8 ms·

We've recently moved into new offices in Frankfurt/Germany and being the CTO of our 40 Person Startup gave me an in-depth look at all the calculations involved.

We've recently moved into new offices in Frankfurt/Germany and being the CTO of our 40 Person Startup gave me an in-depth look at all the calculations involved. It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. I've fought tooth and nail to keep everyone in small team offices(< 5 people) and even sacrificed my own STO to gain an extra room for this, allowing our company to make the best possible use of the new (relatively lavish) space. We've got two small rooms set aside as flex-desks(complete with 2 4K Monitors & Gigabit Ethernet via a TB3 Dock) to give everyone the possibility to work in a 1 person office when its critical, but that combined with our lax home-office rules is more of a best we can do approach than a real solution to the office plan/distraction problem. The problem stems from there being simply no officespaces available that have a default layout that permits many small rooms while retaining quick access to group/meeting and social areas. This seems to be a result of different design goals of other professions that need to maximise for the most amount of butts in seat per square meter, without factoring in the losses that distractions can cause. If you want to redraw the floorplan, you have to sign rental contracts upwards of 5 years, something no sensible startup would do and even if, the whole investment is relatively large and needs a lot of focus from the company management to ensure its worthwhile. The expensive part is not the additional room the company would need to rent for each employee, it's the amount of empty space(hallways and large rooms) a company would need to rent to have more small rooms available up front.

