Study after study show that open distraction office plans are bad for productivity, and increase stress and sick days -- even among those who like open office plans.
It's kinda tiresome, on HN there's is this rabid pro-open plan brigade, even though all the studies show otherwise.
It's the same as the "I can work 60 hours productivly" brigade. All the studies, for over a century (yes, century, not decades) have shown otherwise. They are studies that show that people delude themselves into thinking they are more productive than they are. And yet, no matter how many articles and papers you post, nope.
HN insists.
They are ingrained memes on HN that won't, despite all the evidence you ever post, go away.
So why bother? You can google it yourself, and then promptly ignore all the professional studies and still believe in open plan offices. It's simply not worth the effort.
But seriously, how can NOT putting large number of people together for long times not cause diseases? That's one of major reason flu starts during the winter...
Not the author of the comment you're replying to but elsewhere in this thread (in response to someone else looking for studies) I provided links to numerous articles that each cite/link multiple studies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9611091
Links are not clickable because it's 2015 and I (wrongly) assume you are capable of plunking 'open office plans productivity' into your search engine of choice.
I'm mostly asking to see those studies & have a nuanced breakdown of them (rather than simply saying they exist or (as the author did in their piece) saying they had a bad experience)).
Sure. It is intuitive that this would be the case. However those aren't the only important factors in a workplace. Team cohesion, collaboration, minimising politics etc. It also seems intuitive to me at least that these would be improved by an open plan office.
Personally I have seen private and public ways of working succeed for different styles of projects which seems to be the newest trend i.e. having mix use spaces.
My experience tells me that the open office plan, enables poor work ethics to ruin it collectively. I've been in open officies that worked just fine, because everybody had enough deciplin to make it work, and it was okay to tell people to move to a meeting room if they got too noisy.
The best model I've heard about is "work rooms" for everyone, with facilities to move to when you're collaborating.
hanspeter|10 years ago
mattmanser|10 years ago
It's the same as the "I can work 60 hours productivly" brigade. All the studies, for over a century (yes, century, not decades) have shown otherwise. They are studies that show that people delude themselves into thinking they are more productive than they are. And yet, no matter how many articles and papers you post, nope.
HN insists.
They are ingrained memes on HN that won't, despite all the evidence you ever post, go away.
So why bother? You can google it yourself, and then promptly ignore all the professional studies and still believe in open plan offices. It's simply not worth the effort.
Ygg2|10 years ago
----------------------------
But seriously, how can NOT putting large number of people together for long times not cause diseases? That's one of major reason flu starts during the winter...
frostmatthew|10 years ago
Not the author of the comment you're replying to but elsewhere in this thread (in response to someone else looking for studies) I provided links to numerous articles that each cite/link multiple studies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9611091
crazy_geek|10 years ago
But to be helpful, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Open+office+plans+productivity
joelrunyon|10 years ago
I'm mostly asking to see those studies & have a nuanced breakdown of them (rather than simply saying they exist or (as the author did in their piece) saying they had a bad experience)).
Hytosys|10 years ago
[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413...
[2] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/255498?uid=3739696&uid...
[3] http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-t...
threeseed|10 years ago
Personally I have seen private and public ways of working succeed for different styles of projects which seems to be the newest trend i.e. having mix use spaces.
hvidgaard|10 years ago
The best model I've heard about is "work rooms" for everyone, with facilities to move to when you're collaborating.