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I think it is very much up for debate. Let's hypothesize that 60% of people work better in private offices, and 40% work better in open offices. You force ever

I think it is very much up for debate. Let's hypothesize that 60% of people work better in private offices, and 40% work better in open offices. You force everyone to work in a private office, and they perform slightly better than if you force everyone to work in an open office--that perfectly explains the results of the studies. But obviously if this hypothesis is true, then the best solution would be to let the 40% who work better in open offices work in open offices, and let the 60% who work better in private offices work in private offices. Sure, if you're going to force everyone into one style of office, the evidence probably says we should force them into private offices. But why are we forcing everyone into one style of office?

pojzon 7y ago
How about we let people who want to work from home to work from home and people who need others arpund to work in the office ? Win - Win situation. Unfortunately it seems too hard to understand for the majority of managers.. (most likely because they represent the later)
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > How about we let people who want to work from home to work from home and people who need others arpund to work in the office ? Sounds good to me!
unionpivo 7y ago
If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. Until that is done, it makes most sense to go with, majority of studies. That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. If you Google around, you will find lots of studies that tested which office style you should force everyone into, without considering the possibility that forcing everyone into the same office style might be a bad idea. That doesn't address my point at all. > The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office?
  - unionpivo 7y ago
    > Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office? I addressed that in my reply: "That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial. " > My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Well if the rest of the team, is in their own offices and you are alone or with people from other groups/teams how exactly will that work for you, you might as well be in coffee shop across the street. I am not trying to say that you should like individual offices, but you can't really mix both of them together, unless your teams are huge (which I personally dislike). Edit: Not sure if I explained myself correctly (I am not trying to say that some people don't work better in open offices), and I come of across as a bit of a jerk, which was unintentional. Edit2: and its a moot point mostly anyway, because open offices are cheaper, so there will always be plenty of companies with open offices, whatever studies show.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago

pojzon 7y ago

How about we let people who want to work from home to work from home and people who need others arpund to work in the office ? Win - Win situation. Unfortunately it seems too hard to understand for the majority of managers.. (most likely because they represent the later)

kerkeslager 7y ago
> How about we let people who want to work from home to work from home and people who need others arpund to work in the office ? Sounds good to me!

unionpivo 7y ago

If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. Until that is done, it makes most sense to go with, majority of studies. That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. If you Google around, you will find lots of studies that tested which office style you should force everyone into, without considering the possibility that forcing everyone into the same office style might be a bad idea. That doesn't address my point at all. > The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office?
- unionpivo 7y ago
  > Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office? I addressed that in my reply: "That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial. " > My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Well if the rest of the team, is in their own offices and you are alone or with people from other groups/teams how exactly will that work for you, you might as well be in coffee shop across the street. I am not trying to say that you should like individual offices, but you can't really mix both of them together, unless your teams are huge (which I personally dislike). Edit: Not sure if I explained myself correctly (I am not trying to say that some people don't work better in open offices), and I come of across as a bit of a jerk, which was unintentional. Edit2: and its a moot point mostly anyway, because open offices are cheaper, so there will always be plenty of companies with open offices, whatever studies show.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago