11 ms·
The Open-Office Trap
- jimktrains2 12y agoEveryone seems to hate open offices, but since it's all I've ever known, what's the alternative? Everyone get a 4-walled office?
- thanatosmin 12y agoYes.
- pm90 12y agoThat's probably not affordable for a majority of companies.
- Tuna-Fish 12y agoA tiny office with a door is cheaper than two days of the typical programmers salary.
- rdl 12y agoFor tech companies and engineers in the Bay Area: 1) $100-200k/yr salary 2) $200-300k/yr fully loaded cost 3) $500k-$5mm/yr value created per employee (rev or market cap or whatever) -- this is actually more like -$huge to +$huge) Offices cost $7/ft2/mo in Palo Alto, or $2-4/ft2/mo in SF. A private office is probably 50-100 ft2 more than open plan. So, we're talking about $100 to $700/mo difference. I'd personally be willing to pay $500/mo pre-tax to have a private office, vs. a desk in an shared office. Productivity benefits to company are on the order of $10-50k/mo. Next time I do a startup, I'm doing 3-4 person sized offices for each person (i.e. you have a guest desk, workspace, etc., normally empty), and project areas shared per team, after there are more than just founders.
- thrownaway2424 12y agoI had my own office when I was an undergrad sysadmin.
- a3n 12y agoDeveloper salaries are probably not affordable for a majority of companies either. But they pay them, otherwise they couldn't get people to come to work for them. So at some level of developer pay, N companies are profitable. At N+P, fewer companies are profitable, and at N-P, more. All else being equal. If we cared as much about our desks as we do about our pay, we'd have more offices, and companies would either make less profit, or there would be fewer companies. But we don't have offices, because we don't insist on it. Next time you interview, make that as important as salary.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoHave your developers work from home then. I work for a fully funded startup where the entire team is remote. I would never go back to an office (I have insane levels of productivity compared to my last gig that had an open office plan, not to mention 0 commute time).
- briandear 12y agoBravo! My productivity (and motivation) is orders of magnitude higher when I can work in my house in the South of France or at my mother in law's house on the Mexican Riviera.) I will give you 10 hours a day of full productivity if you can save me from my old Jersey City-NYC commute. I don't need to play ping pong with you to build great software for you.
- pbreit 12y agoThere are very few companies that enjoy outsized success with such a setup. So I think the retort to your final sentence is likely "Yes, you do".
- toomuchtodo 12y agoPerhaps those companies should learn how to manage better?
- briandear 12y agoHow many have actually tried it?
- toomuchtodo 12y agoThank you! Part of my motivation for taking the job was my wife wanted the ability for us to live in Nice, France for a bit. I've noticed you mention in your HN posts that you live in the South of France; congrats on the ability to do that!
- VLM 12y agoAt least some open plans, are ultra low walled cubicles. Simply install taller cubicle walls. The cost is approximately zero compared to the costs of sick days and ruined productivity. Fire extinguishers are expensive. However, they're pretty cheap compared to getting cited by the fire dept/OSHA for not having a fire extinguisher. And they're really cheap compared to the result of a fire that can't be put out.
- imanaccount247 12y agoIt is almost certainly affordable for the vast majority of them. And as the article points out, evidence suggests that they are losing money by not investing in proper office space. Walls are a hell of a lot cheaper than lost employee productivity.
- scribu 12y agoIf Rands in Repose didn't have such cryptic titles, I could link you to a blog post from http://randsinrepose.com/ http://randsinrepose.com/ which argued that yes, individual offices would be ideal, while also having common areas for brainstorming.
- rdtsc 12y agoCan put max 3 people per office. People can move together to an office if they share a common task. Then switch around as tasks change. But it is important to keep distractions out especially for creative positions. Also everyone is different so maybe some people prefer the open floor and they should be allowed to work there too. But forcing everyone to do it, I think is misguided.
- sliverstorm 12y agoYou'd never think you'd hear this, but IMO full height cubicles are a step up from the open office plan without running the bill of true offices.
- kale 12y agoI was transitioned from a full-height cubicle (in a corner, no less) to a half-height cubicle. I can see from the neck up of the person in the next cube while seated. This was done to "increase collaboration", however myself and my team are placed by a group of people from HR, so it's constantly our recruiters on the phone pre-screening candidates. We never need to interact with them. And I know they are annoyed with us as well when we're talking technical jargon. We both get on each other's nerves and constantly distract each other. Even if you subscribe to the "open = more collaborative" idea, it only works when you're near people that you interact with daily. I miss my full-height cubicle, in an area with only people from my department.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago> I was transitioned from a full-height cubicle (in a corner, no less) to a half-height cubicle. I can see from the neck up of the person in the next cube while seated. Wow, that's absurd. Our company transitioned from 6 foot cube walls to 4.5ish foot cube walls, such that you can see over the cube walls if you're standing up, but not when sitting down. It works very nicely for being able to see across most of the floor, to easily find someone you're meeting with (and who is thus also standing looking around), or to collaborate with your team over cube walls. But if you're sitting down, you have walls all around you, both to muffle noise and to provide a comfortable feeling of privacy. There are also a large number of drop-in conference rooms ("collaboration rooms"), and some one-person phone-booth rooms for fully private phonecalls.
