Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 234 posts

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#31

Post by ghotli »

endianswap wrote: post #27
mcphilip wrote: post #14

I really struggle to get in the 'zone' where I can do the creative aspects of software engineering (e.g. researching graph databases like neo4j and determining if our startup can benefit from it) when I'm in an open environment. I have been diagnosed with ADD for the past 8 years, but am working towards a medication free approach to dealing with it. Open spaces really hurt my productivity because my mind naturally tr…

I hate to sound like I'm trivializing your disorder, but have you tried a good pair of closed-ear headphones? I sit in a room of 40 or 50 chatty computer folks, and everything is silent when I put on my Sennheiser headphones. It lets be effectively choose whether or not I want to be distracted by sound, which I do sometimes (hearing conversations I want to be a part of it quite important to me).

http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/d...

Those effectively eliminate auditory ADD in an open environment. Nothing has been more effective than these for me.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#32

Post by zwily »

drstewart wrote: post #24

I feel like I'm the only one that feels this way, but I far prefer open plan. I used to work at somewhere that had offices for everyone and I hated it. Maybe it's more productive, but it makes going to work hell since you don't see anyone the entire day. I much prefer having a more social environment where you can actually talk to people. And good open plan offices will give you nooks and crannies to get away from th…

Yeah, we're definitely the minority. I used to be an office fan, and after having one for several years, am enjoying being back in an open plan.

There are definitely downsides to both.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#33

Post by pvnick »

michaelochurch wrote: post #23
akurilin wrote: post #6

As an interesting example, the people in charge at Facebook seem to be well aware of the downsides of open plan offices. They however consciously choose to lower engineer productivity in exchange for higher openness and visibility. It's actually refreshing how they don't try to pass it as "much better for the developer". It's better for the company as a whole, not so much for the individual: http://ecorner.stanford.e…

Open plan is all about the brogrammer macho bullshit. The idea is that if you can't deal with 10+ hours of being on edge due to vertigo-inducing noise and open-back visibility, you're too old/lazy/weak to write code. It's total nonsense and the sooner that attitude dies, the better.

I agree with this. It carries with it a bit of a sense of youthful superiority, and leads countless kids to waste away their twenties all to make someone else rich.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#34

Post by shaggyfrog »

calpaterson wrote: post #2

This topic is discussed at length in Peopleware: http://www.librarything.com/work/17188 "If your organization is anything like those studied in our last three annual surveys, the environmental trend is toward less privacy, less dedicated space and more noise. Of course the obvious reason for this is cost. A penny saved on the workspace is a penny earned on the bottom line, or so the logic goes. Those who make such a…

> The book was first published in 1987 and apparently has not been very influential.

You think that's bad? Brooks first published The Mythical Man-Month in 1975 and I don't think those lessons have ever sunk in, either.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#35

Post by gcr »

endianswap wrote: post #27
mcphilip wrote: post #14

I really struggle to get in the 'zone' where I can do the creative aspects of software engineering (e.g. researching graph databases like neo4j and determining if our startup can benefit from it) when I'm in an open environment. I have been diagnosed with ADD for the past 8 years, but am working towards a medication free approach to dealing with it. Open spaces really hurt my productivity because my mind naturally tr…

I hate to sound like I'm trivializing your disorder, but have you tried a good pair of closed-ear headphones? I sit in a room of 40 or 50 chatty computer folks, and everything is silent when I put on my Sennheiser headphones. It lets be effectively choose whether or not I want to be distracted by sound, which I do sometimes (hearing conversations I want to be a part of it quite important to me).

Is it common for employers to restrict the use of headphones in an open workspace? I imagine that some bosses might feel that headphones "dampen the synergy," or whatever language they use.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#36

Post by kemiller »

endianswap wrote: post #27
mcphilip wrote: post #14

I really struggle to get in the 'zone' where I can do the creative aspects of software engineering (e.g. researching graph databases like neo4j and determining if our startup can benefit from it) when I'm in an open environment. I have been diagnosed with ADD for the past 8 years, but am working towards a medication free approach to dealing with it. Open spaces really hurt my productivity because my mind naturally tr…

I hate to sound like I'm trivializing your disorder, but have you tried a good pair of closed-ear headphones? I sit in a room of 40 or 50 chatty computer folks, and everything is silent when I put on my Sennheiser headphones. It lets be effectively choose whether or not I want to be distracted by sound, which I do sometimes (hearing conversations I want to be a part of it quite important to me).

Not just about auditory stimuli, it's also visual "noise".

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#37

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Water wet, sky blue, Pope Catholic, Bear excrement in forested areas

Knowledge workers of the past who have had money and power work in quiet campus colleges or oasis of calm like Londons Lincoln's Inn or Temple.

No power or influence - and work in chicken farms.

There is an advantage - for companies willing to put in the effort to make a sane work environment, to grow and support honesty and team support - well it's like being give. A free extra lap on the business marathon.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#38

Post by suman_nandan »

I believe it is very difficult to get works done in an open plan office. That seems too distraction prone. Noise cancellation headphones can get useful only if accompanied by an extended hood to guard vision to the screen. So that the programmer does not get distracted by any human movement nearby.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#39

Post by lmg643 »

Cushman wrote: post #5
calpaterson wrote: post #2

This topic is discussed at length in Peopleware: http://www.librarything.com/work/17188 "If your organization is anything like those studied in our last three annual surveys, the environmental trend is toward less privacy, less dedicated space and more noise. Of course the obvious reason for this is cost. A penny saved on the workspace is a penny earned on the bottom line, or so the logic goes. Those who make such a…

> "Those who make such a judgement are guilty of performing a cost/benefit study without the benefit of studying the benefit." Sounds like the last forty years of mainstream corporate policy in a nutshell.

Joel Spolsky has written extensively about peopleware:

"Ever wonder why everybody at Microsoft gets their own office, with walls and a door that shuts? It's in there. Why do managers give so much leeway to their teams to get things done? That's in there too. Why are there so many jelled SWAT teams at Microsoft that are remarkably productive? Mainly because Bill Gates has built a company full of managers who read Peopleware."

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navlinks/fog0000000262.html

It does make you wonder what the future of facebook, with the world's largest open plan office, versus microsoft, which is now viewed as everyone's version of techno-corpor-bureaucratic hell. Are office plans destiny? TBD.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#40

Post by jroseattle »

Anyone who has worked in enough office environments for a while will recognize that the "best" environment is a flexible one. Sometimes it's working in the open, sometimes a quiet office with the door closed, sometimes at home or a coffee shop.

When I took a mgmt role as VP/Engnring at a firm a few years ago, the first thing I did was assess and address morale, which was not good. One of the obvious things was that the staff didn't like the militaristic-layout of desks, being on display to others in the organization who had cozy and private retreats to use.

The CEO freaked out when I told him we were moving to the opposite side of the office floor (we had a full floor in a standard big-city downtown office building). When we moved over, we had our choice of cubes, open areas (not desks, but full-on tables) and quiet corners. Product management hated it because they "had to walk over to see what was going on". It didn't take a lot to figure out the source of frustration with the office environment for the engineering team. After that, I was able to take on the frustrations of the product management group since they could no longer easily impact the engineering team.

As it turned out, the engineering team didn't mind working in any combination of those situations, as long as they could kind of pick-and-choose over time. And, wouldn't you know it, productivity went up -- considerably.

Post reply on HN