I think I'd have a less negative reaction to open offices if it weren't for the attempt to sell it as a productivity booster.
The article even mentions how they're "sold to workers as a boon to collaboration — liberated from barriers, stuffed in like sardines, people would chat more and, supposedly, come up with lots of brilliant new ideas". Thankfully the author also quickly refuted that. Yet the insanity remains, and people (often times the Agile evangelist types companies hire) continue to try to convince developers that open offices are good.
I could buy into it if the rational is it's far cheaper to fit more employees in less space. That's a fine reason. It sucks to work in, but I can at least hear that without rolling my eyes and dismissing everything else that person says as incredulous.
I think I'd have a less negative reaction if people actually had a decent amount of personal space in these floorplans. In the photo at the top of the article, two people could scarcely yawn and stretch at the same time without making physical contact. If you're towards the end and you want to just take a bathroom break, you'd have to physically weave around people and chairs to get out. My home office that I use for playing video games is nearly as large as that space that houses presumably four working professionals. How is this reasonable? How does anyone think this is a good way of investing in your expensive staff? If this is all the space you can afford, I absolutely sympathize, but maybe at that point it's time to let people work from home.
I think part of the problem is that (in my experience) open offices actually do boost productivity somewhat, but only when the office is a small 2-5 person pod. I lose productivity when I get dropped in a huge floor of people chatting and talking about things not related to what I'm working on.
Well, the fair comparison is to an wall separated space using the same area.
If you compare an open space office with a walled office that 3x the size, of course the bigger office will win out. An open office 3x the size would also be a big improvement.
> I could buy into it if the rational is it's far cheaper to fit more employees in less space. That's a fine reason. It sucks to work in, but I can at least hear that without rolling my eyes and dismissing everything else that person says as incredulous.
Raytheon, for all its other faults, was at least largely honest about why they were shrinking cube sizes and experimenting with open floor plans. There was some half-hearted mentions of increased collaboration, but they pretty much said it was a space issue.
Great point. I feel the same. If employees are told that company can spend X dollars on office space and hence open office is only thing we can afford, it will be quite better than buzzword productivity bullshit. After all in my experience companies are reasonable straightforward in term of expenses they plan to have on office supplies, hardware/software etc.
> I think I'd have a less negative reaction to open offices if it weren't for the attempt to sell it as a productivity booster.
But isn't that how you sell anything politically? Take some real or alleged positive aspect, blow it up out of all proportion, be loud and keep the pressure up, ram the agenda down all throats as deeply as it goes.
Open offices are a productivity booster for some people (myself being one).
Of course, WeWork being a company with one product, they try to sell it to everyone, even the people who it doesn't work for. That's a valid criticism of WeWork, but not really a valid criticism of open offices.
I dunno man, I (software engineer for 21 years) like the open office, at my last job we had real offices and my coworker and I cut a huge window sized hole in the drywall between our offices so we could easier communicate/chat. I can’t count how many times a random casual conversation saved the day or generated new ideas. If I need to focus I put on headphones.
Logistically it seems unlikely open offices will go away, software heavy business can’t just spread their workforce over 3x the space, especially in dense urban areas. Better to come up with novel solutions for deep work, like dedicated open area library/dark dungeon rooms.
If I could craft the perfect job for me, the one I work at would be it
- an intelligent straightforward manager who will speak his mind bluntly and can take it just as well as he can dish it out. He’s mostly concerned with results not whether you kiss his ring.
- small company without a lot of bureaucracy -- I have full access to our entire AWS infrastructure
- relatively generous PTO
- a decent free family health plan
- Pay is line with the market
- up to date with technology and great chances for resume building.
- coworkers are decent
- easy commute.
But, I’m still debating on whether I should leave in a year and find either fully remote work, a job where I can have an office or at least a quiet work area because of our open office where you have sales people (B2b), customer support managers, and developers from different teams in one office where it gets noisy.
> - up to date with technology and great chances for resume building.
Resume driver development is bad for the planet, you, for everything.
Java programmers still find jobs; COBOL programmers are still needed; FORTRAN is still alive, so I'd rather find something that will not go away in my lifetime than trying to keep up with trends.
If it’s the perfect job why do you want to pad your CV with junk? Why not pick some stable tech and take the opportunity to get really deeply into it? The only reason to chase buzzwords is if you plan to leave soon!
Hey! I actually have all of the things on your list. But with one catch: I work for a community nonprofit in a small town of 15,000 people in the deep south, and make probably a very small fraction of what you do.
Presumably pay should / can be lower in a place where you actually want to work for than in a shitty work environment?
