Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 148 posts

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

#61

Post by CHY872 »

calinet6 wrote: post #37

We get it, HN is majority introvert, and really likes logical optimization using data. But some things aren't easily measurable. Is it a coincidence that companies who pioneered the open office plan are also some of the most successful in the world? Show me how you'd even begin to disprove that and I'll show you a dozen confounding variables making it silly to even try. What is the true impact of an open office on a…

If two things correlate, it doesn't mean that there's a causal link between them; it means that there's a third thing that causes both of them.

Those companies who pioneered the open office plans also do a lot of other things that set themselves apart from other companies. It doesn't necessarily mean anything important.

For all you know, the open plan office could be a failed attempt to optimise their workforce.

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

#62

Post by bachmeier »

stevesearer wrote: post #57

One facet that never comes up in these anti-open office articles is that it is 100% impossible to design the perfect office for you as an individual, for every other individual, all while designing an office that is perfect for the organization. Many people here advocate private offices, which are great, but as soon as you start putting up walls, you've totally restricted access to natural light in the interior of th…

The trend will be the elimination of offices. There's nothing lower cost than forcing employees to provide their own offices and work equipment.

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

#63

Post by bryanlarsen »

stevesearer wrote: post #57

One facet that never comes up in these anti-open office articles is that it is 100% impossible to design the perfect office for you as an individual, for every other individual, all while designing an office that is perfect for the organization. Many people here advocate private offices, which are great, but as soon as you start putting up walls, you've totally restricted access to natural light in the interior of th…

As Joel Spolsky noted, getting natural light to a large number of small rooms is basically a solved problem: how many hotel rooms do you see without a window? Sure, private offices are smaller than hotel rooms, but offices generally have large numbers of meeting rooms, labs and common areas that don't need windows.

Of course, that means that you need to build office buildings more like hotels; you can't so easily retrofit existing office buildings.

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

#64

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Is this open office = for work of a highly creative and collaborative nature, the team owns their own workspace, which they customize as they choose, and folks on the team are in physical proximity?

Or is this open office = packing everybody into one huge area like sardines no matter what their job role or what their team is doing with little or no account for ownership?

I find we lump a huge amount of stuff into the category "open office", much of it crappy, then stand outside and throw rocks at the entire concept.

Let's not do that.

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

#65

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nilkn wrote: post #59
calinet6 wrote: post #37

We get it, HN is majority introvert, and really likes logical optimization using data. But some things aren't easily measurable. Is it a coincidence that companies who pioneered the open office plan are also some of the most successful in the world? Show me how you'd even begin to disprove that and I'll show you a dozen confounding variables making it silly to even try. What is the true impact of an open office on a…

Surely you don't actually need to measure anything. Just ask people what they prefer. And to be fair, I've met people, online and off, who legitimately like open offices or would prefer a hybrid. But I've met roughly an order of magnitude more people who don't like them at all and just want a quiet, personal space. And you're right, there are a lot of confounding factors when you look at companies like Google. For in…

I've found asking people to be notoriously unreliable. Folks want quiet and comfort, sure. But is that the best thing for productivity?

Ok, in this case, probably. But standing desks are apparently a good thing, and the vast majority of us eschew them. And so on. Anything that seems like an inconvenience gets demonized as a rule. So just asking is a minefield.

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

#66

Post by bryanlarsen »

calinet6 wrote: post #37

We get it, HN is majority introvert, and really likes logical optimization using data. But some things aren't easily measurable. Is it a coincidence that companies who pioneered the open office plan are also some of the most successful in the world? Show me how you'd even begin to disprove that and I'll show you a dozen confounding variables making it silly to even try. What is the true impact of an open office on a…

Yes, the open office nature of Facebook may have been crucial to its early success. But that was when Facebook was less than 10 people! Many people consider small team offices to be more akin to private offices than to open plan offices.

