4 ms·

At last some sanity. I'm really starting to wonder what the incentives are for leaders who disallow things that are proven to be non-optimal: - Open plan has be

At last some sanity. I'm really starting to wonder what the incentives are for leaders who disallow things that are proven to be non-optimal: - Open plan has been proven to be less effective than offices - 4 day weeks proven to be more productive - The pandemic showed that productivity sky-rocketed in remote working Is it control? i.e. they don't mind if profits go down as long as they can control or see it?

chadlavi 5y ago
One has to assume this is it. I think a lot of management types do a lot of gut-level decision making, even the ones who claim it's all about the data. Which is stupid and arrogant, but they're convinced that because they are successful in life, they must be making good decisions. So when their gut says "I need to see everyone, they all need to be together in a space," they don't have the followup thought, "well, that's really just what I want." Instead they go, "yeah, thank you gut. Very wise. I'll do that."
MattGaiser 5y ago
It could be immediacy. Too many times in my admittedly short career some exec or PM has come up with something and immediately wanted it and asked the developer to do it. Developer doesn’t have any context on the ask, so has to go ask other people. Execs solution is to call a mega meeting and they can easily grab everyone if they are in the same room. Online or in offices, it can be time consuming to wrangle everyone. Overall, very disruptive to work, but it does seem to allow their particular ask to get done quickly which makes them look good. The damage to other productivity is like rust. Hard to notice until it gets really bad.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > Too many times in my admittedly short career some exec or PM has come up with something and immediately wanted it and asked the developer to do it. That's just extremely poor management right there.
scottLobster 5y ago
Part of it's control, part of it is the market seems largely apathetic. The impact of private offices and 4 day weeks is probably small enough that their lack won't kill companies on their own (you don't have to be the best, just good enough), so the effects are still speculative and on a case-by-case basis. Maybe offices and 4 day weeks will slowly trickle into the market place, like remote work pre-covid. But it'll be a generational change, not a revolution. Plus management lives on metrics. If you don't have metrics to capture an impact or potential impact you have no argument. Very few companies currently using open offices/full work weeks are going to expend the capital to experiment with private offices for all and 4 day work weeks. So to make your case at said companies someone else your leadership admires has to do it first and then you can quote them, similar to how every startup office basically turned into a Google knock-off once Google took off.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Making it worse, it is already known that changing things improves productivity, so it is really hard to study what works. If you make the lights brighter or dimmer it will improve productivity - this has been repeated enough to conclude it wasn't the starting brightness it was the act of change.
  - jack_riminton 5y ago
    I don't think most management are that experimentally minded One quote which stood out in the article was: "hire smart people who get things done, and get the hell out of their way" Perhaps hubris is preventing managers from seeing that their bad-management is actually detrimental. The Michael Scott (or David Brent) effect
    - bluGill 5y ago
      At least a few are and that is enough to find the above.
throwaway98797 5y ago
A few studies showing something works does not make an executive comfortable. They cant go to the board and be like “oh, I don’t know why productivity is down, I did all the things the studies said I should do”
- jack_riminton 5y ago
  Which is all the more bizarre since the pandemic lockdowns gave a lot of companies first-hand data that it was more productive (and a lot less costly)
daniel-thompson 5y ago
There are three reasons I see: - Open offices are cheaper because they require less material and allow people to be more densely packed - The C-level decision makers are likely to be extroverted sales or product people who believe that synchronous, always-on f2f communication is better for collaboration - It makes it obvious at a glance who's in the office and what they're doing, which can create social pressure to work longer hours (and can satisfy a manager's need for control)
joconde 5y ago
My bosses aren't aware that any of these things have been "proved". Some of us have anecdotical evidence that we worked more during the lockdowns, but that doesn't mean the managers are convinced of it.
drstewart 5y ago
> The pandemic showed that productivity sky-rocketed in remote working The pandemic proved that productivity sky-rocketed when almost everything fun is cancelled and all's you have to do is stay inside and work
yyyk 5y ago
Personally, I can't stand open plan, and prefer working remotely. HN has a population which has the same tastes, enough to only see a one sided view on HN. Simply put, the productivity debate isn't as settled as we may think. See [0] for example, for a mention of a few studies making the arguments for the other side. IMHO, the obvious congestion benefits are enough to suggest some form of governmental encouragement, that will allow at least some tech workers in a company to work remotely. [0] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/edward-glaeser-and-david-cutler/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/edward-glaeser-a...
- esyir 5y ago
  I've heard a lot of "private offices are massive 200-300% boosts to productivity claims" in this thread, but I've never seen any actual evidence further than "I feel it gets more done".
  - tombert 5y ago
    I agree that saying you're 200%-300% more productive is hyperbole, but there are studies indicating that you're significantly more likely to be sick enough to call into work with an open office [1], and that doesn't even count the people who "power through" their sickness, working somewhat sub-optimally (since that would probably be harder to measure). [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31647108/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31647108/

chadlavi 5y ago

One has to assume this is it. I think a lot of management types do a lot of gut-level decision making, even the ones who claim it's all about the data. Which is stupid and arrogant, but they're convinced that because they are successful in life, they must be making good decisions. So when their gut says "I need to see everyone, they all need to be together in a space," they don't have the followup thought, "well, that's really just what I want." Instead they go, "yeah, thank you gut. Very wise. I'll do that."