- Yizahi 12y agoCubicles for 4 persons are fine. Or any other way of zoning with small walls - in rows or bigger "cubicles" for more people 6-8, maybe 10. PS: and while my team is a distraction for others in my office (relatively, not absolutely) I dislike open-spaces. They aren't mentally comfortable, not because of noise (for me) but because of no "feeling" of privacy. It is all subjective of course.
- hammock 12y agoHigh-walled cubicles is a common compromise
- taternuts 12y agoI truly don't understand some peoples hatred of cubicles. Sure I'd rather my own office with a door (I guess), but high-wall cubicles provide just enough privacy for me to keep outside distractions from being a problem (unless a cube-mate starts whistling or something).
- jdbernard 12y agoI had a shared office with one other programmer working on the same stuff as me for my first job. After that I took a job where I was in a cube. After having an office cubes are almost unbearable. Cubes also tend to come with a lot of bad practices like not actually having a door, facilities setting up your desk so that you have to sit with your back to the "doorway", getting shuffled from one cube to the next with regularity, and ever-decreasing work-space. One place I worked for started me in an 8x10 cube, moved me to a different floor and into an 8x8 cube, then across to another floor into an 8x8 cube which had a supporting pillar through it, making it more like a 6x4 cube, and finally into a conference room with 6 other people, all within the space of a year. I miss my office. Don't get me wrong, I'll make do wherever. But compared to having an office cubes and open plan are worthless.
- georgemcbay 12y agoIn my experience, the hatred of cubes is a hold-over from when the alternative was real offices. Compared to open plan, cubes are a step up.
- michaelochurch 12y agoYes. Real offices for everyone, and some open space (e.g. meeting and lunch tables) for people who want it. People should be in contact some of the time, but not exposed to every inane conversation. Also, open-back visibility (that is, being visible from behind) does more damage than the noise itself, and there are no noise-canceling headphones for that. Office space isn't that expensive, compared to the productivity loss of having everyone work in a crappy space. (Compared to a traditional office, open-plan saves about $300-450/month per employee in San Francisco, Class A commercial real estate. It's less if you're in Oakland, Brooklyn, or the Midwest) Open-plan is just another case of crappy HR (the norm in tech, sadly) "cutting" costs in a way that actually externalizes them; there are marginal savings on office space, but productivity plummets.
- NhanH 12y agoJust to clarify on "open-back visibility", it means that people can see you from behind (ie your back is facing the door/ open space rather than a wall, and by extension it means that they can see your screen), right? If that's the case, I agree with you, but I'd like to see more details on how/why it is the case. Do you by any chance have any more evidences?
- djloche 12y agoeg. cubicle, meaning, there is no physical door to shut that when it is shut it means Do Not Disturb.
- michaelochurch 12y agoI don't have papers on it. Just years of painful experience, but something I've noticed is that (a) people with walls at their back are generally more productive, and (b) successful or powerful people usually choose seating arrangements that give them a barrier. Visibility from behind suggests low social status and makes people feel "watched".
- MrDom 12y agoI can confirm that with a couple dozen n=1 anecdotes. I used to have a mirror on my monitor so I could see people coming up behind me. That calmed the lizard brain down a bit, but I was still distracted every time somebody walked behind me. I've known dozens of programmers who also hate having their back exposed because it's a distraction.
- mwfunk 12y agoYes, of course.
- ereyes01 12y agoPerhaps a way to mitigate the bad effects of open offices is to allow people to work from home when they need to focus. I spent a year and a half working in an open floor plan, and about 90% of my coding got done at home. I'd remain well-connected to everyone over Skype, and I'd only show up to socialize and/or attend necessary meetings. Perhaps this isn't optimal for every employee/company, but it's how I made the best of the situation for myself at this company...
- kale 12y agoI have children that are not yet school aged at home. Working from home only happens after bedtime (and that's if I decide not to spend any time with my wife after the kid's bedtime). I also work in an "open" plan (recently transitioned to it). The most productive I ever am is when I'm travelling for work. It's the only time I get privacy. As a side anecdote: I was listening to NPR about a prisoner that was talking about how he turned his life around in prison and read an incredible amount of books. I was feeling jealous of him for a few minutes until I realized how screwed up it was. I was jealous of the free time and relative privacy that a prisoner had. I never get privacy unless I'm travelling for work. Never.
