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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

#101

Post by 0xffff2 »

montagg wrote: post #16
Mikeb85 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. Real estate is expensive.

I’d be really curious how much of a hit to people’s salary they would be willing to take, or the reduced capabilities of their business, to get an open office environment. I worked with an internal team that created a brand new office for a decently-sized tech company. We had this exact debate: open or closed. We explored closed, or versions of it (see Spotify’s team rooms as a great example of a compromise), but the…

My example is skewed because I also really enjoy my work, but I fully intend to stay in my current position for the rest of my career because I have a real office with a door. I work in Silicon Valley and just cracked 6 figures in total compensation this year. By far the biggest reason that I have no interest in considering moving is the seeming impossibility of getting a cubicle, much less an office, anywhere else. So empirically, I will give up anywhere from ~50k-200k to do work I enjoy in an office with a door.

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

#102

Post by habosa »

There are definitely problems with the open office but one thing I can say is that there is truly a different energy to the office when it's open and people can chat spontaneously. Some of my best projects have started this way, as have all my office friendships.

I'd definitely get more heads-down work done in a private office setting. However in that setting I'd mostly be annoyed I couldn't just work from my home office, since I'd be commuting to spend 80%+ of my time alone anyway.

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

#103

Post by raindropm »

slumdev wrote: post #66
raindropm wrote: post #58

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 h…

> The only thing I can do is put on my trusty noise-cancelling headphones That's not literally the only thing you could do. You could quit. I'll never again make the mistake of hiring on somewhere without first seeing the working environment. Too many times...

> That's not literally the only thing you could do. You could quit.

Well, that's one big choice to make haha.

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

#104

Post by notduncansmith »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #81
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.

Definitely! There are some dedicated offices for those who need them as well. It’s just the support and dev teams that have open offices. Both of those teams do a lot of informal communicating internally and externally so it’s nice for them (I’m on the dev team and do a mix of focus work and communication).

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

#105

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

RivieraKid wrote: post #84

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…

This is very common even when people have no sense of needing to “hide” what’s on their screen... it’s just a natural fight vs flight human impulse to he worried about who is walking around in your space.

Even worse for the large fraction of the population who are introverts.

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

#107

Post by thisisnico »

ksd482 wrote: post #77

I am a millennial (born in '88) and I would LOVE to have a cubicle. My first job was at Cisco in San Jose, California which had cubicles. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the corporate environment with cubicles. I loved my cubicle. Like you said: just enough privacy to get things done. People would come by only if absolutely necessary otherwise they would mind their own business. Having cubicles also preven…

Millennial here, Working in IT (Support and Development). I work for a company that had existed for over 50 years, they gave me a dedicated office, The productivity increase is incredible, I'm reluctant to ever change jobs because I'd lose my office and become thrown into the pile of people in the center of an office (Hell).

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

#109

Post by phonon »

brianpayne2 wrote: post #53
Mikeb85 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No way...a nice sized cubicle is 100 sqft, and Class A rents in Manhattan are under $100/sqft/y. So the actual office space is something like $10,000 or less per year.

Of course there is other overhead, but space itself is in that range. So the max savings, in the most expensive market in the US, is under $10k per year.

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

#110

Post by 0xffff2 »

ken wrote: post #86
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. Th…

I am in no way advocating for open offices in any circumstance, but one common complaint I've heard from open-office dwellers is how they sit right next to the sales team who are always on their phones.
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