conditions, they’ll eventually switch over to an open office because it saves 2% of the operating budget (on paper).
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