- Htsthbjig 12y agoIt depends on what you do. Some activities like teaching are open by nature. Interruptions are ok and even desirable. Design, politics, sales, could have a great amount of work done in the open. Now, in activities like programming, writing, science, you are suiciding yourself in the open, constant interruptions and the theater. I have done programming in the open but choosing my partners, one, two or three people that I admired, but it was almost an intimate relationship, far from what people consider OO. In Soviet Union it was more important what other perceived you were doing that really what you accomplished, so everybody created the farce of working a lot, but the productivity levels were terrible compared with the West. Their work was simulating they were working, and like good actors, some even believed their role. In big buroucracies managers find very hard to identify what other people really contribute to the work so they start using external cues, like how much(time) this person works, how busy he looks, the sense of security and so on. "what's the alternative? Everyone get a 4-walled office?" I work from home. So do the people that work for my company. I created my company programming, so I could identify the value of the people that work with me. I could trust them, they could manage them selves, and also they are more productive when they don't have anyone breathing over their shoulders. Of course, it is no lala land. It takes experience, knowledge and work to be able to implement something like this.
- pbreit 12y agoThere are more alternatives than that: low wall cubes, high wall cubes and bull-pens, for starters.
- metaphorm 12y ago4 walled offices for everyone is a nice ideal but its just not affordable in a lot of places. I work in New York City. There just isn't enough space for that. Its totally cost prohibitive to provides offices like that for everyone.
- mb_72 12y agoThe first job I worked had each office shared by two developers; this seemed to provide a good balance between 'quiet time' and having someone close by you could bug (assuming they didn't look busy) to discuss something. In my 20-year career, I've only worked in an open office once for 6 months, and it was a significant factor in me quitting. I sat immediately adjacent to a managerial-type guy, and he had people dropping in all the time to discuss something; I'm talking 10 people per hour, on average. I would defy anyone getting any complex programming work done under those circumstances.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- javaistheworst 12y agoMost people in our large open plan office now wear large noise cancelling headphones in an attempt to drown out the gossip by the coffee machine, the colleague behind making a phone call with details far too personal to be sharing/scaring with us, the drone of many printers and photocopiers, inane ringtones, someone laughing far too loudly, and the person who eats with their mouth open and smacks their lips. But otherwise, yeah, go open offices.
- mhurron 12y ago> the colleague behind making a phone call with details far too personal I work in cubicle, and once I put the standing shelf desk in at home I'll be working from home more because of this same thing.
- sprkyco 12y agoI had one experience in an "open office" for approximately six months. It was terrible, constant shuffling of people to acquire the plethora of free food available. Nerf Gun wars and the constant click clack of ping pong approximately 30 ft. away. This article has offered me some vindication in my distaste for the "open office".
- k-mcgrady 12y agoSeems like the problem wasn't the open office plan but grown-ups playing with nerf guns and ping pong when they're being paid to work.
- serve_yay 12y agoPeople are being paid to think, which they sometimes do while playing a game of ping-pong. I say the problem was a shitty office manager.
- sehr 12y agoBut do you honestly work every second of every workhour? This isn't Germany, breaks and downtime are inevitable
- k-mcgrady 12y agoNo, I don't. But I don't through a nerf ball around the office either. Sure, some people may need a break of think better when doing an activity but you have to be a moron to think throwing something around an office is ok. Go for a walk. Find another bored employee to talk to. Browse the web. Grow up.
- sehr 12y agoSorry, I'll get off your lawn now.
- libria 12y agoThe problem is probably closer to these potential noise sources not being properly isolated from the work area, of which open offices are particularly susceptible. I've only had one work environment that didn't have some type of on-site recreation.
- pm90 12y agoI work for a company whose entire office is on an open plan. Yes, even the CEO sits in a cubicle, as do all the senior management and stuff. And this is not a startup, mind you, its a mid size company. Although it was kinda scary at first, I've adapted to it, and can see the practical benefits. Not having special offices, there is a sense of egalitarianism amongst the workers and none of the usual rat-race for better offices. As pointed out in another comment, most employees tend to use headphones when they need privacy. Since all the cubicles are the same, maintenance is a breeze. I guess it depends on your temperament. If you really just like to be left alone when working, it won't help. For me, having so many people around kinda prevents me from going drowsy, which used to happen a lot at my previous job.
- bengarvey 12y agoIf you have cubicles, I don't think that's an open office.
- pm90 12y agoAh, you're right. I might have misunderstood the meaning of the term open-office. Apologies. If its just a bunch of people sitting on tables without any sort of division ... I can see why that would be annoying.
