Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
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Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
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Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#2>An open plan workplace, in which enclosed rooms are eschewed in favour of partitioned or non-partitioned desks arranged around a large room, are supposed to promote interaction between workers and boost teamwork.
Instead, everyone's too busy maintaining social facades for the entirety of their day, day after day, rather than focusing on their work.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#3From the "who would have guessed" files. Open plan has never been about the workers -- its about the managers and cost.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#4From the "who would have guessed" files. Open plan has never been about the workers -- its about the managers and cost.
What, you have a problem working in a cafeteria?
You know, not everybody is young and cool enough for this lifestyle..
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#5My ideal environment allows for free and spontaneous clustering of small groups of developers in spaces that have some noise blocking partitions between clusters.
You get a good balance of people sitting together to work on things while not being distracted by dozens of others in the same office.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#6And yet, despite all the studies and data, these things continue to spread like a plague through the corporate world.
...because it makes upper management feel good to keep the peons in a bullpen.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#7I guess I should be saying "it's hard to argue with the numbers," and yet my temptation is precisely to argue against the numbers at least for my job (programming for a tech company). I just don't understand what I would be doing in my own office, other than wasting space and spending more time leaving my office to find coprogrammers I have questions for.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#8And yet, despite all the studies and data, these things continue to spread like a plague through the corporate world. ...because it makes upper management feel good to keep the peons in a bullpen.
Have you ever priced cubicle panels and hardware? How about erecting walls and doors? There's a secondary benefit here.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#9And yet, despite all the studies and data, these things continue to spread like a plague through the corporate world. ...because it makes upper management feel good to keep the peons in a bullpen.
Have you ever priced cubicle panels and hardware? How about erecting walls and doors? There's a secondary benefit here.
Telecommuting.
Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
#10You know, I've never worked in nor seen an office that wasn't "bullpit" style with people grouped onto many desks.
Maybe this is just NZ. Is having your entire development team each having their own private office something that actually happens in America (bar the amazing fantasy land that Spolsky's office sounds like).
Also, it's worth mentioning that this is just a survey, and just addresses how people "feel", not efficiency or anything like that. My ideal "work" environment (i.e. a beach) doesn't necessarily line up with my most productive.