How Much Do You Value Your Office Space?

reason asks: "I've heard that office space costs around $10,000 per employee, and sometimes much more. I have a great office: it's a nice size and I have a lovely view out the window. It's a good working environment, and I know I'm lucky. Still, if it came down to dollar terms, I'd be willing to share my office with a colleague or even move into a cubicle in exchange for a mere $5,000/year pay rise. Am I undervaluing what I have? If you have an office to yourself, how much would they have to pay you to make you willingly give it up? If you don't have an office, how much of a pay cut would you be prepared to take to get one?"

Comments

Google and Me

[komodo9]

Look at Google. They have very few offices, but instead many small rooms with 4-6 people in each. They say it enhances collaboration through discussion and brainstorming. If you're ever unsure about something, you can turn around and ask someone very quickly.

To me personally, office space doesn't mean much. I almost prefer to work with others around rather than being isolated in an office by myself.
--
United Bimmer - BMW Enthusiast Community

Re:Google and Me

[luvirini]

The most efficient arrangement I have found was a 2/room thing in couple of places I worked, we had a fairly large office partially divided by a screen. Worked very well when you had someone closeby to be a soundingboard and similar and yet there was no background noise or such when the door was closed. I think the google model has same benefits, though personally I would thing 6 people would likely be too much.

Re:Google and Me

[tverbeek]

I'm admittedly not a particularly social person, and I would have thought that having an office to myself would be ideal. And I'd freak out and run screaming from the room if forced to share space with other people. But that hasn't been the case.

At the place I worked for a dozen years ago, my boss and his boss decreed that it was time to "tear down the wall" between Programming and Tech Support, which meant not only taking down the almost-to-the-ceiling partion between the two groups, but turning the entire room into an open office area, with no vertical barrier taller than a seated person. And it worked great. So much so that, at my next job, when they started talking about reconfiguring the cubicles for the IT dept, without even being asked I went home and made up a similar design to serve as a first draft. That also worked out well. (Of course, it helped that in both instances, I managed to get myself a desk with a view outside... even if it was just a parking lot.)

The job I had after that paid better, and I got my own office with four walls, a ceiling, and a real wooden door. Heaven, right? Nope. Granted, there were factors other than the seating arrangements, but I hated it.

Now I'm in a job where I share an office (four walls and a door... that's always open) with a co-worker.* And it's actually kinda nice. One of us can intercept interruptions when the other is trying to get something done, getting help with something is as simple as stating a question aloud, and I don't need to worry about keeping abreast of what my coworker is doing because I'm right there when he does it. As long as I continue to get "alone time" - at home and on breaks - I'm fine. I gave up several thousand dollars a year and some benefits to take this job instead of the office-with-a-door job. It was worth it. Even without an outside window.

*Actually, the co-worker position is empty, and we're interviewing to fill it. Anyone with Mac experience interested in working for an art-and-design college in Grand Rapids MI is invited to contact me at "verbeet AT ferris DOT edu"

Cost is way lower, differential cost is even less!

[whoever57]

Firstly, unless you worked for Webvan, or some other profligate doc com company, office space does not cost $10k per employee. Not even in the SF Bay area.

Secondly, you have to consider that the cost of your space is probably only half or less of the total: conference rooms, bathrooms, corridors, etc.: all must be considered, and while the corridors may have to larger if each employee has more space, the bathrooms and conference rooms and other shared areas don't.

So, the delta cost to a company for you to have a cube vs. an office: probably less than $2k per year. For $2k off my gross wages, I would opt for an individual office.

Lots!

[B5_geek]

In my previous job my desk was against the wall in a warehouse. People walking up behind me all the time. Servers spread-out across 3 desks, Cat5 cables hanging down from the ceiling.

No heat in Winter (Hey this is Ontario it does get cold!)
No air in Summer (Hey this is Ontario it does get hot!)

The only way I could impove my situation; wait for somebody to get canned & steal their desk. By the time somebody noticed I had been there for a few months and 'entrenched'. =)

value of work

[usrusr]

> Still, if it came down to dollar terms, I'd be willing
> to share my office with a colleague or even move into a
> cubicle in exchange for a mere $5,000/year pay rise

But will your efficiency be the same in a cubicle? If you put that into the calculation as well your pay rise could easily be much smaller, probably even negative for some tasks.

Which brings us to the most important point: some kinds of work benefit more from a nice seperate office, some less, some even benefit from a shared room.

And don't underestimate the incentive factor, a wage rise might be more attractive for the individual employee than getting a separate office, but his coworkers won't take much notice of that. Promoting someone to a better office on the other hand can provide a much greater "i can accomplish that too" motivation boost for his coworkers.