- Sophistifunk 12y agoWhat about those half-height cubicles? That's what I've dealt with in almost every enterprise/gov position I've been in over the years in .au
- bengarvey 12y agoIf you can see people while you are sitting, I'd consider that an open office.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- PythonicAlpha 12y agoNot so new ... but it seems that some news has to be repeated on and on, that people learn. In 1987 the book "Peopleware" already described the open office trap. But since, the idea keeps coming back in CEOs minds. I experienced it in a big corporation I was in. Decades after Peopleware, Open-Office was declared as "big new invention from the US" -- but it still was the same old fallacy. The idea kept coming up always in new flavors and new "inventions" -- it seems that the idea is just to attractive for managers to be buried. The problem is, that you have to invest in people to get best results -- and conventional economical thinking often times goes the opposite direction, how to cut costs.
- modoc 12y agoThe open/closed office thing seems like chocolate vs. vanilla. Some people love one and hate the other. Some are okay with both. I've worked in both, at several companies. I generally prefer open office plans. Clearly other people don't. Everyone is different. There is no RIGHT answer, just RIGHT for you, or for your team...
- me2i81 12y agoIt's often not the team who decides. I've also been told (but it's just hearsay) that you can't get the highest LEED certification for your groovy new office complex if you have individual offices, so the PR value of that is factored in as well.
- dredmorbius 12y agoI'd really like to see a citation on that.
- ryanobjc 12y agoThe article makes a very clear case against this notion that it's a personal opinion. The problem is while you might like it, you also don't have a continuing objective measure of your own costs of working in an open office plan. For example, are you measuring your epinephrine levels? As one of the developers who has a interruption surplus (get interrupted more than I interrupt others), I really dislike open offices, they actively prevent me from getting work done.
- modoc 12y agoNot my epinephrine levels no, but RescueTime does let you know when you're working more productively than others I guess. The horror stories here seem to be giant rooms full of inconsiderate loud frat boys. My current office is 8-10 people, open plan, great inter-team communication, and a pleasant atmosphere....
- pjlegato 12y agoThe whole point of the article is that the differences are empirically and objectively measurable on a wide variety of axes, and almost universally against the open office. It is not a question of personal preference. That is, there actually is a "right" answer that is the same for everyone. Measuring it is "science."
- mwfunk 12y agoOpen office plans seem really polarizing on HN, but it surprises me how often people defend them here (or even evangelize them). For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides. For the people who do prefer them (and also spend most of their time writing code), I would be curious to know the following: (1) How many years have you spent, total, working as a developer in an office environment every day? (2) What percentage of those years were in open office layouts vs. sharing an office vs. having a private office? (3) How many times a day, on average, do you interrupt other people with questions, vs. other people interrupting you? I bring this up because I just really truly don't get the occasional open office boosterism here. My current theory is that most of it comes from people who are still in the honeymoon phase of their career (like, the first few years after college when everything about the workplace still has some novelty to it). I say this because it seems like many/most of the people I talk to in person who like the open office idea have either literally never had a private office, or are relatively fresh out of college and get a job at Google (or a startup, or wherever), and they're still so excited about everything that even the things that are hassles (like open office plans?) seem like they're brimming with novelty. Alternately, a lot of the people I talk to who like open offices tend to be those that are constantly pinging the people around them for help, but people rarely or never ping them for help. The only people I've known at my current company who want open offices (or even officemates) are these kinds of people. They don't even realize that they have an 'interruption deficit' (for lack of a better term) within their team, they just like the idea of everyone being more readily available to them and they don't pay the price for it since they rarely get interrupted themselves.
- ColinCochrane 12y agoThat's an interesting point. It reminds me of something Joel Spolsky wrote: Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds)." (From http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html)
- vacri 12y agoThe regular classroom, not the 'open classroom', is the analogue of the open office - a group of people with a common task, unseparated by walls. A private tutor would be the educational equivalent of a private office. Additionally, 'open-office' to me means OpenOffice, and while I can accept that it doesn't to everyone, be consistent. It's one of the rules of good journalism. The hyphen in the heading is not used in the article. Likewise, we have 'nineteen-fifties' versus '1997'. The ironic bit about spelling out 'nineteen-fifties' in a non-conventional, inconsistent manner... is the phrase in the article immediately following it... </oldmanrant>
- VLM 12y agoWith all due respect, the open office educational analogy is the cafeteria study hall, with everyone walking around and gossiping and goofing off and basically getting nothing productive done other than putting on a show. If the open office full of distractions is the ideal working environment, then when I get an emergency call from work, I assume I'll fix the emergency faster if I take my laptop to the neighborhood daycare center and sit down right in the highest chaos room. Oddly enough at home when no pretensions are necessary because there is nobody to show off to, people who have to actual work, pick a nice quiet closed door "office". A lot of open office love comes from utterly incompetent management and its very politically incorrect to discuss this other than semi-anonymous forums like this. "I have no idea how to manage these people or how to convince them to do what I want, but at least I can see them all squashed together like sardines". If your standard of performance is low enough, mere visibility is at least better than nothing.