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

#67

Post by nilkn »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #65
nilkn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you don't actually need to measure anything. Just ask people what they prefer. And to be fair, I've met people, online and off, who legitimately like open offices or would prefer a hybrid. But I've met roughly an order of magnitude more people who don't like them at all and just want a quiet, personal space. And you're right, there are a lot of confounding factors when you look at companies like Google. For in…

I've found asking people to be notoriously unreliable. Folks want quiet and comfort, sure. But is that the best thing for productivity? Ok, in this case, probably. But standing desks are apparently a good thing, and the vast majority of us eschew them. And so on. Anything that seems like an inconvenience gets demonized as a rule. So just asking is a minefield.

I get what you're saying, but I think there's an easy solution: just ask people who've experienced both. That way you're not experiencing the classic but very real problem of people not knowing what they want until they've got it.

At my workplace, for instance, not once in the history of the company has anyone with an office ever given it up, under any circumstances, to move into a cubicle again. Likewise, someone with a cubicle next to a window has never, in my tenure at the company, moved to a cubicle not next to a window.

As for standing desks, I didn't realize that people actively eschewed them. My impression is just that they're impractical for a lot of people to actually obtain. If your workplace doesn't provide them and won't on request, your options get sort of limited. I have a coworker who made a makeshift standing desk but it's not very ideal. I imagine a ton of people are in this situation.

Ok, but let's suppose that, by some ingenious study, you're able to determine that nobody prefers the open office, everybody prefers private offices (quite strongly), and yet productivity for the company is better with an open office. That's pretty counter-intuitive, but the world is filled with counter-intuitive things. Does that mean that companies should all switch to open offices?

Should a company do something just because it can be shown to increase productivity? I don't think that's necessarily the case. For instance, it might be that the productivity gain is somewhat minimal and that over the years a number of great employees are lost (or not able to be hired) due to the office layout. So in that case the illusion of temporary increased productivity will lead to a long-term net decrease in productivity.

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

#68

Post by r0naa »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #49
fosap wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most active noise-canceling head-phones work pretty well even if you don't listen to anything.

Active noise-cancelling only seems to work (in my very limited experience) with 'constant' noise though - predictable. Spoken conversations often aren't. But, I might've just had a bad experience with those in the store. I'll stick with passive noise cancelling / in-ear with foam things. Or, you know, tell people to be quiet.

Currently working at a growing startup in Waterloo, it's an open office with a lot of people and it can quickly become very loud (picture 150 people in a big room).

I completely agree with you, without music, noise cancelling headphones are pretty much useless to help you focus by canceling 'asymmetric' noise.

My personal setup is to have a pair of earplugs in resina as a first layer, my headphones as a second layer, the noise cancelling option on and finally low volume music. With that setup I can't hear anything to the point where I get scared shitless if someone disturbs me. That's how deep in the zone I become!

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

#69

Post by DanielBMarkham »

eterm wrote: post #10
thescrewdriver wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keyboards, random conversations, people getting up etc. so much noise and so many distractions. I also do the earphones thing, but it seems to be contributing to long-term hearing loss.

Wear a good pair of ear defenders over your earphones so you can turn down the volume greatly while still blocking out all external sound.

You can also use foam earplugs, then a noise-canceling headset for sound. Works even in extremely high noise environments.

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

#70

Post by saturdaysaint »

stevesearer wrote: post #57

One facet that never comes up in these anti-open office articles is that it is 100% impossible to design the perfect office for you as an individual, for every other individual, all while designing an office that is perfect for the organization. Many people here advocate private offices, which are great, but as soon as you start putting up walls, you've totally restricted access to natural light in the interior of th…

More likely is something mundane and not human spirit fulfilling like more "medium height" cubicle walls, high enough for privacy but low enough to not obstruct natural light.

"Increased working from home/telecommuting arrangements"

I'm hopeful that this will start happening as the labor market for information workers stays tight. A good start might be if workers started negotiating it as a fringe benefit - say, one telecommute day per month.

Post reply on HN