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Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

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Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#41

Post by jsprogrammer »

gnaritas wrote: post #38
dillon wrote: post #22

I think this has been a discussion going on for a long time now. What I believe to be true is it really depends on the person. If you're someone who is self-conscious then yes you'll feel like everyone is judging you all the time. If you have the ability to stay focused on your work without being around colleagues then you should be allowed to work from home. I've worked in open offices, offices with high partitions…

> When I work from home what's stopping me from opening up news or playing video games? Being an adult. Really, do you require a baby sitter to keep you busy?

Busywork shouldn't be the goal. Busywork is what is given to children when the adults don't want to deal.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#42

Post by hobs »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #29
dgreensp wrote: post #3

Open floorplans are worse than cubicles. Not worse than four people crammed into a sweaty two-person cubicle, but worse than 1-2 people in a cubicle. Significantly, obviously worse. We've gone from half-walls to no walls.

I've recently entertained the heretical thought that cubicles, as much as everyone seems to love to hate them, represent a good compromise between private offices and open floor plans. Particularly when you talk about cubicles with "medium height" walls (around 53", from a little Googling), there's some acoustic and visual privacy from your neighbors, but there's still a good sense of openness. Also, a cubicle provid…

When you add standing desks, 53'' is not enough to stop acoustic abuse from people doing things like concalls.

This happens to me daily and even having conversations with people they still make the same mistakes.

Its not a cynical suspicion, its just about stacking employees like Lincoln Logs to get the cheapest work space with the most people.

Considering the profit that most of these employers are seeing per employee, and given their entire product rests on the brains of these people, it just seems penny smart and pound foolish.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#43

Post by ThrustVectoring »

michaelochurch wrote: post #15
manigandham wrote: post #4

Absolutely agree, especially for think-intensive things like software development where "flow" is so important. Closed offices are marginally more expensive but the productivity improvements massively outweigh the investment. The lack of privacy is just uncomfortable. It always feels like you're being watched, even if you're not.

If the purpose of open-plan offices is to intimidate people into working, they backfire. I fuck around way more in an open-plan office than when I have privacy. There are many reasons for it. The first is that I have a fixed amount of "goofing off" (which is just giving my mind some rest) that I'll do per day. In a private office, it might take 20 minutes and I'm done and back to work. In an open-plan office where I…

Intimidating people into working simply fails if you're hiring the kind of people your company ought to be hiring. The intimidation is a distraction - you get people to focus on the problem of social pressure at work rather than the technical problems they want to work on.

I think a related issue is that putting pressure on subordinates is a thing that managers can point to in order to justify their position. It's a lot harder to mostly stay out of the way.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#44

Post by LoSboccacc »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #32
LoSboccacc wrote: post #6

google is also aiming at recreating the frat environment for their 20-something workforce. apples and oranges. I'd lean more on private space for every team working on a single deliverable, but that's just my preference.

"Deliverable" is one of words that provokes a "nope" reaction from me. I am not a resource that produces deliverables. I am a human being.

you're right, but at some point one needs to describe what a team do - I'm not a native English speaker, and I use what I learned. I accept alternatives, especially if they don't involve a ten word paraphrase of that.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#45

Post by [deleted] »

stevesearer wrote: post #39
fsloth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Open offices lets me be around my colleagues and inspires me to focus on my work and get access to help promptly when I need it. " Actually any co-location scheme allows this, walls or no walls. It's a matter of culture, not of vertical dividers. But I concur, it's a bit over the top to say that "everyone" hates open offices since clearly some people don't. Personally, to me it feels like a quarter suffers, of which…

I run an office design website and I hardly ever see team rooms, which is very surprising and they seem like a good balance between collaborative space and privacy. One of the offices I like to show as an example is Ubiquiti Networks, particularly images 3 and 4 (pardon the link to my own website): http://officesnapshots.com/2014/03/12/ubiquiti-networks-san-...

[deleted]

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#46

Post by fsloth »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21
a_c_s wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I find cubicles to be the worst of both worlds: too spread out for much collaboration with neighbors, but open enough go have nearly all the noise and distraction of an open office.

I find working from home to be the best out of all three choices. I'd never go back to working in an office, cubicles, open office space, whatever. If your business structure is so terrible that you can't manage a remote team, you're probably not that great at managing folks onsite either.

I've learned that for the kind of stuff I do face to face communication next to a whiteboard is the best place to discuss complex technical topics.

Also, co-location does create serendipitous instances of sharing information.

It's not a matter of management. It's about does the organization need the maximum communication bandwidth between individuals possibly from separate teams or not.

If we take for granted that silos are bad, then that leads to the notion that cross-segment communications are good, and the easiest way to have those is co-locate everyone.

There is something lost in organizational potential by not co-locating if the culture is open and encourages individual initiative.

Working remote does have it's values as well, I grant that. I feel I'm much able better to concentrate at home. But I recognize the value face to face communication has as well.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#47

Post by ffn »

This seriously depends on the person. I personally hate having to commute to an office and would much prefer to work remotely from home, but I know plenty of folks who enjoy the social interaction at an open (or closed) work space. Besides, open, close, or remote work place is much more of a personal preference (like preference for different IDEs) than some inherently right or wrong decision a company can make (like decreeing no employee is allowed to become pregnant). So the smart company should leave the choice of whether to work at the open office, in a closed cubicle, or remotely at home up to the employee so that the details of how an employee maximizes his productivity is left to him, instead of handed down from up-top based upon statistical studies. After all, if you as an employer is going to trust your employees to be able to properly optimize your dataflows, innovate new databases techniques, not "drop table users", etc., why not also trust your employees to know what work environment works best for him?

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#48

Post by cthalupa »

I love open offices, but then, everyone on my floor is part of the same team. Yes, I get a lot more walk up traffic from other team members than I did when I had a private office, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If people are looking for my help, they probably need it, and I'm happy to give it.

Some people are just naturally louder, and yeah, it can be a little distracting. It's not without trade offs. But for every time I have to ask someone to quiet down, there's four or five situations where everyone being easily accessible has been a good thing for getting my job done.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#49

Post by dilap »

I've worked in closed-off private offices, and I'm working in an open office right, and there are definitely plusses and minuses to both, IMO. Especially if you're all working on the same product, there is something really nice feeling about being physically around everybody; it creates a sense togetherness.

The noise sucks though, especially for tasks that require full concentration. Headphones and/or earplugs can help a bit, but it's no substitute for a truly tranquil environment. Working from home can help there, but then that's the other extreme of connectedness.

I've pondered a bit if you could have a "no loud conversations" policy (think: like a library), with a bunch of rooms off to the side that could be used for conversations.

Seems like it might give a bit of best of both worlds.

Edit: Also, the open office is made worse by the current stylistic trend of no carpet and shiny hard surfaces everywhere. It looks cool, but it amplifies noise like crazy.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#50

Post by zwily »

fsloth wrote: post #36
dillon wrote: post #22

I think this has been a discussion going on for a long time now. What I believe to be true is it really depends on the person. If you're someone who is self-conscious then yes you'll feel like everyone is judging you all the time. If you have the ability to stay focused on your work without being around colleagues then you should be allowed to work from home. I've worked in open offices, offices with high partitions…

"Open offices lets me be around my colleagues and inspires me to focus on my work and get access to help promptly when I need it. " Actually any co-location scheme allows this, walls or no walls. It's a matter of culture, not of vertical dividers. But I concur, it's a bit over the top to say that "everyone" hates open offices since clearly some people don't. Personally, to me it feels like a quarter suffers, of which…

In my experience, your proportions seem pretty correct. Hard to tell that from this crowd though.
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