- modoc 12y agoYour open office experiences and mine are massively different. I guess that's why two reasonable people can have different opinions on the subject. I would go nuts if people were gossiping and being as chaotic as a daycare... Luckily I've never run into that. Actually the worst gossip-y company I ever worked at was a closed office/tall cubicle company.
- watwut 12y agoWhen it comes to studying, most people I know seek a calm place without interruptions where you can concentrate on reading or solving hard exercise. Like your own room or a library. Office is equivalent of that. Open office is equivalent of trying to study in a busy corridor where groups of people chat, come and go and every 15 minutes someone stops by to tell you hello. Now, five or other small team in one room is a great thing. Kind of the best solution I would say. You can discuss when you need and it can be calm most of the time. However, open office is usually six such teams together overhearing each other while having next to zero chance to actually concentrate on anything.
- bwsewell 12y agoI agree that the open office layout definitely hinders your ability to focus. My current company has an open office but about 9 empty offices that people can go into and focus if they need them. That has worked out well... people utilize those often... I certainly do.
- davidmerriman 12y agoThe upside to the open office is that collaboration is effortless. The downside is that collaboration can become a crutch. It will only hinder you when you need to do the kind of "nose to the grindstone" work that's often needed. To me, the ideal working scenario includes a private working space for each person and a public space for when collaboration is needed.
- opo 12y ago>...To me, the ideal working scenario includes a private working space for each person and a public space for when collaboration is needed. I agree. The best working environment I ever had was private offices with soft seating areas at the rend of each hall. It was easy to collaborate with others and easy to get a quiet environment. You never felt like you were interrupting several other people if you went to ask a person a question. If you had to take a phone call to talk to deal with a private family issue or call a Dr or lawyer, you could just close your door. If you had to send a private email you didn't need to worry that others will see something they shouldn't see. Offices also had much more usable desk space than I have had in open office settings. I can see why people like offices (except for Zuckerberg are there any CEOs who sit in an open floor plan?), where I work now, the only people who like the open office arrangement are the managers who naturally have private offices.
- chuckcode 12y agoAre there any studies that support productivity in an open office environment? The studies referenced in this article and others seem pretty negative overall. Certainly seems to be the trend at most companies these days that I've interacted with. Is it mainly just the cheaper option per square foot?
- mrb 12y agoWell, Facebook is building the world's largest open bullpen office, with 2800 workers in 1 room(!) I wonder what they think of this research that shows open office plans being detrimental. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/27/article-2331658-1A061409000005DC-174_964x374.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/27/article-2331658-1A... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2584738/Now-THATS-open-plan-office-New-pictures-reveal-Facebooks-hacker-campus-house-10-000-workers-ONE-room.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2584738/Now-T...
- nerfhammer 12y agoThey know about the research but usually say it's more important that "openness" is a "core value" e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5768771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5768771
- MCRed 12y agoMaybe I'm being cynical but I don't believe it when people say open plans result in more "collaboration" or "openness". It just sounds like a rationalization By far the most collaborative environments for me have been individual offices or two to an office. In an open floorplan I find myself constantly being distracted and trying to wall people off, which makes my emotional state less open to discussion... because I'm trying to focus on work. With an office with one or two people in it, you don't have to worry as much, can be more open because you know you will get time to focus. The company I work for is moving from individual offices to an open floor plan. They didn't even bother to talk to programmers about it, and admitted they looked at individual office locations but didn't think it mattered when we protested. They've also gone from a 6 person dev team to now 3. While there are many problems that caused me and the other two people to leave, them choosing an open office without consulting use and then blowing off our objections is characteristic of the disrespect they show generally. I think that companies with open office plans don't really respect engineers. And I include google and Facebook in this assessment.
- joesmo 12y agoWhich is a lame cover for the real reason of not wanting to spend the extra money.
- state 12y agoI can see how open offices are deeply unproductive for mid to large sized companies. But for a team of < 10, I've generally found it to be pretty nice. Everyone has to learn to respect each other, but when you're constantly working closely it's convenient not to have any walls. Does anyone else have experience with small teams working in open spaces?
- mahyarm 12y agoThose are more team rooms which is different from open office and personal offices. When it's that small your all one team.
- briandear 12y agoYet another argument work working remote. I have to admit, the Basecamp book Remote has completely sold me on remote. I've been remote for two years and never again would I want to work in any office other than my own.