> up to date with technology and great chances for resume building.
What do you mean "up to date with technology"? IMO most "recent" technology is mostly hype and/or vaporware, and as I get more experienced, I see more and more value in old, reliable, well-supported technology. I mean, I'm not dissing on all new tech (Rust?), just saying that just being "new" doesn't make it also "good".
It's interesting to note that I had all except "easy commute" job for ~3 years before the company acquired (I made decent money). It was amazing to see the company go through a dramatic cultural shift (terrible manager and co-worker mostly). Ended up quitting within a year after. It was a while ago but I still fondly look back to those days :-)
Why not attribute a number to this instead of being vague? I personally think 28 days PTO (not including holidays) is "relatively generous" (for the US).
Of all the places I have worked over the years, my preferred office layout so far is conference rooms. That is, each team has their own room. Open within, closed to noise from other teams. Depending on how well you get along with your teammates, you can turn on some music, decorate however you like, etc. Of course it won't work for everyone, or for every type of job, but as a developer it is the arrangement that I enjoyed the most. And anecdotally, my coworkers also seemed to prefer it to either open space or cubicles.
This is the arrangement at the place I've been working at for the last 9 years and I have to say, I prefer it to everything else. Our team is all in the same room so useful impromptu conversations happen semi-regularly. We don't have to reserve a conference room for daily stand-up. Asking questions (e.g. useful interruptions) is encouraged. If you want to be in the Zone for a few hours with no interruptions, there are places in the building where no one will bother you, or you can work from home that day.
Certainly, it's not for every kind of personality. But that's why companies evaluate for cultural fit as well. If you can't stand being interrupted ever for any reason, you're probably better off with a remote gig working from home. It doesn't work for extroverts who are compelled to strike up conversations regularly or who can't think without also talking because these things interrupt the whole team.
My preference is the ones I have experienced in national labs. Probably too many meetings, but when you are done with your meetings you get to go to a dedicated office where you can close the door and get your "deep work" done.
This is counter to my experience in a _dedicated_ WeWork office. Have a neighbor that takes calls throughout the day, you'll need to wear headphones because it's basically being in an open office. Have an office on a busy corridor? Get ready for people walking and talking past you all day. The sound design at WeWork is pretty awful, to the point it is non-existent.
I made a complaint at one point before moving offices because the music was too loud during nights and weekends in the lobby. I was told they would see what they could do but that the CEO [Neumann] preferred there to be loud music in the lobby.
I've worked in a situation like that and felt productive but that was only because we were all basically on a tiger team locked in a room together to work on the same project. Me and one other developer, a tech writer, a QA person, and a PM. In the end we were successful and it was a successful product for the company.
Compare that with being thrown in an office with long rows of desks working with everyone in the company. That's not productive. That's a din of noise and people either interrupting your flow or interrupting the flow of the people immediately next to you, thus interrupting your flow. That, for lack of a better term, is a sweat shop.
I have a visceral response to that photo in the article. I do not need folks right on top of me like that.
My solution is that I often wear Shooting Earmuffs (you guys who listen to music all the time, i don't get it, i can't do that) to lower my awareness of all the chatter... even when I do have an office.
The best office I ever worked in was an open office... with an open remote work policy. On any given day, only 15-30% of the office would be in; meaning while the office was "open", it was also usually empty and quiet.
People came in when they had in-person meetings, and teams generally fell into a loose schedule to come in on the same days 1-2 times per week.
I thought it provided a good balance; the company need to have a huge space to give people private offices etc, and it was quiet even if someone nearby was on a call.
With 4G, Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs we're able to work from anywhere. No need to commute anymore. And no need to constrain your team to the city you have an office in.
I agree to an extent. I think remote work is a swing in the opposite direction of open offices, but it can go too far. Remote work does not allow developers to collaborate easily; sometimes getting several people at a white board is necessary and efficient. Offices or very small cube farms (of 4-6 people in an enclosed area) seem an ideal middle ground where people working on the same thing can talk while not being bothered by others that have nothing to do with their current team/task.
As a remote employee, I fully agree. Also, can we stop polluting the environment unnecessarily? There are too many cars on the road with just one person inside. How many of those people really need to commute into an office every day because the job requires it?
Unpopular opinion, but I actually think open offices make me more productive. When I'm in a private office, the temptation to watch YouTube, or otherwise read/do unrelated work stuff is much higher.
However, I do like having a private office to eat lunch.
Even if you're an outlier, the overwhelming evidence suggests that the overall output of an open office is substantially less for virtually everybody. People get sick more frequently, and lots of time is lost in non-work-related conversations. This has been measured, and I don't know that it's really up for debate.