mgkimsal 9y ago
> This seems to be a result of different design goals of other professions that need to maximise for the most amount of butts in seat per square meter, without factoring in the losses that distractions can cause. Many other professions factor in distractions in their office space set up. I don't think I've been to a decent attorney or CPA office setup where they were in a shared space or hotdesk situation. Offices layouts can definitely be built for this approach - perhaps you're just noting that nothing's available? Or nothing's available at a price management wants to pay? > If you want to redraw the floorplan, you have to sign rental contracts upwards of 5 years, something no sensible startup would do ... If it was a nicely done space, I've little doubt the space owner would have trouble leasing it out again, either to one large org, or to smaller orgs who all want private space. I run a coworking space, and most people who contact me are still really just looking for individual office space.
- Naga 9y ago
  For accountant offices, the Big 4 are starting to roll out hotdesking, unfortunately.
  - mgkimsal 9y ago
    YIKES!
LambdaComplex 9y ago
What about cubicles?
- emerged 9y ago
  I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?
  - flukus 9y ago
    Why is that? A cubicle is essentially an office without a door.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    Compared to open plan? Absolutely. Even half-walls are better.
    - djsumdog 9y ago
      I find even half walls to be as bad as open layouts. I hated the cube for years until 2012 when I had my first open workspace job. It was a small shop and space was limited. The next two shops I worked at were also in open floor plan layouts. At least with the most recent one I could work from home 3 to 4 days out of the week. I have to admit, I started to miss the cube. I don't want to see other people pick their noses. I don't want other people to see me pick my nose if I'm not thinking about it. I hate having another person in my peripheral. In both cubes and open work spaces, I wear headphones for most of the day. Sometimes the music is paused but I keep them on anyway. Music is really the only thing that keeps me sane in IT jobs.
      - rhizome 9y ago
        Agreed on all points. One thing that cubes protect against is visual distractions. In an open plan, even when I'm able to focus on my work, I'll always be catching something out of the corner of my eye.
  - deleted 9y ago
jlg23 9y ago
Do you allow remote work instead?
mindcrime 9y ago
It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. Great, your company made a poor decision from a planning / facilities / real-estate standpoint. Quit and go find a job with a company that didn't choose as poorly.
throwaway0255 9y ago
> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. And how much does it cost to have your entire engineering team audibly and visually distracted and annoyed 100% of the time? Environmental factors that decrease engineer productivity may not show up on a balance sheet, but the cost is massive. Can you get an engineer an office for less than $40k/year? Then it's probably worth it. Seriously what is so hard about this? I work in an open office right now and every day is like sitting in a high school cafeteria trying to get work done. I work at 1/3rd capacity all day, make up 1/3rd in unpaid overtime at home, and my employer is just eating the cost on the other 1/3rd. Making me work in an open office is costing them at least $70k/yr in just my productivity. My work satisfaction is through the floor, I'm stressed and exhausted all the time and preparing to interview for other jobs. When I start interviewing and eventually move, then they'll also be eating the cost of having to recruit and train a replacement (probably another $50-100k). For the life of me I cannot understand the degree to which large companies will take huge piles of cash and just piss them right down the drain without a single thought, and yet be so incredibly resistant to giving offices to engineers. My current theory is that they don't want engineers to have offices because keeping engineers crowded together like livestock in stables serves as a visual indicator of the inherent superiority of their managers and executives. Editing to add an additional note: My employer thinks I like open office plans, my employer thinks I'm working at 100% capacity and am one of the most productive engineers, and my coworkers think their talking doesn't annoy me. There is nothing in this world for me to gain by admitting my loss in productivity, complaining about open offices, or being the reason my coworkers can't have fun talking to each other all day. Those options have only downsides. So again, the costs don't show up on your balance sheet, and every person on your team could fucking hate this open office shit and work at half capacity, and you would never have any idea.
- hota_mazi 9y ago
  You're painting open offices in a completely negative light without seeing that they also have upsides. I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible. What's more, a lot of engineers actually voiced a preference for open space plans over individual offices. Cubicles are on the table as an acceptable compromise but given the growth at which we're hiring and growing, it's just not physically feasible.
MichaelMoser123 9y ago
> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company How do you quantify the loss in productivity and quality that could be associated with a noisy work environment?
- jsmeaton 9y ago
  Opex vs capex
  - gaius 9y ago
    So much corporate nonsense makes perfect sense once you are aware of this
    - throwanem 9y ago
      Well, it doesn't make sense. But you know why it happens.
  - nickcox 9y ago
    Isn't this opex vs opex though? Most companies don't actually own their office space.
- hota_mazi 9y ago
  It's quantified, along with the gains from ease of access to everyone and the increased communications and social geling of everyone. Individual offices are simply not worth it, financially, culturally and physically.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Really? Who did the quantification? Citation needed. Probably you missed the "increasing body of research" mentioned in TFA then... "According to a study on the cost of interrupted work, a typical office worker is interrupted every 11 minutes. Even worse, people often take up to 25 minutes to refocus on the original task." "Researchers have found that the loss of productivity due to noise distraction doubles in open office layouts compared to private offices, and open office noise reduces the ability to recall information, and even to do basic arithmetic." "In a 2013 study about the privacy-communication trade-off in open offices, 60% of cubicle workers and half of all employees in partitionless offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem." " A study on the association between sick days and open office plans found that people working in open offices took 62% more sick days than those in private offices. And remember all those interruptions that workers experience in open offices? In a survey in the International Journal of Stress Management, employees who were frequently interrupted reported 9% higher rates of exhaustion." "Clearly, open office layouts aren’t the hotbeds of creativity designers originally hoped they would be. And with office space at a premium, private offices for everyone isn’t a realistic alternative, nor is it ideal. The ebb and flow of effective collaboration requires several types of spaces. As workplace experts outlined in the Harvard Business Review, employees tend to generate ideas and process information alone or in pairs, then come together in a larger group to build on those ideas, and then disperse again to take the next steps." https://hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-worst https://hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-w... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413000340 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21528171 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21528171 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-office-interruptions-are-1378852919 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-office-interruption... https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collaborative-spaces-also-support-solitude https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collabo...
cosmie 9y ago
Landlords won't generally let you make structural/material changes to a floorplan without a longterm lease to justify it. However, you can make some pretty snazzy temporary office space that doesn't require permanent modifications to the space using privacy walls and glass partitions[1]. From a structural standpoint, they're basically fancy cubicles, and made by the same companies as standard cubicles. The most damaging thing they do to the structure is mount the tracks for the glass into the floor and ceiling. But that's usually considered normal wear and tear since it's easily fixable on move-out. From an aesthetics perspective, they're effectively mini offices and can be done very well, making a space look nice and chic and making employees a lot happier. All with what amounts to some fancy cubicles. [1]http://spaceplus.com/products/glass-office-partitions/ http://spaceplus.com/products/glass-office-partitions/
- jakemoshenko 9y ago
  What do they actually do for noise mitigation though? If people can't take calls in them without disrupting others, and if someone could theoretically still shout at their neighbor when they need to have a discussion it sounds less than ideal.
  - cosmie 9y ago
    Depends entirely on the type you get and how you install them. If you get floor to ceiling types with appropriate glass, it provides just as much sound isolating properties as a traditional office. And with appropriate sound dampeners (either on the ceiling, as artwork or whatever on the walls, or a non-glass side), you keep the sound within one from echoing or sounding hollow. A few setups I've seen involved using opaque glass as a side/separator between alcoves, and hanging sound dampeners disguised as artwork on those walls. Another used faux-walls made out of the same material as traditional cubicles to separate each micro-office, and that material is designed expressly for sound dampening. And works really well if it's floor to ceiling.
slifin 9y ago
This might seem like a naive question but could you buy a child's play house with door and windows that is big enough for a desk and use those instead?
- falsedan 9y ago
  I love this idea but I feel that some engineers may interpret it as a message that you think they are childish/immature.
trhway 9y ago
>It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. 100 square feet per year is $7K/year in SF. It is pennies compare to how open office kills productivity. People who haven't worked in offices or even good cubes may probably don't even know what good programmer productivity looks like or feels like :)
rimliu 9y ago
Productivity is too expensive.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
There are two kind of people: CTOs that feel like you, developers.