- eitally 12y agoI think one of the reasons you are seeing open offices as cost savings measures is because a lot of the companies considering it have absolutely no clue how to quantify the productivity of the people inhabiting the space. This is inherently a far worse problem.
- the_cat_kittles 12y agojust based on the strongly divergent opinions, maybe this falls into the category of "divisive yet inconsequential", like emacs vs vim or brace placement?
- pjlegato 12y agoThat a question is controversial does not in itself imply that there is no right answer and it's all just a matter of personal preference. The controversy tells us mainly something about the people holding the divergent opinions, such as the extent to which they embrace or reject the scientific method, and the extent to which they are aware of what scientific research exists. Science evolved precisely as a way to avoid this social noise and find the true status of the subject, through the use of empirical observation and repeatable experiments that test specific hypotheses. Could there be errors in these studies? Sure, and science has a process for dealing with that possibility, too: create another experiment that empirically falsifies one of their conclusions. The whole point of the article is that the differences are not inconsequential at all. Numerous academic studies have objectively measured many differences in many different specific environments, and show that the open office is worse in almost all ways related to running a successful business.
- mkehrt 12y agoTo hell with running a successful business. I'm interested in my happiness as an employee, and an open plan office is a thousand times better for that. Edit since I'm getting downvotes: All the articles I've seen about the pros and cons of open plan offices mostly focus on productivity. But, as an employee, I'm much more interested in my happiness than my productivity, above a reasonable minimum. These sorts of articles tend to ignore that tradeoff. This article does discuss happiness somewhat, but the results are less clear than those for productivity. I think it's pretty clearly something people disagree on, but this fact tends to get swept under the rug by authors who focus on the productivity losses.
- pjlegato 12y agoEr. According to the article, all of the studies also found that happiness as an employee suffers on almost all metrics in open plan offices. Having happy employees is a key aspect of running a successful business.
- DigitalSea 12y agoI have primarily worked in open plan offices and even though a few studies have indicated that they are worse than closed office spaces, honestly sometimes some environments thrive with open planned spaces, others do not. I am currently in my mid twenties and most people in my age bracket have not really experienced a non open plan office space, it is all they have ever known. I have worked at a couple of corporate companies that were not open plan and I noticed a few things. People in non open plan offices tend to be more antisocial, this is more of an observation than a proven fact. I worked for a media company and instead of getting up and talking to a colleague in the office, people would just use Skype even if the person was a 10 second walk away. Teams tend to stick to themselves, people only associate with their own teams because non open plan offices do not encourage collaboration or a social aspect. Having said that, I do find at times open plan offices can be distracting. One place I worked at had plush toys you could grab and put on your desk. If someone had a plush toy sitting on their desk, you knew not to disturb them. They didn't always work though, people who felt as though they had an emergency that required your attention would still annoy you. Not only that, but the same place also had a quiet space you could go work in, considering everyone had laptops, this was possible. We had beanbags, a dim lit part of the room with gentle lighting so the screens weren't harsh on your eyes and all completely separate and somewhat soundproof from the hustle and bustle of the open office area. Don't get me started on what happens when someone new starts and people try and find space, I call it the "open office shuffle" you are made to move along to make space for a new colleague, I am not saying that non open offices don't have the same problem, but it is more distracting in an open office environment. I think regardless of what kind of office setup you have, there are always going to be issues. Most people have only ever known one or the other. If you are used to your space, I can see how an open office could be a problem for you at first, but if you have only ever really experienced open offices, then you are probably aware and desensitised to all of the intricacies and issues with them. My favourite aspect of an open space as a developer is I feel like I am more social with my work colleagues. I get to speak with people I probably wouldn't speak with usually in a closed office environment. I can openly ask questions and have discussions in person without using Skype or Google Hangouts and when it comes to lunch, usually everyone eats together and pulls people away from their computers forcing them to go and eat, instead of at their desk. One solution to quell the issue of open office dilemmas could be to have proper solutions in place; breakout rooms for people on a deadline who need to concentrate, company supplied noise cancelling headphones, rule of no eating at your desk (so people are not distracted by your lip smacking, chewing and smell of food), no phone calls at your desk (if you want to make a call, go to a quiet part of the building or outside) and finally if you are sick, stay home and work if you can, otherwise rest.