I'm not a fan of open office spaces, but I don't think the article fully captures the problem that the open office space is addressing. Our company has a team dedicated to the design of our office space, and they're trying to balance against multiple stakeholders' needs, from different functions (engineering vs legal), to work environment needs (1:1 vs meeting room vs quiet place), all shoved into a fixed and (relatively) small space. The result is you have to do trade-offs, just like normal engineering problems.
From my understanding, it's easier to scale environments that are open-office. For a startup that's always have to contend with finding space for their ever-growing teams, I can see why executives may reach for an understood solution to that problem, even knowing the downsides.
My guess is there's a necessary iteration to work environments in the future, since I don't think open offices truly optimize for knowledge workers. Presumably knowledge-based companies (e.g., tech) will eventually start thinking about how to optimize their internal efficiency as a lever to growth in addition to their product development.
All you need is some guy to talk loudly on the phone next to you all day and you'll soon come to abhor open offices. Not to mention the scrutiny of others - keeping an eye on how you work, how much you work, when you arrive, when you leave, what you eat etc. It can really be quite horrible at times, especially if your office is quite politically charged.
I run a small company in London, and we advertise our jobs with "closed" offices/remote as being a unique selling point! I think people prefer to work without being watched, and can really take ownership of their task without feeling conscious - they can get into that coveted state of "flow".
As a manager, I also don't want to watch over my staff all day. I'm not their owner, I'm just their manager. My aim is to let them do what they're good at, and being comfortable enough to let them get on with things is the best way to keep them productive.
And if someone isn't productive, it's obvious from their results. No open office/constant scrutiny required.
I used to think that noise was the worst distraction to deal with in an open office until I took a job where a coworker in our open office decided not to practice basic hygiene. The smell is just horrible. It’s far and away the most distracting thing I’ve ever experienced in my career.
They dress up and put in effort to look nice in the office, but everyone instantly knows when they walk into a room.
Honestly, I’m hesitant to go to HR about it in case it’s a religious/cultural thing, but I will never, ever complain about noise again in my career after this. Woof.
The best office layout is the office layout that fits the needs of the people working in it.
Open offices aren't a dead end. I work really well in open offices.
I can barely get any work done in a private office by myself. Yet there are many people who work well in private offices, and would be as non-productive in an open office as I am in a private office.
It's obvious that people have different work styles. The problem here isn't open offices OR private offices, it's people who look only at their own work style and then extrapolate that out to the entire rest of humanity.
The solution is to let people self-select the office situation that works for them. Ideally companies have a mix of open and private spaces that allow people to work in a way that's best for them, including the option to work remotely, but that's not always possible. Sometimes that means that someone isn't a good fit for a team, and should be self-aware enough to self-select to not work on that team.
In the four years at my current company we went full cubes -> half cubes (you get like 2-3 regular walls and one baby wall) -> open office -> open office no assigned desks. I can't wait to see the next iteration on this.
These kinds of articles surface every couple of months, and when they do I always leave a comment about how much I hate the open office design.
I have trouble focusing with people talking around me (like most people), and I have trouble focusing on coding when I'm listening to music. I don't have an office, so how am I supposed to get stuff done exactly? I could work from my basement office at home, and I do sometimes, but at that point, wouldn't it be better to have just given me a proper office (or at least cubicle) so that I'm actually in the building if people need me?
I never see this mentioned, but one of the things I hate most about open offices is having people always looking at my screen. To be clear, I don't waste much time. Does this bother any one else as much as it gets to me? Regardless of what I'm doing, I'm not comfortable being constantly observed doing it. I previously worked in an open office where the manager would basically creep up on people, walking quietly throughout the office and looking to see who was doing what. Creepy as all get-out.
In some ways open office designs are a symptom of company cultures that do not value deep work more than the perceived value open plans offer such as cost savings or "collaboration".
From my vantage, there are quite a few more companies installing places for deep work in offices.
But even if companies install these spaces, if the company does not value deep work away from your primary desk, employees will feel discouraged about using those facilities.
It was probably the same culture disconnect for companies who would put a ping-pong table in the office even though deep down they would not actually want staff spending time utilizing them during the day as opposed to sitting at their desk working.
There is a Harvard study which says "Your Open-Plan Office Is Making Your Team Less Collaborative". Open office plans lead to more email less collaboration.
So it is better to have traditional office setup with collaboration areas than open office spaces.
everyone wants to have offices in all the trendy downtown areas. a lot of the cost of the office goes to rent, so even if a desire for cubes or offices was there (which generally management doesn't because they are expensive) the budget won't be.
