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

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

#71

Post by the_cat_kittles »

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.

Isn't that just the worst of many possible motivations for an open plan? Others being cost, cohesion, aesthetic, exogenous stuff, etc...

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

#72

Post by geoka9 »

davesims wrote: post #63
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #43

I've worked in every possible configuration, and I've watched teams work in every possible configuration. I don't like open-plan, but it tentatively appears to be most effective for organizations as a whole. Some initial conclusions: - We'd be wise to distinguish what we'd all like to have as an office from what actually functions best in a larger system. It is erroneous to think that simply because you like somethin…

Couldn't agree more. What people complain about is not necessarily an indication of what's not working . My last two gigs have been open-plan, and I prefer it much more than closed-cube spaces. If your team is working as it should, and is in close proximity to project/product management, with a good process and a healthy level of trust between the stakeholders and between the various engineers, then in my experience…

> high-functioning teams tend to thrive on the cross-talk and constant communication that open plan creates organically.

I wonder how programmers in such environments can get in the "zone" and stay in it for extended periods of time, if they are being "constantly communicated with".

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

#73

Post by endianswap »

rohansingh wrote: post #69
endianswap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If you're listening to music through those headphones, it is definitely having an effort on your creativity that you might net appreciate. The Cornell study about this is referenced in Peopleware . I summarized it a few years ago if you don't have a copy handy: http://rohanradio.com/blog/2010/08/12/one-song-on-repeat/

I don't actually need anything playing on the headphones to effectively block out voices, even nearby ones. I compared my HD280s agains active noise-cancelling headphones and the Sennheisers blocked talking much more effectively, because there's that much more material between your ears and the outside world.

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

#74

Post by recursive »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #10

The noise would drive me crazy. Earplugs would not even work with so many phones so close together. How can people program in that environment?

Being one of the apparently rare people that enjoys an open plan work-space, I couldn't tell you what my secret is. I can tell you that the noise does not drive me crazy.

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

#75

Post by srdev »

pullo wrote: post #56
jroseattle wrote: post #40

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 t…

how did you resolve the frustrations of the product management team and other non-engineers who interact with the engineers? can you elaborate?

Since the only frustration seems to be a lack of immediate and instant access to the engineers, I'd imagine that the fix here would be for the product management team to adjust their expectations and communicate better.

Many managers consider frequent communication as being good communication, but more often than not its actually very bad. It is a signal that people are not thinking through what they are trying to communicate. Some trivial barriers, such as a door or forcing people to walk over, are often a good thing, because they force people to evaluate what they are communicating and whether it is worth the effort.

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

#76

Post by doorhammer »

jroseattle wrote: post #40

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 t…

Flexibility resonates heavily with me.

In my current position I have a desk that's in an area that's a bit too social. In a lot of cases social is good for me. It puts me in water-cooler contact with the folks I need to interact with, and I avoid having to send an e-mail which elicits a reply copying the entire org-chart, turning it into a "who can be more formal and professional" contest.

On the other hand, this desk is my desk. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

That doesn't always work.

Sometimes I need to be able to go somewhere and basically disappear into a productivity hole. There's really nowhere to go to do that. I could check out a conference room, but one person stealing a conference room for a workday isn't really going to go over well.

My ideal situation is one where I have a desk or area that's basically mine, and a lot of little corners and holes that I can move around to as needed.

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

#77

Post by SatvikBeri »

kemiller wrote: post #42
SatvikBeri wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is regularly exposed to these types of decisions, I don't think cost is the reason. Everyone recognizes that engineers are more expensive than office space. Private offices result in engineers getting more done but working on the wrong things, or solving problems in slightly the wrong way. The goal is to expose developers to the organization more so they have a stronger sense of what users/customers va…

I've been places that claim exactly that. But if that were really true, then a much more effective way to do that would be to include engineers in the design meetings, the customer feedback sessions, and strategy discussions. In most open plans I've seen, the engineers sit together. That doesn't sound like exposing them to the rest of the business. But I think we're probably in violent agreement here. I like team roo…

We're definitely on the same page. I see a lot of companies frame the choice as binary: open-plan vs. private offices. The most effective methods are usually somewhere in the middle, and depend on the problem & team. Agree that bringing engineers into design/strategy/customer feedback is extremely important and much more effective than just open-plan offices.

When engineering, I personally enjoy spending 11 AM - 4 PM interacting with others and 4 PM - 8 PM locked up in a room working on code. I wish that switching around like that were an option in more offices.

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

#78

Post by michaelochurch »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #26
ryguytilidie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. If we wanted engineers to be most productive, we would give them quiet, private spaces to work. But that is expensive so we put them in open plan arrangements that cost less and pretend that the main reason it's done is higher productivity.

As someone who is regularly exposed to these types of decisions, I don't think cost is the reason. Everyone recognizes that engineers are more expensive than office space. Private offices result in engineers getting more done but working on the wrong things, or solving problems in slightly the wrong way. The goal is to expose developers to the organization more so they have a stronger sense of what users/customers va…

I think it's better to have a culture where engineers naturally feel comfortable leaving their offices.

I worked at a company that had 3:00 tea time, like in academic departments. People drank coffee and played board games, but after half an hour, they were talking about work again and the cross-department communication that was needed would happen organically.

That's a lot better than subjecting engineers to a 24/7 open-plan arrangement that will, after 8 hours at a stretch, wear on a typical person's nerves and health.

I agree with you that 2- or 3-person offices will probably provide enough privacy for most people. Individual offices have their perks, but they do require attention to common spaces and communication to prevent the siloization you talked about.

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

#79

Post by ScottBurson »

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…

Good grief -- you don't need to have ADD to find open environments and interruptions distracting! The vast majority of creative workers need quiet! (A few can focus in any situation, but they are the exceptions.)

I find I have to alternate between focused creative work and more interactive work on a timescale of days to weeks. That is, I spend several days to a few weeks (occasionally 2 or 3 months) where I am more isolated from my teammates, and get some specific development task done. Then I spend a roughly equal amout of time in "interrupt-driven" mode, answering questions from teammates and support people, fixing bugs, testing, and generally doing stuff that needs to get done but doesn't require the same level of isolation and concentration. Moving back and forth between these modes lets me do a reasonable job of both kinds of work. (I don't isolate myself totally in the creative stretches, but I let my email back up, for example, responding to only the truly urgent requests.)

The problem managers have is that their work tends to be almost entirely interrupt-driven, and the exceptions take place in meetings. It's all they know. I don't know what to suggest except maybe to ask them to imagine they were writing a book -- what kind of work environment would they need?

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

#80

Post by kiskis »

michaelochurch wrote: post #78
SatvikBeri wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is regularly exposed to these types of decisions, I don't think cost is the reason. Everyone recognizes that engineers are more expensive than office space. Private offices result in engineers getting more done but working on the wrong things, or solving problems in slightly the wrong way. The goal is to expose developers to the organization more so they have a stronger sense of what users/customers va…

I think it's better to have a culture where engineers naturally feel comfortable leaving their offices. I worked at a company that had 3:00 tea time, like in academic departments. People drank coffee and played board games, but after half an hour, they were talking about work again and the cross-department communication that was needed would happen organically. That's a lot better than subjecting engineers to a 24/7…

off-topic, but aren't you on a voluntary hacker news diet?
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