Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study • Hacker News Board

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#391

Post by flukus » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:32 PM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #128

moron4hire wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, but it's really more that we didn't know just how bad it could get. Cubicle farms were "soul crushing", because they came about from the same management practices that eventually led to open-floor plans: treating people as cost centers rather than people, micromanaging measurable real-estate costs at the expense of unmeasurable productivity. And while one can theoretically make good s…

You know what, if I'm going to be downvoted for an opinion, it should at least earn it: Too bad open offices are here to stay, if you were worth it you could get an office, maybe invest in some good headphones :)

> if you were worth it you could get an office

Well I'm not good enough to demand an office, but I like to think I'm on the upper half of the talent scale and when I'm job hunting I can be somewhat selective. The office style is one of my selection criteria, so companies with open plan offices are putting themselves at a disadvantage. It wont show up on a balance sheet but it will hurt them in the long run.

Typically companies with open plan offices have more "quirks" sending people away.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#392

Post by LordFast » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

techsupporter wrote: post #304

LordFast wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now I can hear my neighbor upstairs walking around on the hardwood floors all of our apartments have with his hard-soled shoes like he's been doing for the past hour, the traffic outside because apparently density should only exist next to busy arterials in the city where I live, planes loudly going overhead because the cloud ceiling is lower and they're taking a more direct route to the airport, and now the…

> so the benefits of having a city is rapidly diminishing. To be 100% clear, I still love living in the dense city where I do and I have no plans on moving away from it. But I don't think employers have yet figured out that taking away the quiet(er?) spots at work does a lot of harm because it means loss of hours of quiet. I also readily admit that a good chunk of this is on me. I am increasingly a curmudgeon, probab…

Ahh, gotcha. Sorry for misunderstanding your point.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#393

Post by johannes1234321 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #185

dualboot wrote: post #137

The other side of this is that a very large percentage of folks in our industry seem to have social anxiety-spectrum issues. Folks without those don't seem to understand how much energy is being burned through just being out in the open and on display for all of your coworkers. It's not something I, personally, have control over. The time I've spent in "open concept" work places, I finish every day frustrated with my…

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

The small group - if they work at least on related things - can be valuable. Those huge areas of desk next to desk as in modern "startup" (in quotes since it includes Facebook etc.) open offices are a way different story, though.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#394

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:40 PM UTC

leto_ii wrote: post #377

Since I started following HN I've seen these types of articles being posted with some regularity. The findings usually point in the same direction and the press write-up always tries to come up with explanations for why companies decide to do open space offices, how these were thought to improve collaboration etc. At my previous job I have worked for 4 years exclusively in an open space, sometimes even with hot-deski…

> as long as employees (and especially those in tech) do not collectively demand some changes

If my employer has a procedure that reduces the productivity of everybody that they hire, why should I care? It does not reduce my competitivity, and my salary is set by the market, not by any single employer.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#395

Post by devmunchies » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:40 PM UTC

anthony_barker wrote: post #98

IBM did some productivity study in the 70s. Top productivity was 2 people in an office. I had one of those IBM offices back in the day. Great for IT productivity.

What do you do about gas? I work remote in my own rented space and I can let one RIP without thinking about it. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPP... PFFFFFTTtt...

I can't imagine its comfortable holding it in until you use the bathroom.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#396

Post by LordFast » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #340

LordFast wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now I can hear my neighbor upstairs walking around on the hardwood floors all of our apartments have with his hard-soled shoes like he's been doing for the past hour, the traffic outside because apparently density should only exist next to busy arterials in the city where I live, planes loudly going overhead because the cloud ceiling is lower and they're taking a more direct route to the airport, and now the…

It'll be interesting to see if SpaceX's Starlink LEO internet service will spur remote workers to spread out even further into places like Montana. We've already had to deal with some remote workers relocating to developing countries and in one case, even an active warzone, without telling the company first.

Remote work is still challenging though. The nature of not being able to get person-to-person time (regardless of how good video calls get) will always remain a challenge in its own right.

