Once accustomed to working in home office in your PJs, it's very hard to contemplate going back to commuting to, parking at, and working in a noisy, stinky office.
...right until you have kids ;)
The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
61–70 of 237 posts
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#62>Now, about 70 percent of U.S. offices have no or low partitions, according to the International Facility Management Association. I'd really like to see how they define "office"
All of our managers have private offices thankfully. While seems like elitist at least we don't have to listen to them be constantly on phone meetings all day long. At one place with an open office they wanted to move our group between the CEO and the sales team. Where on one hand we couldn't say anything but had to listen to everything.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#63I am automating my noisy colleagues out of existence. I automate the bits of their jobs they need to talk about with better customer service delivered in the process. The meetings they need to have nowadays have far fewer bullet points on the list as so much has been automated out of existence.
Some managers who manage no people have to do reports for other managers, they badger people for data and then their final work - the report only goes up the chain. All of this activity can be removed if the report is fully automated and cc'd to everyone in the team. That day a month (or days) doing reporting now gone. Then make all those things that needed to be reported on not need to be reported on by automating even more. Reduce human tasks to simple yes/no approval buttons.
User experience matters too, reduce the need for anyone to call by making sure the website has the information they need, sure in the knowledge they will look there first.
A good ticketing system also helps, try and get other teams using the same tools with simple forms for the wider company to submit problems that need fixing in such a way that all useful information is given, e.g. dates, codes...
In my experience it has not been a problem automating large chunks of work or backward processes, once the changeover had been made it then seems a ludicrous idea to go back to the old way, plus the staff resources have gone.
Admin jobs can be automated in such a way that the computer does all the required filtering before sending an email on to whomever needs the information.
Depending on your product, whole sales teams can be eradicated with a really good B2B site.
Managers with staff can also be made surplus if they no longer have teams of people to manage. Whole mini-empires can also be bypassed by the computer doing the reporting and sending it out democratically, without manager input.
So, if you want a less bothersome office and are prepared to put in the required work to get things automated then you can eradicate whole swathes of surplus people. This is never really as miserable as it seems, automation is necessary to scale that aspect of the business and those 'surplus' people can move up the value chain if they want. Also, if the business grows (because it can) then the remainder of their work that cannot be automated will grow to become full time skilled, pro-active work, not reactive or mundane dogsbody work.
In this way I think you can transform an office of lousy noisy timewasters into something more like a university library... (I often whether the noisy people in the office are the ones that never sat in university lectures).
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#64Despite what every open office critic says, it's very possible to be productive at work in an environment that is not designed to meet their very exacting needs. You're not painting the Mona Lisa, you're working on some app or spreadsheet. It's called work for a reason. Learn to make do.
It tells me that you're not a valued professional, you're a line worker. There can't possibly be any reason why you'd need privacy to have difficult conversations or focus on important tasks.
My open office has a conference room for meetings. Otherwise I just focus at my desk. I manage to make do.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#65I think we've lost the war. I was even asked to meet with my company's architects and designers about a new space we were building out. I basically spent an hour telling them in every different form I could that what I wanted was a place I could go where people could find me, but they would have to knock on a door and open it to talk to me, and these people looked at me like I was from fucking Mars. They'd never hear…
Sounds like you need to check office environment during your interview. Some places still are good.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#66I have never read as many "open offices are bad" and "why I like working in trains/restaurants/coffee shops" as in the past 2 years, it baffles me a bit. It also suggests that there is some correlation between bad employers and open office spaces, but the latter isn't the real issue.
People who work in coffee shops do so by choice, people who work in open offices are forced into it by their employer.
People who work in coffee shops do so for a short time, not 8-10 hours every day in the same shop at the same desk with the same people around for the entire time. They know that nobody there is talking about work so the background conversations are never going to be relevant or important. They know that nobody is walking up to them to interrupt them, so almost any motion they see can be ignored. They know that anybody looking at them is not a manager judging their productivity right now. Big parts of their brain can relax.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#67Founders want to see what you're doing at all times, they know that you have to out in remote double time to actual get anything done. I can't solve incredible engineering problems with 5 people talking at the same time for 6 hours, I wind up having to work 18 hour days with 8 hours of face time sitting and chatting to make the crew of kids happy. As a senior dev my workload is triple the juniors so it's not unusual for me to have to do 80-120 hours a week for 40 hours pay to not lose my gig.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#68The best work setup I've ever had by far was not private offices or cubicles (and definitely not an open office); it was a hybrid where our team of 3-5 people sat in a large private office. This increased collaboration while enforcing respect. It allowed our team to create a work culture democratically (how do we arrange seating? what noise levels are ok?) that simply isn't possible in an open seating arrangement. I…
This is my favorite environment. A large office per team. It makes me still fell like I have my own personal space while maintaining a team vibe. It's like a research lab where everyone in the lab is focused on the same goals. Like a pack mentality.
I've worked in that kind of arrangement, too, but it only works well if all the people put into that office are predisposed to it or otherwise able to develop that team atmosphere. Everyone has to be able to get along. That doesn't happen for every group out there.
If it doesn't work out, it can quickly develop the same appeal as a holding cell in a jail - all of the drawbacks of an open office plan in a confined space.
Programmers and engineers are professionals, and in my opinion, it's very unprofessional for a company to provide less than a reasonably private work environment. That means a large cubicle, at minimum. For collaboration, there should also be several open or group spaces. Requiring too much "togetherness," however, is just a sign of poor management and lack of respect for employees.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#69The best work setup I've ever had by far was not private offices or cubicles (and definitely not an open office); it was a hybrid where our team of 3-5 people sat in a large private office. This increased collaboration while enforcing respect. It allowed our team to create a work culture democratically (how do we arrange seating? what noise levels are ok?) that simply isn't possible in an open seating arrangement. I…
Except it's completely fake. The CEO and execs typically just take over conference rooms and go on retreats when they need to actually get any work done.
Mark Zuckerberg officially works in the open office at Facebook just like anyone but also happens to have a private "conference room" and likely isn't at his desk much.
I'd be fine with having an open office desk if I also get a very small "conference room".
That's the ticket: let's keep the open offices but add a private conference room for every developer.
Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)
#70Even though I dislike the feeling of an open office workplace, I'm now feeling that there's some big push by someone to make this topic keep coming back on HN like the proverbial 'suit is back'. OK a WAPO marketing person doesn't like her middle-school style coworkers ... so what? I'll push back with a quote from Richard Hamming's famous talk "You and your research" (as I'm sure I have before): http://www.cs.virginia…
I don't think the kind of work Hamming is talking about has ever emerged from an open floor plan.