At my first job space was at a sort of premium, and we all worked at a bench with computers on it. But, there were walls that separated about 6-8 workers. I think this is a very nice happy medium. I can openly collaborate with my "pizza-sized" team, but there's enough separation from other teams that I have a modicum of privacy. That said, I quite appreciate my 6'x7' cube my current company has me in.
[+] [-] ivl|6 years ago|reply
The article even mentions how they're "sold to workers as a boon to collaboration — liberated from barriers, stuffed in like sardines, people would chat more and, supposedly, come up with lots of brilliant new ideas". Thankfully the author also quickly refuted that. Yet the insanity remains, and people (often times the Agile evangelist types companies hire) continue to try to convince developers that open offices are good.
I could buy into it if the rational is it's far cheaper to fit more employees in less space. That's a fine reason. It sucks to work in, but I can at least hear that without rolling my eyes and dismissing everything else that person says as incredulous.
[+] [-] nilkn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chomp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BurningFrog|6 years ago|reply
If you compare an open space office with a walled office that 3x the size, of course the bigger office will win out. An open office 3x the size would also be a big improvement.
[+] [-] vonmoltke|6 years ago|reply
Raytheon, for all its other faults, was at least largely honest about why they were shrinking cube sizes and experimenting with open floor plans. There was some half-hearted mentions of increased collaboration, but they pretty much said it was a space issue.
[+] [-] geodel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Florin_Andrei|6 years ago|reply
But isn't that how you sell anything politically? Take some real or alleged positive aspect, blow it up out of all proportion, be loud and keep the pressure up, ram the agenda down all throats as deeply as it goes.
[+] [-] kerkeslager|6 years ago|reply
Of course, WeWork being a company with one product, they try to sell it to everyone, even the people who it doesn't work for. That's a valid criticism of WeWork, but not really a valid criticism of open offices.
[+] [-] hellisothers|6 years ago|reply
Logistically it seems unlikely open offices will go away, software heavy business can’t just spread their workforce over 3x the space, especially in dense urban areas. Better to come up with novel solutions for deep work, like dedicated open area library/dark dungeon rooms.
[+] [-] turk73|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
- an intelligent straightforward manager who will speak his mind bluntly and can take it just as well as he can dish it out. He’s mostly concerned with results not whether you kiss his ring.
- small company without a lot of bureaucracy -- I have full access to our entire AWS infrastructure
- relatively generous PTO
- a decent free family health plan
- Pay is line with the market
- up to date with technology and great chances for resume building.
- coworkers are decent
- easy commute.
But, I’m still debating on whether I should leave in a year and find either fully remote work, a job where I can have an office or at least a quiet work area because of our open office where you have sales people (B2b), customer support managers, and developers from different teams in one office where it gets noisy.
[+] [-] pmlnr|6 years ago|reply
Resume driver development is bad for the planet, you, for everything.
Java programmers still find jobs; COBOL programmers are still needed; FORTRAN is still alive, so I'd rather find something that will not go away in my lifetime than trying to keep up with trends.
[+] [-] goatinaboat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dawg-|6 years ago|reply
I guess life is all about compromise :)
[+] [-] tomp|6 years ago|reply
Presumably pay should / can be lower in a place where you actually want to work for than in a shitty work environment?
> up to date with technology and great chances for resume building.
What do you mean "up to date with technology"? IMO most "recent" technology is mostly hype and/or vaporware, and as I get more experienced, I see more and more value in old, reliable, well-supported technology. I mean, I'm not dissing on all new tech (Rust?), just saying that just being "new" doesn't make it also "good".
[+] [-] zwieback|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vishnugupta|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanHulton|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whycombagator|6 years ago|reply
Why not attribute a number to this instead of being vague? I personally think 28 days PTO (not including holidays) is "relatively generous" (for the US).
[+] [-] m_mueller|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkai|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] turk73|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] joshypants|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rootusrootus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bityard|6 years ago|reply
Certainly, it's not for every kind of personality. But that's why companies evaluate for cultural fit as well. If you can't stand being interrupted ever for any reason, you're probably better off with a remote gig working from home. It doesn't work for extroverts who are compelled to strike up conversations regularly or who can't think without also talking because these things interrupt the whole team.
[+] [-] chasely|6 years ago|reply
This is counter to my experience in a _dedicated_ WeWork office. Have a neighbor that takes calls throughout the day, you'll need to wear headphones because it's basically being in an open office. Have an office on a busy corridor? Get ready for people walking and talking past you all day. The sound design at WeWork is pretty awful, to the point it is non-existent.
