Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by phillmv » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

yajoe wrote: post #65

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…

Peopleware is among the best books about teams that I encourage all aspiring managers to read. One point to emphasize is why the authors believe individual offices work: quiet . There is a story about about a programming competition, and in the narrative programmers in quiet spaces performed better than their peers, even controlling for experience and skill. Back then there weren't headphones or django (I kid, I kid!…

I went and visited a friend at the New York Times building last year. Between TV and my own experience working around writers, I expected it to be a busy and loud environment as I walked into the beautiful ENORMOUS OPEN FLOORS that building seems to consist of.

They had a made the best hack of all time in my opinion: everyone worked in dead silence. I was around a hundred people but you could hear a pin drop and I quickly felt uncomfortable chatting with my friend using my normal speaking voice.

THAT I think is how you do it. Just culturally enforce total and utter respect for the environment. Don't take phone calls. Don't chat loudly around people's desks. Focus on your own work.

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

#102

Post by kabdib » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

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…

Valve has desks on wheels. Want to move? Just move; unplug your computer, roll your desk to your new spot, plug back in. The IT folks have it set up so that your location is automatically updated so people can find you.

This makes it incredibly easy to put yourself next to the people you're actually working with. It tends to cut down on interruptions (you're not stuck in a room working on feature X while there are other people working on features Y and Z).

Flexibility and freedom are wonderful. Of course, you have to be able to trust people to not abuse it; it might be difficult to implement this in an existing large company, though you might get away with it in a smallish division.

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

#103

Post by uxp » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

geoka9 wrote: post #72

davesims wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I'm in a team that benefits from an open space and frequent chair swivel initiated conversations. Thankfully my chair has wheels and my laptop a headphone jack because it's not terribly difficult to go sit in a corner.

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

#104

Post by codeonfire » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

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…

Thanks, I listened to this excerpt. In my opinion this focus on "be open" is just blather that manifests from peoples desire to be in control. The course doesn't really say how an open floor plan relates to being open, or how to precisely define being open. It's one of those autonomous statements that people come up with to justify their desires. It's like 'be green'. Also, WTF is visibility. Is there business value in being able to see people typing at a computer. This is blind stupidity brought on by bad motives.

So the seating arrangement is not for engineer productivity, nor is the benefit of higher openness and visibility for engineers. How exactly is this better for the company? maybe for a few middle managers who themselves who aren't qualified to be engineers but want to get credit for the work being done. To me, it seems like it's only to prevent engineer led projects from getting wings before the non-engineers have set themselves up to take the credit.

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

#105

Post by reeses » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #102

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…

Valve has desks on wheels. Want to move? Just move; unplug your computer, roll your desk to your new spot, plug back in. The IT folks have it set up so that your location is automatically updated so people can find you. This makes it incredibly easy to put yourself next to the people you're actually working with. It tends to cut down on interruptions (you're not stuck in a room working on feature X while there are ot…

Interesting. How do they track it? Is it based on physical network drop or another method? Or is it just "Go into this room. If you can't find them, call out their name and admit you're a moron?"

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

#106

Post by rumcajz » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

Once I was renting an office of my own. Recently, I have moved to work from local library. I consider it 100% improvement in working conditions.

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

#107

Post by codeonfire » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

pbiggar wrote: post #25

I gave a talk on this topic [1], and about 60% of the audience was cheering and totally for this. But I got a small number of people coming up afterwards and saying they much preferred open plan. So I think there's definitely a downside: developers enjoy work less because it's less social, and less collaborate. I think overall the benefit is there though. Does anyone know how much it costs to have private offices all…

There are people that want to collaborate with other people of the same skill level. But the majority of people that want to collaborate just don't know what they are doing and can't do their jobs. If people want a more social and collaborative job, maybe they shouldn't choose software developer as a career.

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

#108

Post by reeses » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:56 PM UTC

greghinch wrote: post #47

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…

Ultimately, in my experience, it always seems to come down to "how do we keep the non-technical people from meddling with the engineers?" This is as much about org structure as it is office layout

This is one of the lessons from Peopleware. It's not so much noise in the background but noise unrelated to the job duties. Being in a room of developers usually has less impact than having marketing, sales, etc. collocated as well.

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

#109

Post by vibrolax » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:58 PM UTC

jquery wrote: post #87

ghotli wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Careful. Daily use of in-ear headphones can lead to impacted ear wax. Your hearing will gradually degrade until you can't understand people at all. Then one morning you wake up and realize you're deaf and you make a trip to the doctor where they pull out a block of ear wax the size of a lozenge and just as hard. Happened to me twice before I ditched using in-ear headphones at work.

I have been prone to cerumen (earwax) buildup my entire adult life, regardless of whether I wore in-ear, sealed, open-air phones, or nothing at all. In my early twenties, a doctor showed me how to remove it using a small piece of alcohol-moistened cotton plucked from a cotton ball twisted onto a flat toothpick. He said commercial cotton swabs were too large and the cotton was packed too hard for the task. While his advice goes against the prime directive to never put any object in your ear canal, I have never hurt myself. A gentle self-cleansing in the outer canal every two weeks keeps things clear. Without this, I'd be in the doctor's office getting flushed 3 or 4 times a year. I wouldn't advise anyone to do this without a doctor's recommendation and training.

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

#110

Post by flomo » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

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…

In my experience, exactly the opposite can happen and open-plan offices can discourage a lot of that cross-talk and casual discussion. The last two I've worked in had an almost library-like atmosphere.

In a quiet environment, people tend to be discouraged from being the only ones talking and being listened in on, and instead scurry off into the meeting rooms or manager offices. Others put on the headphones and go totally 'heads-down'. Communications end up being more closed and 'formal'.