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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

#51

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

fishtoaster wrote: post #18

I don't think open offices are necessarily bad, but that they're harder to get right. What you need is: - A a decent cultural protocol around it. One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. Another place I worked at strongly respected headphones as the "don't bother me" signal. - A reasonable nu…

I worked in one of these places where we were expected to do real engineering work, but with an overhead loudspeaker paging system for incoming sales and service calls. "Bong, Rick Line 1, Bong Dale Line 6" Those were the days... (not really).

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#52

Post by simplexion »

This study does not look at actual productivity. It is very hard to measure productivity in a study though. Does anyone have any links to open plan vs. offices for developers (actual studies)? Considering you can in some way measure productivity for developers.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#53

Post by nikatwork »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26
jyrkesh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you implement all of that perfectly, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having an open office? (I.e. to stimulate more spontaneous collaboration)

The main purpose of open offices is to save on real estate costs, stimulating more spontaneous collaboration is just a flimsy excuse.

Partitions can still be installed between the work pods to provide a measure of privacy. Many of the open-plan offices I've seen have no partitions, the only thing between you and everyone else is a computer monitor. It's insane.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#54

Post by simplexion »

jacques_chester wrote: post #44
saosebastiao wrote: post #37

I love my open plan office because it is open plan for my team, but still has walls between us and other teams. It definitely facilitates collaboration. I think the holy grail of offices would be to let you choose at any time where you want to work...grabbing an isolated office some times and being in an open area at others.

As I recall, Microsoft designed X-shaped buildings with shared spaces towards the middle. Every developer has a private office with "a door that shuts". They all have a view that doesn't look into another office. When they need to work alone, they can work alone. Each office is large enough that a second person can come in and work alongside them, whiteboard together etc. Social areas are placed towards the centre of…

Where's the evidence for these claims though? I know Joel Spolsky makes the argument about "A door that shuts" but it's purely anecdotal. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#55

Post by mbell »

sudomal wrote: post #19
joezydeco wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever priced cubicle panels and hardware? How about erecting walls and doors? There's a secondary benefit here.

It's worth noting that modern offices often have the ability to place walls wherever their clients need them to be. That said, they are no better than cubicles because they have virtually no sound isolation.

Worked in the office acoustics world for awhile including coding a simulation for acoustics within both cubicle environments and private office to private office environments:

The most important sound paths in most office spaces are refraction ( low cubicle walls may as well not be there, just because you can't see your neighbor over a 48" cubicle wall doesn't mean that wall in contributing much of anything to sound isolation ) and reflection ( hard walls, cheap ceiling tiles, ceiling air vents with open air returns, etc ).

"Movable Walls" vary widely in their absorption profile, as do ceiling tiles. In both cases high quality models are fine. Most issues with movable walls had nothing to do with their absorption profile but rather poor installation/fitting causing 1/4" air gaps around the edges creating a perfect refraction and / or reflection path for sound.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#56

Post by jacques_chester »

simplexion wrote: post #54
jacques_chester wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall, Microsoft designed X-shaped buildings with shared spaces towards the middle. Every developer has a private office with "a door that shuts". They all have a view that doesn't look into another office. When they need to work alone, they can work alone. Each office is large enough that a second person can come in and work alongside them, whiteboard together etc. Social areas are placed towards the centre of…

Where's the evidence for these claims though? I know Joel Spolsky makes the argument about "A door that shuts" but it's purely anecdotal. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html

It seems that the X-shape exists as described, though not for all buildings:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ImageGallery/ImageDetails...

Some buildings aren't strictly cross-shaped but still use right-angled wings for a similar effect:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ImageGallery/ImageDetails...

Compare STL/SVL:

http://www.nfbcal.org/~anordley/IBM/Air/SVL/

IBM published a paper on STL/SVL in 1978; I haven't gotten around to piercing the IEEE paywall to read it yet: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumb...

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#57

Post by Domenic_S »

jacques_chester wrote: post #40
aimhb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. A little bit off topic, but I too have experienced this, and I have to say, it's awful for productivity, team building, and team assimilation. As a new hire, I would send my mentor a question and it might be ten minutes to fifty minutes before I woul…

This isn't really a feature of the environment, except accidentally. What's really at stake here is striking the balance between the short term cost of integrating a new team member and the long term cost of failing to integrate them well.

I sat next to my very first technical mentor for a few years, and he had no compunction about holding up a finger and saying "hang on" curtly when I'd start to ask something. If you all agree that it isn't rude in this context, I think that reaction can help. I do it myself occasionally and usually can keep about 80-90% of my flow.

Try doing that to your wife on work-from-home days at your own peril.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#58

Post by Domenic_S »

debt wrote: post #25
aspensmonster wrote: post #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.

My lord this is truth. I don't care what you did yesterday, what you're doing tonight, what you're doing this weekend, why you're wearing what you're wearing, who got you that thing, when you got in, when you leave, why you hate brad, why you hate brad but love donna, why donna's nice but you'd prefer to be home studying. did you get an extra $30 deducted from your paycheck? doesn't that suck? it only takes me 20 min…

> what you did yesterday, what you're doing tonight

Good Lord, now we're doing social-life standups. Agile really has taken over.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#59

Post by johnward »

nilkn wrote: post #12

It's increasingly becoming evident how ineffective offices can be as workplaces, especially in light of better and better communication for developers over the internet. Obviously this isn't true for all places and all cultures, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't frequently question my basic physical presence in the office sometimes. It is common for me to not talk to a single coworker about work throughout the day.…

I often question this as well and I work remotely most of the time. I go in once or twice a week because I feel guilty. there are certainly days that I go into the office and don't talk to anyone other than the occasional "hey, how are you". To the op it off I drive into the office to connect to a customers vpn to do remote work for them.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#60

Post by baddox »

biot wrote: post #17
baddox wrote: post #7

I 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.

That you have to spend a lot of time with other programmers asking questions raises another question: why is this? If the other programmers were better able to concentrate and churn out specs/documentation for their work that you could consult at your leisure, would there be as much need for constantly interrupting each other with questions? If you had all the information you needed at your fingertips, why couldn't y…

For one thing, the context is self-reported employee satisfaction, not team productivity. Even if you could somehow find a measure of productivity that many people would agree to, I'm skeptical that the results would support the idea you have presented.
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