I worked for a large education technology company that drastically increased its facilities costs to convert a huge office building, that the company owned alre

I worked for a large education technology company that drastically increased its facilities costs to convert a huge office building, that the company owned already, from private offices into open-plan shared desks. Worse, this office (in Columbus, Ohio), housed almost entirely corporate HR and regional sales staff, almost no engineering presence and no plans to significant change the headcount there. Someone asked about it over the company’s quarterly web cast town hall meeting, and the CEO replied that they were transforming into an innovation company, that each and every one of us watching was an innovator and that innovators love open spaces. The staff in Columbus routinely had to handle sensitive calls about HR issues, payroll, medical leave, terminations, etc., and needed private phone call facilities almost all day every day. So the company paid money (pure loss here since they aren’t renting), to destroy privacy features that were actively needed, solely for optics.