The space issue is fundamental: there just aren't that much space around cities as they stand today. The only pragmatic solutions are:

1) Build up. Everyone wants to live in these areas, so build as tall of buildings as possible and just spread out upwards. Doesn't solve the personal office problem though since Tokyo is super dense but I don't think anybody has a private office?

2) Build new cities. America is big, and there is still plenty of space left to build. But it looks to me like a combination of power-law economics, plus locale desirability, and political willingness to invest into infrastructure is pushing most ordinary people right back into the clutches of 1).

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#397

Post by jackfoxy » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #62

jackfoxy wrote: post #34

35+ years in the IT workforce here. Yep, dumbest idea ever. The vast majority of my office time was in cubicles, which are pretty good. Usually enough privacy to get things done. I did have a glassed-in private office for about a year at one company. That was productivity heaven. In retrospect I was dumb to leave that company when I did, but they started demolishing offices for cubicles about 2 years later. It is all…

> The vast majority of my office time was in cubicles, which are pretty good. I remember watching "Office Space" circa 2000 and it looked pretty soul crushing, and working in pre-FAANG big tech around 2006, it felt very mechanical and depressing. I get your gripes, but I think some is also rosy retrospection.

Of course we compared cubicles to private offices back when there were still cubicle farms and found them "soul crushing".

The leap to open floor plans was a whole other level. It's like plotting soul crushing on a log scale.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#398

Post by dijit » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #389

dkersten wrote: post #156

The best office I've experienced (but sadly only visited for two week, the branch I worked at had typical open plan garbage) had the building split into sections where along both sides were small single-person offices (large enough that two people could sit at a desk and work, or 3 to 4 people could sit for a meeting) with closing sliding doors. In the space between the two rows of offices was a small amount of hot-d…

I'm currently at an office where some of it is arranged that way but some others are perhaps more hybrid into open-office arrangements that will works pretty well: +------------+-----------+ D D | DD DD DD | DD DD DD | WWWWWWWW DD | W BBBB | W W BBBB | W W DD | W W DD DD | W W DD DD | +------------------------+ The open end is towards 'the rest' of the office, the W are walls, the B is a block that makes the rest see…

I love this sharing.

I'll share mine:

    +---+--------+------------------------+------------+
    |   |   **** | STORE *** DD  DD  D DD | DD DD *****|
    | K |    ___  \______*** DD  DD    DD | DD DD *****|
    |   |    DD \            DD  D     DD | DD DD      |
    |   |                                    D D       |
    |___| DD DD DD  DDD  +---+D DD DD DD  | DD DD DD DD|
    | M | DD DD DD       | M |D DD    DD  | DD    DD DD|
    |   | DD DD DD  DDD  |   |D DD DD DD  | DD DD DD DD|
    +-------------------------------------+------------+

D = Desk, M= Meeting room(s), K=Kitchen. *=elevator/toilets

Nowhere to go for peace time. I figure this is the most common setup.

(those desks in the aisle are facing inwards, so you can walk behind the people at them)

This is one of the other floors (this is from a promotional video, so it's what the company _wants_ to portray): https://i.imgur.com/4CkI4AI.png

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#399

Post by clarry » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #60

joncrane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you looking for a new job?

Even if he was, it’s a waste of time - even if the company started out with sane working conditions, they’ll eventually switch over to an open office because it saves 2% of the operating budget (on paper).

Remote. They can't take my apartment and my private office innit away.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#400

Post by clarry » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #388

cmsonger wrote: post #376

For the first time in a VERY long career, I joined Google a few years ago, which is an open office company. The thing I noticed in the first week: Everyone avoided eye contact all the time. The thing I noted after six months: I'd learned to avoid eye contact at all times. So I'm kind of not surprised. It was counter intuitive to me that open office was less social; but personal experience suggests that open office is…

I've been working remote and i don't remember this. Is it because you don't want people to talk to you? Kind of like avoiding eye contact with someone who is going to ask you for money?

If you pay attention to people at all, it has a potential to distract you from whatever work you're trying to focus on, every time. If you're in a space where you have people moving about and coming and going in and out of your field of view, you need to learn to pay no attention so that you don't get distracted all the time. The best way is to focus on the screen in front of you and avoid making accidental eye contact with people.