mgkimsal 9y ago

> This seems to be a result of different design goals of other professions that need to maximise for the most amount of butts in seat per square meter, without factoring in the losses that distractions can cause. Many other professions factor in distractions in their office space set up. I don't think I've been to a decent attorney or CPA office setup where they were in a shared space or hotdesk situation. Offices layouts can definitely be built for this approach - perhaps you're just noting that nothing's available? Or nothing's available at a price management wants to pay? > If you want to redraw the floorplan, you have to sign rental contracts upwards of 5 years, something no sensible startup would do ... If it was a nicely done space, I've little doubt the space owner would have trouble leasing it out again, either to one large org, or to smaller orgs who all want private space. I run a coworking space, and most people who contact me are still really just looking for individual office space.

Naga 9y ago
For accountant offices, the Big 4 are starting to roll out hotdesking, unfortunately.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  YIKES!

LambdaComplex 9y ago

What about cubicles?

emerged 9y ago
I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?
- flukus 9y ago
  Why is that? A cubicle is essentially an office without a door.
- rhizome 9y ago
  Compared to open plan? Absolutely. Even half-walls are better.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    I find even half walls to be as bad as open layouts. I hated the cube for years until 2012 when I had my first open workspace job. It was a small shop and space was limited. The next two shops I worked at were also in open floor plan layouts. At least with the most recent one I could work from home 3 to 4 days out of the week. I have to admit, I started to miss the cube. I don't want to see other people pick their noses. I don't want other people to see me pick my nose if I'm not thinking about it. I hate having another person in my peripheral. In both cubes and open work spaces, I wear headphones for most of the day. Sometimes the music is paused but I keep them on anyway. Music is really the only thing that keeps me sane in IT jobs.
    - rhizome 9y ago
      Agreed on all points. One thing that cubes protect against is visual distractions. In an open plan, even when I'm able to focus on my work, I'll always be catching something out of the corner of my eye.
- deleted 9y ago

jlg23 9y ago

Do you allow remote work instead?

mindcrime 9y ago

It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. Great, your company made a poor decision from a planning / facilities / real-estate standpoint. Quit and go find a job with a company that didn't choose as poorly.

throwaway0255 9y ago

> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. And how much does it cost to have your entire engineering team audibly and visually distracted and annoyed 100% of the time? Environmental factors that decrease engineer productivity may not show up on a balance sheet, but the cost is massive. Can you get an engineer an office for less than $40k/year? Then it's probably worth it. Seriously what is so hard about this? I work in an open office right now and every day is like sitting in a high school cafeteria trying to get work done. I work at 1/3rd capacity all day, make up 1/3rd in unpaid overtime at home, and my employer is just eating the cost on the other 1/3rd. Making me work in an open office is costing them at least $70k/yr in just my productivity. My work satisfaction is through the floor, I'm stressed and exhausted all the time and preparing to interview for other jobs. When I start interviewing and eventually move, then they'll also be eating the cost of having to recruit and train a replacement (probably another $50-100k). For the life of me I cannot understand the degree to which large companies will take huge piles of cash and just piss them right down the drain without a single thought, and yet be so incredibly resistant to giving offices to engineers. My current theory is that they don't want engineers to have offices because keeping engineers crowded together like livestock in stables serves as a visual indicator of the inherent superiority of their managers and executives. Editing to add an additional note: My employer thinks I like open office plans, my employer thinks I'm working at 100% capacity and am one of the most productive engineers, and my coworkers think their talking doesn't annoy me. There is nothing in this world for me to gain by admitting my loss in productivity, complaining about open offices, or being the reason my coworkers can't have fun talking to each other all day. Those options have only downsides. So again, the costs don't show up on your balance sheet, and every person on your team could fucking hate this open office shit and work at half capacity, and you would never have any idea.

