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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

#401

Post by popotamonga »

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…

A couple of high-end screen privacy filters paid by me of course, solved the problem 100%. Stress levels went way down

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

#402

Post by chadcmulligan »

mc32 wrote: post #209
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…

Pretty much all you say I agree with. Open offices are a psychological tool to control workers. All privacy is removed. This allows them to impose their will on you. In exchange they get reduced productivity but they don’t seem to care about that as much as control over their staff.

Indeed, I also feel its a closed loop, you only get managers who want to be in total control, which tightens the loop, and we end up with daily stand ups in a battery cage under continuous surveillance.

It gets worse at the lower end of the food chain (e.g. call centres) - even toilet breaks are monitored. Strangely though in the same places there is often a lot of down time because calls are bursty, so watching youtube is permitted (friends of my daughters talk). We are indeed in the strangest timeline.

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

#403

Post by lliamander »

anthonypasq wrote: post #356
lliamander wrote: post #212

One of the biggest things I miss not being in a cubicle is that I no longer have my own whiteboard. Without whiteboard space, you hamstring a developers ability to think and to communicate with others.

there is this revolutionary technology called paper that still exists

Ah excellent! Glad to know the invention of the whiteboard was completely superfluous.

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

#404

Post by lliamander »

anthonypasq wrote: post #356
lliamander wrote: post #212

One of the biggest things I miss not being in a cubicle is that I no longer have my own whiteboard. Without whiteboard space, you hamstring a developers ability to think and to communicate with others.

there is this revolutionary technology called paper that still exists

You know, I tried it[1], but it's still got some kinks to work out.

[1]https://www.dropbox.com/paper

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

#405

Post by dijit »

marcosdumay wrote: post #394
leto_ii wrote: post #377

Since I started following HN I've seen these types of articles being posted with some regularity. The findings usually point in the same direction and the press write-up always tries to come up with explanations for why companies decide to do open space offices, how these were thought to improve collaboration etc. At my previous job I have worked for 4 years exclusively in an open space, sometimes even with hot-deski…

> as long as employees (and especially those in tech) do not collectively demand some changes If my employer has a procedure that reduces the productivity of everybody that they hire, why should I care? It does not reduce my competitivity, and my salary is set by the market, not by any single employer.

I think the parent gave a good example of how it affected him long term. And I have to say the experience is mirrored with me. My attention span is not even 1/10th what it was when I started in this industry (where I had a team-office), and I don't think it would return very quickly if ever.

There could be other factors, for sure, but your brain is a muscle, if you do not exercise it (focus) then it will atrophy.

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

#406

Post by 0xff00ffee »

opo wrote: post #302
0xff00ffee wrote: post #241

'fad'? 30+ years working in cube farms for major Semiconductor and Operating System companies. (cough shmintel cough cough microshmoft ) They ain't going away. Why? Because offices with doors are extremely expensive compared to wide-open spaces. It isn't going away.

>...Because offices with doors are extremely expensive compared to wide-open spaces. No not really. In the bay area (and likely lots of other places), the costs of employee salary, benefits, etc are a lot more than the costs for rent.

I said compared to wide open spaces, not compared to employee costs.

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

#407

Post by tylerjwilk00 »

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…

I'll second this. You only have so much mental energy and focus. Managing your self image in a room full of others is wasteful and exhausting.

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

#409

Post by JohnFen »

mirimir wrote: post #361
JohnFen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a huge part of craft is communication, and open offices are great for that. But they aren't great for that. For most people, they're the opposite. That's the point the article is making, and the article agrees with what I've personally observed.

I've never worked in one, unless I count schoolrooms. But I can imagine that I'd be so jumpy and angry that I'd refuse to talk with anyone. And that I'd wear humongous headphones, and blast death metal or whatever.

The dynamic in the spaces that I worked was that all of the devs want to be respectful of the other devs. Part of what that means is that you want to avoid making noise. The result is that speaking is kept to the bare minimum.

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

#410

Post by tylerjwilk00 »

LordFast wrote: post #396
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see if SpaceX's Starlink LEO internet service will spur remote workers to spread out even further into places like Montana. We've already had to deal with some remote workers relocating to developing countries and in one case, even an active warzone, without telling the company first.

Remote work is still challenging though. The nature of not being able to get person-to-person time (regardless of how good video calls get) will always remain a challenge in its own right. The space issue is fundamental: there just aren't that much space around cities as they stand today. The only pragmatic solutions are: 1) Build up. Everyone wants to live in these areas, so build as tall of buildings as possible an…

> Remote work is still challenging though. The nature of not being able to get person-to-person time (regardless of how good video calls get) will always remain a challenge in its own right.

Even as a remote worker, I used to think this was true.

I no longer believe this is the case.

In remote video calls each human is like an augmented cyborg integrated with their computer and the internet.

The nature of IRL meetings tend to disrupt the augmentation aspect. Above a certain number of people perhaps augmentation becomes more obstacle then advantage though.

The above is anecdotal and your experience may differ.

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