I made a complaint at one point before moving offices because the music was too loud during nights and weekends in the lobby. I was told they would see what they could do but that the CEO [Neumann] preferred there to be loud music in the lobby.
[+] [-] Zelphyr|6 years ago|reply
Compare that with being thrown in an office with long rows of desks working with everyone in the company. That's not productive. That's a din of noise and people either interrupting your flow or interrupting the flow of the people immediately next to you, thus interrupting your flow. That, for lack of a better term, is a sweat shop.
[+] [-] duxup|6 years ago|reply
My solution is that I often wear Shooting Earmuffs (you guys who listen to music all the time, i don't get it, i can't do that) to lower my awareness of all the chatter... even when I do have an office.
Fortunately folks around me are understanding.
[+] [-] madenine|6 years ago|reply
People came in when they had in-person meetings, and teams generally fell into a loose schedule to come in on the same days 1-2 times per week.
I thought it provided a good balance; the company need to have a huge space to give people private offices etc, and it was quiet even if someone nearby was on a call.
[+] [-] sytse|6 years ago|reply
With 4G, Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs we're able to work from anywhere. No need to commute anymore. And no need to constrain your team to the city you have an office in.
The only thing is that remote should not be an afterthought but you should organize for it https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/ just like you invest time to run an office.
[+] [-] TheMerovingian|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falafel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umvi|6 years ago|reply
However, I do like having a private office to eat lunch.
[+] [-] tombert|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smt88|6 years ago|reply
I think the point many people are trying to make is that open offices decrease productivity for most people.
[+] [-] cdeonier|6 years ago|reply
From my understanding, it's easier to scale environments that are open-office. For a startup that's always have to contend with finding space for their ever-growing teams, I can see why executives may reach for an understood solution to that problem, even knowing the downsides.
My guess is there's a necessary iteration to work environments in the future, since I don't think open offices truly optimize for knowledge workers. Presumably knowledge-based companies (e.g., tech) will eventually start thinking about how to optimize their internal efficiency as a lever to growth in addition to their product development.
[+] [-] osrec|6 years ago|reply
I run a small company in London, and we advertise our jobs with "closed" offices/remote as being a unique selling point! I think people prefer to work without being watched, and can really take ownership of their task without feeling conscious - they can get into that coveted state of "flow".
As a manager, I also don't want to watch over my staff all day. I'm not their owner, I'm just their manager. My aim is to let them do what they're good at, and being comfortable enough to let them get on with things is the best way to keep them productive.
And if someone isn't productive, it's obvious from their results. No open office/constant scrutiny required.
[+] [-] save_ferris|6 years ago|reply
They dress up and put in effort to look nice in the office, but everyone instantly knows when they walk into a room.
Honestly, I’m hesitant to go to HR about it in case it’s a religious/cultural thing, but I will never, ever complain about noise again in my career after this. Woof.
[+] [-] kerkeslager|6 years ago|reply
Open offices aren't a dead end. I work really well in open offices.
I can barely get any work done in a private office by myself. Yet there are many people who work well in private offices, and would be as non-productive in an open office as I am in a private office.
It's obvious that people have different work styles. The problem here isn't open offices OR private offices, it's people who look only at their own work style and then extrapolate that out to the entire rest of humanity.
The solution is to let people self-select the office situation that works for them. Ideally companies have a mix of open and private spaces that allow people to work in a way that's best for them, including the option to work remotely, but that's not always possible. Sometimes that means that someone isn't a good fit for a team, and should be self-aware enough to self-select to not work on that team.
[+] [-] sct202|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tombert|6 years ago|reply
I have trouble focusing with people talking around me (like most people), and I have trouble focusing on coding when I'm listening to music. I don't have an office, so how am I supposed to get stuff done exactly? I could work from my basement office at home, and I do sometimes, but at that point, wouldn't it be better to have just given me a proper office (or at least cubicle) so that I'm actually in the building if people need me?
[+] [-] rom1v|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xythian|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pineman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] big_chungus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreygrehov|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevesearer|6 years ago|reply
From my vantage, there are quite a few more companies installing places for deep work in offices.
But even if companies install these spaces, if the company does not value deep work away from your primary desk, employees will feel discouraged about using those facilities.
It was probably the same culture disconnect for companies who would put a ping-pong table in the office even though deep down they would not actually want staff spending time utilizing them during the day as opposed to sitting at their desk working.
[+] [-] acd|6 years ago|reply
So it is better to have traditional office setup with collaboration areas than open office spaces.
link to study: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...
[+] [-] ssimpson|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djhaskin987|6 years ago|reply