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Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

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Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#11

Post by alexgmcm »

formalsystem wrote: post #9

I found open offices to be an incredibly alienating experience, felt about as personal as a a cubicle since everyone is pretty much using headphones and "deep working" and you can't really make much noise since you're disturbing an entire org if you are. My favorite experience was working on a team where the open office was essentially a large office for about 6 people only. That felt great since there was a more com…

The latter one you describe is basically what I had in grad school and it worked really well.

The former is what I have in industry and if I forget my noise cancelling headphones I might as well go home.

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#12

Post by exelius »

I agree that open-plan offices drive the opposite behavior than they are touted to. They make it impossible to have impromptu discussions that have any sensitive aspect to them. I have a lot of those conversations.

I work from home or a coffee shop down the street from my office as a result and almost never even see my coworkers faces.

But the main driver of open-plan offices is usually density / cost. I suspect many of the cost savings of the most recent wave of office design are coming from employees who no longer come into the office because the conditions aren’t conducive to working.

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#13

Post by ende »

fxfan wrote: post #8
docker_up wrote: post #4

I'm probably an outlier, but I love open-office. I've worked in all the different environments over the last 25 years, single office, shared office, cubicle, remote and open office. Open office was weird at first, but I find it much more social. I don't get distracted by noise or movement so that could be a big factor, so I can code without any problems. The least social for me was the single office. I would stay in…

I absolutely detest open offices but what' with downvoting disagreeing opinions? This comment was gray when I typed this comment

The cubicle lobby is the single most powerful force on HN.

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#14

Post by hliyan »

docker_up wrote: post #4

I'm probably an outlier, but I love open-office. I've worked in all the different environments over the last 25 years, single office, shared office, cubicle, remote and open office. Open office was weird at first, but I find it much more social. I don't get distracted by noise or movement so that could be a big factor, so I can code without any problems. The least social for me was the single office. I would stay in…

You truly are an outlier. I immediately started assuming that you might be in a more right-brain role, but realized my mistake when I saw your comment about coding. You're clearly better than I am at focusing...

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#15

Post by kylia »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #5
kylia wrote: post #3

Honestly this article comes as no surprise. I work for a company that not only has an open plan office, but no assigned seating either. It's honestly the worst, mostly because I like to have my own environment at work. I can't bring in my keyboard or any of my other stuff, and as corny as it is i can't even bring in photos to keep at my desk since there's no assigned seating! As much as i like open spaces, i miss at…

This ensures that you know you're nothing more than a lineworker in a digital factory. Open offices are the first half of that, and open desks are the other half. Who does it benefit? The company in cost per person of space. Any other metric applied shows gross inadequacies of open offices.

Yeah, they market it as "even the CEO doesn't have his own office!" Oh, cool, he works from home or is travelling the whole time and doesn't need one.

Maybe i'm just being a baby, but a work desk doesn't feel complete without at least a picture of my dog at it, haha.

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#16

Post by [deleted] »

lqet wrote: post #2

I am not surprised. I was working in an open-plan office for a few years, and I also preferred talking to colleagues sitting only a few meters away via mail. It's incredibly stressful to talk to a person face-to-face knowing that everyone on the team listens to the conversation. Not only do you have to constantly weight and evaluate your sentences, you also have the constant feeling that you are disturbing other team…

[deleted]

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#17

Post by TeMPOraL »

lqet wrote: post #2

I am not surprised. I was working in an open-plan office for a few years, and I also preferred talking to colleagues sitting only a few meters away via mail. It's incredibly stressful to talk to a person face-to-face knowing that everyone on the team listens to the conversation. Not only do you have to constantly weight and evaluate your sentences, you also have the constant feeling that you are disturbing other team…

Totally. At my last $dayjob, we had a group chat for the room, where we would type stuff instead of saying it out loud. This way, conversation only flowed between people who were willing to participate at the moment.

(It didn't work perfectly. Typing is silent, but laughing at what you just read isn't.)

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#18

Post by dijit »

richardhod wrote: post #7
docker_up wrote: post #4

I'm probably an outlier, but I love open-office. I've worked in all the different environments over the last 25 years, single office, shared office, cubicle, remote and open office. Open office was weird at first, but I find it much more social. I don't get distracted by noise or movement so that could be a big factor, so I can code without any problems. The least social for me was the single office. I would stay in…

I disagree with the opinions of this comment, but I'm glad you made your opinion and your experience heard. Even when for most people an open office works worse, for some people it is preferable new people: please don't down vote people just because you disagree.

Chiming in to say I also disagree with the opinion and to make the same request to downvotes==disagree button.

I would like to ask another question though, how does the community feel about people who talk to themselves when they're focused?

I find myself doing that at home a lot when working and I really do perform focused tasks significantly better.

"Aha, this is a bit stupid"

"So, if I move this here it'll be more orthogonal"

"Ah jeez, why did I choose that type!"

I feel like doing this in any kind of open setting is really not ideal but it takes conscious effort to avoid doing it.

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#19

Post by freehunter »

exelius wrote: post #12

I agree that open-plan offices drive the opposite behavior than they are touted to. They make it impossible to have impromptu discussions that have any sensitive aspect to them. I have a lot of those conversations. I work from home or a coffee shop down the street from my office as a result and almost never even see my coworkers faces. But the main driver of open-plan offices is usually density / cost. I suspect many…

>They make it impossible to have impromptu discussions that have any sensitive aspect to them.

The only place I ever worked with an open floor plan, I worked as a security analyst/engineer. Behind me were contracted programmers from various outsourcing firms who could see my screens and hear my conversations when discussing sensitive security issues.

So much time was wasted trying to find an empty conference room for an impromptu discussion about an active security incident.

Re: Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions (2018)

#20

Post by ok_coo »

kylia wrote: post #3

Honestly this article comes as no surprise. I work for a company that not only has an open plan office, but no assigned seating either. It's honestly the worst, mostly because I like to have my own environment at work. I can't bring in my keyboard or any of my other stuff, and as corny as it is i can't even bring in photos to keep at my desk since there's no assigned seating! As much as i like open spaces, i miss at…

I'm not saying you're able to do this at your current workplace, but if I was stuck in this type of situation, I would heavily advocate for the ability to work from home at least 1-2 days a week.

Having worked in an open office like environment before, it was the only way I was able to get a lot of stuff done.

These types of open offices are a deathknell for productivity and great for people who use work as their only social outlet.

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