- jondishotsky 12y agoIn San Francisco the pendulum has definitely swung back closer to center (the scale being all open to combination of open and private to private office intensive) with most startups occupying a hybrid solution with a myriad of breakout rooms and smaller meeting spaces / soft seating. The trend over the last decade began with die-hard open office plan fanpeople (breaking free of dads private office intensive historical), who quickly found that there was a lot of counterproductive distractions. From there as more traditional business starting adopting a start-up mentality to their office space, a balance had to be struck to ensure productivity. Now the offices of Airbnb, Optimizely, Weebly, all have very strong distribution of open communal work area with solid guidelines from a cultural perspective on how to treat people in that environment, while also matching the open area with ample meeting space distributed evenly throughout their building. With a more thoughtful approach than just open vs not open I think a balance can be readily created while also speaking to the culture of the company and genre of business it functions in (gaming, Saas, mobile, etc.). For the record 1- 10 years 2- open (3.5 yrs) vs closed (6.5 yrs) 3- dozens but you learn the headphone rule which basically means (don't bother me or text / message me)
- MCRed 12y agoI don't see meeting rooms as a balance. It doesn't solve the increased distraction of an open floorpan. Also, meeting rooms that are communal are not as useful- consider a whiteboard on a communal meeting room vs. one in a small office that houses 2-3 developers. That office whiteboard can have project info on it for weeks, while the communal one can't be left there. For me, in an open office, having headphones on is not enough. There's visual distraction as well. People interacting in your field of vision are also a distraction.
- serve_yay 12y agoI work in a place that has open offices, but broken into pods of 20 or so desks. In addition to that there are meeting rooms and a more general-use area. It's rather similar to the start up offices you describe (I have seen Airbnb's in person). I like this setup, I find it freeing because you can move to where you are more comfortable working at any given time. But the catch is, you can't just say seating is "variable" as a way of punting on giving people desks. Everyone should have a place that undisputedly belongs to them.
- pbreit 12y agoAs much ingenuity as there is in Silicon Valley I am amazed at how uninspiring office layouts are, particularly the near dominance of the "open office". Surely there are some companies trying out now "contrarian" layouts such as cubes, offices, bull-pens, etc?
- aareet 12y agoI like the open office layout most of the time because I find that learning and team bonding occurs very quickly in these setups. An ideal environment for me would be an open office most of the time but with four walled offices available for me to occupy on a weekly reservation basis where I can get some coding work done when I need to focus. Something soundproofed maybe, to allow me to play music without needing headphones. We had such a setup in one of the engineering buildings in university and I found that I really thrived when I was able to "plug-out" when I needed to focus and "plug-in" when I needed to work with other people - all while not having to wear headphones!
- trhway 12y agoopen office is very easy to get wrong, and thus it is usually the case. Myriad of wrong details immediately surface. For example, shades - any issue with it and people get the direct or once-reflected or significant part (they installed these modern fashionable semi-shades in our office which block too little) of sunlight right into your eyes as there are no cubicle walls to protect you. Near the passageway the lights are not soft/spread fluorescent, instead it is individual light bulbs, so forget sitting face toward that direction (which would be happily back to the sunlight mentioned above) as those bright dots of lights on your peripheral vision field are just like small suns. Compare to those lightning problems the issues like highly collaborative excited guys running like herd of elephants from one workplace to another across the space is just nothing.
- pixelcort 12y agoI'm curious about private offices and regions. While it was possible to find companies in the Bay Area that offered private offices, I have yet to find any here in Tokyo. I've assumed it's because real estate in Tokyo is more expensive, but what about other cities around the world?
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoI work in Beijing and we have 4 desk cubicles in an open space (so you get cubicle walls and around each quad. What is nice is that they put the open office area around the exterior, so I got a window! In contrast, we have offices for the level 65+ crowd, and they are quite unappealing to me because of they are interior, no natural light windows. Now I just have to avoid getting promoted.
- pixelcort 12y agoWhen you say level 65, do you mean the 64th floor or seniority?
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoThe latter, Microsoft speak.
- MCRed 12y agoHere's my argument against open office: I work in the dark. I am sensitive to the flickering of fluorescent lights that most people cannot see. Most offices have standard fluorescent lights, often with cheap bulbs or ballasts that have not been changed since the building was built. People also have different temperatures that they are comfortable at. So, you really need at minimum four offices: Dark & Cold Dark & Warm Light & Cold Light & Warm This ignores all the other problems with open offices and cubicle farms. Programmers really need to spread out. You need a whiteboard, preferably a large one for every two programmers. They need a desk big enough to support two or three monitors (if you're only giving them one, you're being penny wise and pound foolish, most likely.) Many programmers like to have books open for reference on the table. Or documents, etc. Collaboaration is higher in my experience when people have their own offices or a few people per office. Focus is much higher. Why kill productivity by %30 (a low estimate for the negative impact on my personal productivity) in order to save a fraction of an engineers salary? I think it's just bad management. But the nice thing is, these people advertise that they have open floorpans, like they don't even realize it's a mistake, and that makes it easy to just say "next" when looking at jobs.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- interesting_att 12y agoMost people in this thread are focusing on developer effectivenss as the sole criteria for office layout. But developer effectiveness != startup's health. There are three things many people in the discussion are forgetting: 1) Open office vs closed office is not a strict binary- I have noticed that employees in open office layouts are also the most lenient on WFH. I do not see as much leniency/openness towards WFH in closed workplaces. So we have to compare Open Office with lots of WFH vs Closed Office with less WFH. 2) Open offices lead to higher employee retention- Open offices might lead to more interruptions, which might decrease developer effectiveness. However, I have also noticed that open offices lead to a greater social cohesion (since people are more likely to talk and form social bonds), which in turn leads to higher employee retention. It is hard to leave a company where all your friends are. Which would you prefer as a CEO: A company where developers are 20% more effective but 50% more likely to leave, or developers who are more likely to leave? In my experience, CEOs would prefer the latter, as it's difficult to onboard new engineers. 3) Open offices engender more diverse ideas- Companies are also filled with product managers, designers, sales teams, marketing heads, customer and community support, finance, QA, and other teams. An open office will more likely lead to different teams talking to each other, which in turn creates a whole new batch of ideas. Startups rely on new ideas. New ideas often come from diverse group of people interacting.
