Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by closeparen » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

madhadron wrote: post #251

dkersten wrote: post #156

The best office I've experienced (but sadly only visited for two week, the branch I worked at had typical open plan garbage) had the building split into sections where along both sides were small single-person offices (large enough that two people could sit at a desk and work, or 3 to 4 people could sit for a meeting) with closing sliding doors. In the space between the two rows of offices was a small amount of hot-d…

I've had this setup in academic environments a few times, and it's wonderful.

Lots of grad student offices are like this. We may have the money, but they have the workspace.

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

#292

Post by caconym_ » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #185

dualboot wrote: post #137

The other side of this is that a very large percentage of folks in our industry seem to have social anxiety-spectrum issues. Folks without those don't seem to understand how much energy is being burned through just being out in the open and on display for all of your coworkers. It's not something I, personally, have control over. The time I've spent in "open concept" work places, I finish every day frustrated with my…

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

I feel invisible and isolated in my open plan office anyway, but also exposed in all the ways that spike my anxiety and keep me from getting work done. It's the worst of both worlds.

I think the former aspect probably has more to do with the job itself than the physical working environment ... it's hard to walk away from what I get paid, but one of these days I'll probably have to.

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

#293

Post by opo » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #281

For me the best thing by far are the extremely rare "team open offices" where you put anywhere between 10-20 people inside that all work on the same type of product. Much better than your team of 10-20 people sitting in a room fitting 400 people.

Those team offices can hurt collaboration and innovation even more than open floor plans. In large companies, the random conversations between people from different teams is often the key to innovation and getting problems solved early. A team room means that to ask a co-worker on another team a simple question or to see what they are working on becomes a big deal because you are entering that other team's space and interrupting a dozen people - unless you really know the other person well, people just are hesitant to do it. In big companies, there usually isn't a problem with communicating within a team - the problems occur when teams aren't communicating with people in other teams.

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

#294

Post by lioeters » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #159

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…

Foucault wouldn't be surprised at all at the prevalence of open-plan offices.

The association of open-plan offices to the Panopticon:

> ..The fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, the inmates are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour.

> ..Foucault used the panopticon as metaphor for the modern disciplinary society in Discipline and Punish.

> He argued that discipline had replaced the pre-modern society of kings, and that the panopticon should not be understood as a building, but as a mechanism of power and a diagram of political technology.

> ..In the landmark surveillance narrative Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), George Orwell said: "there was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment ... you had to live ... in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised."

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

#295

Post by lukethomas » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

ergothus wrote: post #218

Enginerrrd wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

One of my offices, after vocal complaints about the open office plan, did a quick survey. Roughly 50% were fine with the open office plan. (this office was mainly devs, HR, recruiting, and data scientists) As someone that is drained by social interactions (I _like_ them, but afterwards I'm drained, not energized), that is easily distracted by movement, and who can't hear conversations in the background without instin…

A lot of this depends on people on the maker's schedule vs. the manager's schedule.

Or put another way, some people like the office environment because it matches how they communicate and get things done. The office environment is built around the idea of real-time conversations, which can be helpful for collaboration if it's not overused.

With that being said, the office (especially open-offices) take this idea way too far. I just finished a post about it a couple minutes ago: https://www.friday.app/office-vs-remote-distance-communicati...

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

#296

Post by tyurok » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #32

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'm working in an open office now. With few exceptions, every single person wears headphones (presumably noise-canceling) most of the day. Some people (especially me) have video conferences from our desks. For a "hey there" conversation, most teammates have to get up and walk over to someone else... tap them to shake them out of their focus and get them to take their headphones off. Don't think any of us resort to em…

I've worked on an open plan startup and was a slack admin.

90+% of the messages were private, and we had pretty good activity on public channels.

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

#297

Post by musicale » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

At one large company I am aware of they actually asked people what they wanted and the overwhelming response was walled offices with doors, even if they were small. So that's what they built, and it was very popular. Most of them had outward and inward windows with blinds that could be closed, which was also nice.

Unfortunately over time the company shifted to open plan for newer buildings since that enabled them to cram more people into smaller spaces.

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

#298

Post by bobly_today » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:19 PM UTC

I’m personally more productive and happy in open office layouts due to ease of communication and the psychology of a pseudo-computer lab setting. Granted I recognize I’m likely in a minority here. I even came from large personal offices and prefer the open office layout

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

#299

Post by odiroot » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

mgolawala wrote: post #260

Izkata wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a missing stage in his description, that we're having issues with right now: in an open office plan, not having enough seats for everyone.

Standing desks are better for your health anyway.

Not if you have varicose veins.

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

#300

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

ta_4661 wrote: post #282

dualboot wrote: post #137

The other side of this is that a very large percentage of folks in our industry seem to have social anxiety-spectrum issues. Folks without those don't seem to understand how much energy is being burned through just being out in the open and on display for all of your coworkers. It's not something I, personally, have control over. The time I've spent in "open concept" work places, I finish every day frustrated with my…

i've lived with chronic depersonalization and the resultant anxiety which had kept me hamstrung in my one and only job after a couple personal breakthroughs i finally gained the confidence to earn a promotion to my very modest dream role, only to find out a couple months in that we'd be transferring to open plan after the move i almost immediately started experiencing esteem-crumbling health issues caused by the cons…

[deleted]