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

inc.com

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

#81

Post by JoeAltmaier »

notduncansmith wrote: post #79

I work in an open office environment. I never thought I’d say this, but it works excellently; there’s always energy in the air, collaboration is easy, and it’s a great space to hold company all-hands meetings. I’d say there are 4 keys to making this work: 1) The founders have a great sense of aesthetic and our office is a beautiful space as a result (also stays very clean), meaning it stays less stressful and promote…

My job is 'focus time' 95% of the day. So I need to monopolize on of those office spaces. Hey! Just put a sign on the door - Joe's Office. And we're back to closed offices.

It all depends on the job.

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

#82

Post by acd »

Totally agree.

IT and other staff needs peace and quiet to concentrate to be productive. People interact less in open plan offices and tend to put on head phones to silence the noise. Since you produce less in open plan offices yes they are not smart.

Also there is link to noise pulltion and overall health. Open Office spaces will be more noisy than private offices. https://www.pac-intl.com/pdf/NoisePollutionTakesTollonHealth...

Plus you are more likely to get sick in an open office, for example if you neighbor sneezes. "Compared to cellular offices, occupants in 2-person offices had 50% more days of sickness absence [rate ratio (RR) 1.50, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.13–1.98], occupants in 3–6-person offices had 36% more days of sickness absence (RR 1.36, 95% CI 1.08–1.73), and occupants in open-plan offices (>6 persons) had 62% more days of sickness absence (RR 1.62, 95% CI 1.30–2.02)."

Link to study https://www.sjweh.fi/show_abstract.php?abstract_id=3167

https://www.rivier.edu/academics/blog-posts/the-price-of-col...

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

#83

Post by olau »

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.

Compared to the salary of skilled workers, it isn't really that much.

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

#84

Post by RivieraKid »

For me the problem is not really distractions (I don't care if people interrupt me from time to time, in fact I like it). My problem is the mental strain that stems from lack of privacy, the knowledge that people can see me and my monitor all the time, it's like there's a background process in my mind that checks whether what I want to do (move a lot in my chair, comment on HN, eat something) is ok with people around me. And this constant monitoring and self-control is tiring.

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

#85

Post by amalcon »

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…

You would message and email more because you can't just turn your chair around to chat about something you are working on. If you do that, you kill the productivity of a dozen other people while you have that chat, and get them mad at you as a bonus.

I remember one office design where they had these tables placed between desks faced back to back, on the theory that people would use those tables for collaborative work. Instead, the tables just became oversized bookshelves. People couldn't have a conversation over them because conversations make noise.

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

#86

Post by ken »

rrauenza wrote: post #4

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

No, that's just another public rationale. Programmer salaries are much more expensive than even private offices.

In a past life, when I wrote software for a living, I would ask my managers how much it cost, so I could pay out of pocket for my own private office. In every case, when pressed, they admitted it wasn't about the money at all. They just needed me to be a Team Player.

It wasn't even about built-out cost. The private offices already existed, and were sitting empty, in anticipation of future sales team growth -- even though I don't think we were hiring for that yet. Everyone on the business side always got a private office. Come to think of it, I don't remember ever hearing management try to explain why the sales team apparently didn't need to be team players.

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

#87

Post by 0xffff2 »

notduncansmith wrote: post #79

I work in an open office environment. I never thought I’d say this, but it works excellently; there’s always energy in the air, collaboration is easy, and it’s a great space to hold company all-hands meetings. I’d say there are 4 keys to making this work: 1) The founders have a great sense of aesthetic and our office is a beautiful space as a result (also stays very clean), meaning it stays less stressful and promote…

>There is Sonos in both open-office areas and people are pretty good about not hogging it or playing obnoxious/too-loud music

If my only choices were working in this office and homelessness, I would honest to go choose homelessness.

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

#88

Post by dmitriid »

LanceH wrote: post #44
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.

Most of what we call agile today is processes for the sake of processes and waterfalls in disguise.

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

#89

Post by cycop »

jackfoxy wrote: post #34

35+ years in the IT workforce here. Yep, dumbest idea ever. The vast majority of my office time was in cubicles, which are pretty good. Usually enough privacy to get things done. I did have a glassed-in private office for about a year at one company. That was productivity heaven. In retrospect I was dumb to leave that company when I did, but they started demolishing offices for cubicles about 2 years later. It is all…

Damn .... this is exactly my story as well ... moved to working from home for the last 3 years and when I do go into the office nothing gets done. Open-Plan 250 people straight line of sight to them all, nightmare for being productive.

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

#90

Post by onion2k »

acd wrote: post #82

Totally agree. IT and other staff needs peace and quiet to concentrate to be productive. People interact less in open plan offices and tend to put on head phones to silence the noise. Since you produce less in open plan offices yes they are not smart. Also there is link to noise pulltion and overall health. Open Office spaces will be more noisy than private offices. https://www.pac-intl.com/pdf/NoisePollutionTakesTol…

IT and other staff needs peace and quiet to concentrate to be productive.

I'm not disputing that open plan offices are unproductive, but if you run a company it's just much cheaper to have an open plan office. In many places in the worls rent is high enough for more complex layouts that it would be cheaper to have a few extra junior staff than to have a different office structure.

While it could definitely be less productive, it might actually be more profitable to have an open layout.

This doesn't really explain why companies that build their own offices stick to open plan, but it's definitely the reason for small companies.

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