Depends on the office...

[i.r.id10t]

In the past 8 years at my employer, I've been in 6 office spaces, some shared, some semi-private, and one wiht a closing door. I don't consider office space as part of my salary, but I do consider the choice of office space (within relative reason) to be worth "something", if not money. Same with office furnature, network jacks, and good power supply.

First was a small kitchen area, shared with 3 other people at different points of the day, with some overlap occasionally of all 4 of us plus an extra person or two. We managed, and as a group we all got along together well - we're all still together, same department, only losses have been due to a death and a retirement. Next had a private office, 3 network jacks, 2 different circuits, it was nice. Then moved to a slightly smaller office, turning down a window office because it was on the south side of the building, not shaded, and my desk was just a tad too big for it. Moved to a shared lab area with 1 other person for a while for renovations, then back. Just moved to a shared area with really high cubicle walls, but now I have a north side window to one side of me and a fishtank to the other.

So I guess it really depends on what you consider to be a good office, or a better one than you have now.

Better to keep the flow going...

[mikael]

If you have an office to yourself, how much would they have to pay you to make you willingly give it up? If you don't have an office, how much of a pay cut would you be prepared to take to get one?"


If I had my own office, I wouldn't give it up for anything. Being able to work somewhere with the benefit of natural daylight and without distraction is something I would not give up. Having the ability to open the window and get natural air is an added bonus.

My reasoning is this: By being able to work without distraction I can focus on producing quality work in a short amount of time, and increase my value to the employer, which would increase my
chances of getting better pay rises. Having natural air also helps achieve this goal (as opposed to having a desk right next to an industrial laser printer which as in constant use).

There was also a previous discussion where Microsoft observed that every 5 minute distraction caused their developers spend 25 minutes in order to get the flow going again).

Offices

[Jozer99]

Don't under estimate office space. I interned at the same company my mother works at last summer. For the first two weeks I got a corner office (nicer than my mom's office, THAT pissed her off), and it was great. Then they finally processed me and I moved into a little teeny cubicle. I was SOOO much more producive in the office, becuase I didn't have the destraction of listening in on the various conversations of people in my cubical block, and people didn't tend to just walk right into my office unless they had a reason (good to know I'm feared ;) but they would barge right into the cubical and give me other stuff to do.

Offices may cost less

[hakan2000]

I actually think offices cost less in the long term. I was in an office for half of my career, and in a cube for the other half. My office was at least 25% smaller than my cube, but since it is an office, it doesn't really feel small, it actually feels more comfortable. So with careful planning, I think you can pack more offices (without windows of course) than cubes given the same square footage. Also, I'm pretty sure that a company will save a lot of employee-work-hours ( = dollars! ) just due to the fact that there's more noise isolation and less distractions. Some people say cubes encourage 'brainstorming' or 'collaboration', which I think is total bs. You can always go to someone else's office, take a few of colleagues with you, shut the door, and collaborate all you want without distracting anybody. Finally, you can deny it all you want but everyone takes care of personal business at work. A simple phone call to your doctor which would take a few minutes of your time from your office becomes a 'task': find an empty conference room, (maybe you need to reserve it too), go to the conference room, etc etc, effectively costing more for your company.

some links

[BillAtHRST]

Here's a link to one of the seminal studies: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/171/ibmsj17 01C.pdf You can also check out "Peopleware" by DeMarco and Lister. Offices are good -- if you want/need interaction, you can always invite people in, but it's hard to invite people out of a shared space. The worst "office" environments I've ever been in:
- at one engagement (I was on-staff at a consulting co. for a big client), I actually shared a DESK (not an office), with another programmer. Seriously -- one desk, two PC's, two chairs. Can you guess how productive either of us were?
- Another time, the co. I was consulting for (independent this time) had just finished remodeling their offices, and of course as soon as that was done, they had run out of space. So, they moved all the "consultants" (read, those who actually did real work) into desks strung out along a hallway. Every other person who walked by ended up kicking the back of my chair (not on purpose, at least I dont think so), but it made for a very frustrating experience. Productivity was even less than the "one desk, two people" scenario described above -- after getting jostled a few times, it was necessary to go for a walk outside to vent some steam.

Re:I'm not sure if I could put a value on it

[jobugeek]

Amen to all of the things you stated. Just getting up and staring out the window for about 2-3 minutes helps me considerably. I can clear my head and then get back to work. Unfortunately, I can't open the windows(stupid office buildings). I am easily distracted by stuff that passes through my peripheral vision, so in the few jobs I've had in a cube, I was constantly looking up. I'm just not able to cope with it.