- robwilliams 12y agoDo you have a source for any of this? I don't work in an open office but people are very lenient with WFH. Especially the second point; without a source those numbers sound too good to be true.
- mkehrt 12y agoHaving worked in a place with offices and now being in a place with an open plan, I'll never go back. There's light, there's space, there's people around, I have a better idea of what people are working on, I learn by hearing people talk, it's easy to move to a new desk if I want, the list goes on and on. It's so much better for me mentally that there's no comparison. I think this is an area people can disagree reasonably; some people just like quiet and their own space. It's really a matter of taste. I also really think I'm less productive this way, but, hey, I care about my mental health more than my productivity. Of course, employers may want to balance this differently :-).
- jdbernard 12y agoI can agree that it is a matter of taste and different people will want different things. The problem is that 99% of us have no say. For me personally open plan is hell. I am mentally drained by the constant distraction by lunch. I have a really hard time sitting down to focus deeply on a problem because my subconscious has been conditioned to expect interruption. It's worse than trying to work in the same room as my kids playing. I can disagree reasonably, but what good does that actually do me? Do I talk to my manager about it? He agrees but has no control over the layout. The upper-level management? They don't agree and don't care. Find a new job that's not open-plan? I already did, and then my team got all moved into one big conference room. This isn't good for my mental health or productivity. But its what most companies do so I'm stuck.
- Immortalin 12y agoThis has been discussed before here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7024488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7024488 And here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832209
- runarb 12y agoOne thing I am wondering is how much of the perceived benefits of an open office are losses as the employees start to push back. A couple of years ago I had the interesting opportunity to visit a new startups offices frequently. They employs was about 50% developers and 50% sales, where a lot of the sales was done on the phone. During a 1 year period their environment changed dramatically: * They first started with only laptops and a clean desk policy (at the end of the work day one had to remove everything and take ones laptop home). They also wanted a paperless office. * Soon one developer started using an active noise cancellation headphone. Some laugh at first, but during the next 3 months everyone got hold of a pair for them self. * Many then moved away from the active noise cancellation headphones to full earmuffs originally meant for indoors firearms shooting. * More and more of the developers demanded desktop computers, because thus cannot be easily moved so they would get a de facto fixed seat. * To remove visual noise, some started wearing sunglasses and turned the brightness of their monitors to maximum, so they could only see their two monitors when they looked around. * A couple of mount out one got hold of a bookshelf to store some computer parts. He sat in a corner and quickly made a third wall with his new bookshelf. Soon everyone else also demanded their own bookshelf to. * People then started to erect walls using ad hook materials like plants, empty soda bootless, spear desks and rack servers that had become redundant when stuff got moved to the cloud. * Some of the sale people started to hang out in small groups in their cars. There they could smoke cigarettes, talk loud on the phones and surround them self with printouts. They looked a lot happier doing so :) * One developer quit citing all the noise as the only reason he left. Another refuses to come in to the office, and instead suggested that the company should rent an office for him at a startup incubator nearby (I believe they eventually made some kind of compromise where he would work 3 days from home and 2 days at the office). * Eventually the company was bought by a larger entity, but things deteriorated further, so almost everyone eventually left. The owners had signed a particularly bad earn-out agreement that severely punished them if there were any decrease in revenue, so when everyone left they only got about 20% of what they would have gotten if the company had stayed afloat. All in all I believe the end result could have been very different if they had had a better office layout. They sure at least did not save anything :)
- ykumar6 12y agoIf you are getting disturbed in an open-office space, buy a set of good quality headphones. Also, we use Slack internally. Set your status to busy and no one is going to bother you.