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I work for a huge health care company. Throughout the early 2000's they were busy buying up multiple large commercial buildings to house all of their employees.
by at-fates-hands 4y ago
I work for a huge health care company. Throughout the early 2000's they were busy buying up multiple large commercial buildings to house all of their employees.
Then Covid hit and we went through several iterations trying to get people back into the office.
The company spent tens of millions renovating the majority of their buildings to open office concepts less than 18 months before Covid hit and was still in the middle of finishing several of the buildings when C19 hit - thus having people back in the office was a huge risk without cubes and people using "hoteling" and they immediately went to assigned areas and desks to try and get people to come back in.
First it was in two week shifts of A and B with assigned seating. Clean, rotate, repeat. Then it was VP's who wanted everybody back in the office and wanted badge reports so they could go after the people not coming in. They got a metric TON of pushback from managers who were telling their people not to come in if they didn't feel safe. In the end, the executives relented and approved full-time telecommuting to a majority of the employees.
The company has already sold off four of its buildings to out-state real estate companies and over the last year have been consolidating everybody down to one or two of the larger buildings.
I've been about half and half. Its a good break to just to get out of the house once in a while and have lunch with the other devs who are essentially doing the same thing.
- ed25519FUUU 4y agoIronic that they converted to open-office, one of the most-hated methods to organize a workspace. Gee I wonder why nobody wants to come in? Maybe if they built cubicles they’d get some people interested.
- postalrat 4y agoIs open-office really hated more than working in endless hallways and doors? Almost like working in a hotel.
- baggy_trough 4y agoCertainly by most anyone that needs to concentrate for a living.
- postalrat 4y agoIsolation is overrated for concentration. Handling distractions and concentrating simultaneously is a skill that anyone can and will learn.
- wwweston 4y agoEven before covid there were reasonable arguments that open office concepts were a form of managerial malfeasance. With the reminder that infectious disease is a thing and is often spread via the air, nobody has an excuse to not know that it's inviting illness to spread unchecked through your workforce on top of the other productivity hits.
- at-fates-hands 4y ago>> With the reminder that infectious disease is a thing and is often spread via the air One of the places I worked at in the early 2000's "experimented" with the open office concept they read about and how awesome it was for "collaboration" and "team building" and really improved communication. It lasted six months. Two waves of the flu that knocked down a bunch of developers like napalm was the final nail in the coffin. They took out all the huge tables they put in place of the cubicles and replaced them with the 3/4 height cubicles. They also reverted back to the standard communication. Don't just walk over to someone and start talking. Use IM, ask if they have a minute, be polite, use proper channels, etc. Suddenly, the office was like a library again. People got it. People getting sick all the time was pretty much eliminated, it was much easier to concentrate and it really felt harmonious again.