This debate is easily solved by simply asking people, "Which do you prefer: open offices or closed door offices?"
90% of people will answer the latter.
Case closed.
Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
91–100 of 165 posts
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#92I work at a company where most people are in open areas. The key that makes this work IMHO is that the desks are trivially movable; just unplug two wires and wheel the desk elsewhere. Want to work next to Joe? Move there. Need to get away from a noisy cow-orker? Move his desk, or yours (both have happened).
There is closed office space available, if you want it. Most people choose not to use it.
Once you have mobility, you get to choose who you work with. You can get together in ad-hoc groups for a while, bring more people in as necessary, and leave for some other place when you need to. It sounds too simple and maybe too stupid to be as powerful as it actually is.
I've also worked in open plans where you don't have a choice of where to sit. It sucked hard. I wouldn't do that again.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#93I'm in an open office situation. It is the worst. I spend most of my time trying to adjust my posture so that my eyes don't meet anyone else's eyes.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#94Why must editors title articles this way? The article says: there are many ways in which open offices are not great. The headline says: they are destroying the workplace. The article doesn’t come close to making that claim, even if “destroy the workplace” were a meaningful idea.
Would you click on a link that said "There are many ways in which open offices are not great."?
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#95I'm not a big fan of these articles. It depends on what you're doing. I'm a professor, and in order to get certain tasks done, you need a private space. I don't even know how you could grade exams, for instance, without a private space in order to concentrate and prevent others from seeing what you're doing. When I'm working on a paper, on the other hand, it's way more productive to have my coauthors right next to me.
The effect on productivity therefore cannot be determined without knowing what you're going to be doing.
I do find these articles fascinating from the perspective of an economist. Economists frequently assume workers get paid based on their productivity. Then we see that in the real world employers are willing to adopt an open office model that workers hate, even one that can reduce productivity, because they want to monitor the workers to see what they are doing. If workers were paid according to productivity, it wouldn't matter how many times they checked Facebook between 8 am and 5 pm.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#96This is an opinion piece with a baity title that points to a New Yorker article which has had three extensive discussions on HN, including a month ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8696391
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#97Nobody likes the feeling that someone is watching over your shoulder. Not at work, not at home, nowhere.
Not everybody hates it. If you have the same interests as your manager, you won't worry or be reprimanded for posting on your faovourite knitting forum for 15 minutes of each day or answering an im from your friend who lives halfway across the globe. Some people really feel like they're doing nothing wrong and have nothing to hide and if you feel that way you're probably right.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#98I'll play contrarian for a moment: the most productive office I've ever worked in was an open office layout. What worked for us: * Separate clusters by function / noise level -- We didn't put sales people and developers next to one another. People who spent all day on the phone were near other people who spent all day on the phone. * Keep clusters small -- We had 4 person "pods" of desks for most of our early lifecyc…
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Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#99I wouldn't attribute the movement to Google, strictly speaking. I worked at a large insurance agency for a few year. They had partially open cubes (low walls). I don't presume they've ever been influenced by what Google does. The low walls were a blessing and a bane. My team worked well like that. None of us are particularly loud people. We all had headphones and quiet music. The flow of the pen allowed easy communic…
I wouldn't attribute the movement to Google, strictly speaking.
I suspect that during the first dot-com boom, open offices were all the rage because they were cheaper. When I entered the industry in 1998, my employer (a start-up) had an open office, as it was less expensive to find used desks and skip cubes altogether. In fact, I didn't work in my first cube farm 'til I took my current job seven years ago--instead, my employers generally had four person cubes/pods.
Heck, in the late 1970s, my dad's engineering firm had "pods" for certain functional groups.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#100I think googles own Eric Schmidt had the best response to this. If open office's were bad for buisness or destroying the workspace the free market would bear that out. There are tangable benefits which is why companies move towards it. I understand some people hate it, but most don't so why do we keep getting the same articles every few months saying the same thing. We get it _you_ don't like the open office space ot…
If market can measure it or understand it they will adjust.
Before Toyota and JIT factories were run generally really inefficiently.
"I am upset that no one else seems to like TV shows I find enjoyable and they keep getting canceled."
You are comparing trivial entertainment with the environment most people spend the most of their productive hours as adults?
"Oh, I see you have lost an arm. Well, my finger itches sometimes. It happens."