hota_mazi 9y ago
You're painting open offices in a completely negative light without seeing that they also have upsides. I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible. What's more, a lot of engineers actually voiced a preference for open space plans over individual offices. Cubicles are on the table as an acceptable compromise but given the growth at which we're hiring and growing, it's just not physically feasible.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago

> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company How do you quantify the loss in productivity and quality that could be associated with a noisy work environment?

jsmeaton 9y ago
Opex vs capex
- gaius 9y ago
  So much corporate nonsense makes perfect sense once you are aware of this
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Well, it doesn't make sense. But you know why it happens.
- nickcox 9y ago
  Isn't this opex vs opex though? Most companies don't actually own their office space.
hota_mazi 9y ago
It's quantified, along with the gains from ease of access to everyone and the increased communications and social geling of everyone. Individual offices are simply not worth it, financially, culturally and physically.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 9y ago
  Really? Who did the quantification? Citation needed. Probably you missed the "increasing body of research" mentioned in TFA then... "According to a study on the cost of interrupted work, a typical office worker is interrupted every 11 minutes. Even worse, people often take up to 25 minutes to refocus on the original task." "Researchers have found that the loss of productivity due to noise distraction doubles in open office layouts compared to private offices, and open office noise reduces the ability to recall information, and even to do basic arithmetic." "In a 2013 study about the privacy-communication trade-off in open offices, 60% of cubicle workers and half of all employees in partitionless offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem." " A study on the association between sick days and open office plans found that people working in open offices took 62% more sick days than those in private offices. And remember all those interruptions that workers experience in open offices? In a survey in the International Journal of Stress Management, employees who were frequently interrupted reported 9% higher rates of exhaustion." "Clearly, open office layouts aren’t the hotbeds of creativity designers originally hoped they would be. And with office space at a premium, private offices for everyone isn’t a realistic alternative, nor is it ideal. The ebb and flow of effective collaboration requires several types of spaces. As workplace experts outlined in the Harvard Business Review, employees tend to generate ideas and process information alone or in pairs, then come together in a larger group to build on those ideas, and then disperse again to take the next steps." https://hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-worst https://hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-w... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413000340 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21528171 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21528171 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-office-interruptions-are-1378852919 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-office-interruption... https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collaborative-spaces-also-support-solitude https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collabo...

cosmie 9y ago

Landlords won't generally let you make structural/material changes to a floorplan without a longterm lease to justify it. However, you can make some pretty snazzy temporary office space that doesn't require permanent modifications to the space using privacy walls and glass partitions[1]. From a structural standpoint, they're basically fancy cubicles, and made by the same companies as standard cubicles. The most damaging thing they do to the structure is mount the tracks for the glass into the floor and ceiling. But that's usually considered normal wear and tear since it's easily fixable on move-out. From an aesthetics perspective, they're effectively mini offices and can be done very well, making a space look nice and chic and making employees a lot happier. All with what amounts to some fancy cubicles. [1]http://spaceplus.com/products/glass-office-partitions/ http://spaceplus.com/products/glass-office-partitions/

jakemoshenko 9y ago
What do they actually do for noise mitigation though? If people can't take calls in them without disrupting others, and if someone could theoretically still shout at their neighbor when they need to have a discussion it sounds less than ideal.
- cosmie 9y ago
  Depends entirely on the type you get and how you install them. If you get floor to ceiling types with appropriate glass, it provides just as much sound isolating properties as a traditional office. And with appropriate sound dampeners (either on the ceiling, as artwork or whatever on the walls, or a non-glass side), you keep the sound within one from echoing or sounding hollow. A few setups I've seen involved using opaque glass as a side/separator between alcoves, and hanging sound dampeners disguised as artwork on those walls. Another used faux-walls made out of the same material as traditional cubicles to separate each micro-office, and that material is designed expressly for sound dampening. And works really well if it's floor to ceiling.

slifin 9y ago

This might seem like a naive question but could you buy a child's play house with door and windows that is big enough for a desk and use those instead?

falsedan 9y ago
I love this idea but I feel that some engineers may interpret it as a message that you think they are childish/immature.

trhway 9y ago

>It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. 100 square feet per year is $7K/year in SF. It is pennies compare to how open office kills productivity. People who haven't worked in offices or even good cubes may probably don't even know what good programmer productivity looks like or feels like :)

rimliu 9y ago

Productivity is too expensive.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

There are two kind of people: CTOs that feel like you, developers.