MattGaiser 5y ago

It could be immediacy. Too many times in my admittedly short career some exec or PM has come up with something and immediately wanted it and asked the developer to do it. Developer doesn’t have any context on the ask, so has to go ask other people. Execs solution is to call a mega meeting and they can easily grab everyone if they are in the same room. Online or in offices, it can be time consuming to wrangle everyone. Overall, very disruptive to work, but it does seem to allow their particular ask to get done quickly which makes them look good. The damage to other productivity is like rust. Hard to notice until it gets really bad.

JohnFen 5y ago
> Too many times in my admittedly short career some exec or PM has come up with something and immediately wanted it and asked the developer to do it. That's just extremely poor management right there.

scottLobster 5y ago

Part of it's control, part of it is the market seems largely apathetic. The impact of private offices and 4 day weeks is probably small enough that their lack won't kill companies on their own (you don't have to be the best, just good enough), so the effects are still speculative and on a case-by-case basis. Maybe offices and 4 day weeks will slowly trickle into the market place, like remote work pre-covid. But it'll be a generational change, not a revolution. Plus management lives on metrics. If you don't have metrics to capture an impact or potential impact you have no argument. Very few companies currently using open offices/full work weeks are going to expend the capital to experiment with private offices for all and 4 day work weeks. So to make your case at said companies someone else your leadership admires has to do it first and then you can quote them, similar to how every startup office basically turned into a Google knock-off once Google took off.

bluGill 5y ago
Making it worse, it is already known that changing things improves productivity, so it is really hard to study what works. If you make the lights brighter or dimmer it will improve productivity - this has been repeated enough to conclude it wasn't the starting brightness it was the act of change.
- jack_riminton 5y ago
  I don't think most management are that experimentally minded One quote which stood out in the article was: "hire smart people who get things done, and get the hell out of their way" Perhaps hubris is preventing managers from seeing that their bad-management is actually detrimental. The Michael Scott (or David Brent) effect
  - bluGill 5y ago
    At least a few are and that is enough to find the above.

throwaway98797 5y ago

A few studies showing something works does not make an executive comfortable. They cant go to the board and be like “oh, I don’t know why productivity is down, I did all the things the studies said I should do”

jack_riminton 5y ago
Which is all the more bizarre since the pandemic lockdowns gave a lot of companies first-hand data that it was more productive (and a lot less costly)

daniel-thompson 5y ago

There are three reasons I see: - Open offices are cheaper because they require less material and allow people to be more densely packed - The C-level decision makers are likely to be extroverted sales or product people who believe that synchronous, always-on f2f communication is better for collaboration - It makes it obvious at a glance who's in the office and what they're doing, which can create social pressure to work longer hours (and can satisfy a manager's need for control)

joconde 5y ago

My bosses aren't aware that any of these things have been "proved". Some of us have anecdotical evidence that we worked more during the lockdowns, but that doesn't mean the managers are convinced of it.

drstewart 5y ago

> The pandemic showed that productivity sky-rocketed in remote working The pandemic proved that productivity sky-rocketed when almost everything fun is cancelled and all's you have to do is stay inside and work

yyyk 5y ago

Personally, I can't stand open plan, and prefer working remotely. HN has a population which has the same tastes, enough to only see a one sided view on HN. Simply put, the productivity debate isn't as settled as we may think. See [0] for example, for a mention of a few studies making the arguments for the other side. IMHO, the obvious congestion benefits are enough to suggest some form of governmental encouragement, that will allow at least some tech workers in a company to work remotely. [0] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/edward-glaeser-and-david-cutler/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/edward-glaeser-a...

esyir 5y ago
I've heard a lot of "private offices are massive 200-300% boosts to productivity claims" in this thread, but I've never seen any actual evidence further than "I feel it gets more done".
- tombert 5y ago
  I agree that saying you're 200%-300% more productive is hyperbole, but there are studies indicating that you're significantly more likely to be sick enough to call into work with an open office [1], and that doesn't even count the people who "power through" their sickness, working somewhat sub-optimally (since that would probably be harder to measure). [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31647108/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31647108/