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The Open Office Is Destroying the Workplace
HughPickens.com writes: Lindsey Kaufman reports in the WaPo that despite its obvious problems, the open-office model has continued to encroach on workers across the country, with about 70 percent of U.S. offices having no or low partitions. Silicon Valley has led the way — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg enlisted famed architect Frank Gehry to design the largest open floor plan in the world, housing nearly 3,000 engineers within a single room that stretches 10 acres. Michael Bloomberg was another early adopter of the open-space trend, saying it promoted transparency and fairness. Bosses love the ability to keep a closer eye on their employees, ensuring clandestine porn-watching, constant social media-browsing and unlimited personal cellphone use isn't occupying billing hours.
But according to Kaufman, employers are getting a false sense of improved productivity. A 2013 study showed many workers in open offices are frustrated by distractions that lead to poorer work performance. Nearly half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem, and more than 30 percent complained about the lack of visual privacy. The New Yorker, in a review of research on this nouveau workplace design, determined that the benefits in building camaraderie simply mask the negative effects on work performance.
While employees feel like they're part of a laid-back, innovative enterprise, the environment ultimately damages workers' attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction says Kaufman. "Though multitasking millennials seem to be more open to distraction as a workplace norm, the wholehearted embrace of open offices may be ingraining a cycle of underperformance in their generation," writes Maria Konnikova. "They enjoy, build, and proselytize for open offices, but may also suffer the most from them in the long run."
But according to Kaufman, employers are getting a false sense of improved productivity. A 2013 study showed many workers in open offices are frustrated by distractions that lead to poorer work performance. Nearly half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem, and more than 30 percent complained about the lack of visual privacy. The New Yorker, in a review of research on this nouveau workplace design, determined that the benefits in building camaraderie simply mask the negative effects on work performance.
While employees feel like they're part of a laid-back, innovative enterprise, the environment ultimately damages workers' attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction says Kaufman. "Though multitasking millennials seem to be more open to distraction as a workplace norm, the wholehearted embrace of open offices may be ingraining a cycle of underperformance in their generation," writes Maria Konnikova. "They enjoy, build, and proselytize for open offices, but may also suffer the most from them in the long run."
The "open office" is just cost-reduction masquerading as some sort of innovation.
It's the march towards ever less expenses to allow more profit to funnel to the few.
And the many embrace it. The few have managed to get the many to embrace their own destruction.
Mostly random stuff.
Managers have no confidence in themselves-- they know they are incompetent at motivating people so they have to resort to big-brother intimidation techniques and vacuous pep rallys with inane slogans and sports metaphors. It then becomes self-fulfilling for the most part, you get what you pay for...
Constant noise and distraction, getting interrupted 1000 times by co-workers. It leads to starting some tasks over and over and forgetting about others.
Bad idea, created by "Twitter Generation"
*uninstalls OpenOffice and installs a crazy outdated version of StarOffice*
I had a programming job in an open office with the boss on the phone faking jovial, garrulous laughter in sales calls all day long when he wasn't coming over to refocus our efforts many times a day and ask how long that would take.
Needless to say, I got more productive development done (on my hobby project/next business) in the private office of the back seat of the bus for half hour in the morning and evening. A bus can be noisy (and you have to hang on to your laptop for fear of sudden stops), but it beats the open plan office by a long shot anyday.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The cube farm was invented as response to the problems of the open office. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way and people wonder why problems are cropping up?
The office cubicle was created by designer Robert Propst for Herman Miller, and released in 1967 under the name "Action Office II". Although cubicles are often seen as being symbolic of work in a modern office setting due to their uniformity and blandness, they afford the employee a greater degree of privacy and personalization than in previous work environments, which often consisted of desks lined up in rows within an open room.
Cubicle
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Web browsing on company time is a self correcting problem. It's accepted (at least where I work) that quick breaks throughout the day are almost a necessity. I usually do so when I get hung up or frustrated by something. A quick glance through any one of several sites I frequent gives my brain a break, and then I find I can get back at it.
Last year I spent a few months working on site for a client that has a zero tolerance policy for personal use of internet. When I learned about this I was horrified and almost declined the contract, but as soon as I started working there I found out that not only did my productivity improve, my general mood also improved. Hours flew by even if the project was not that interesting. At the end of the day I had more energy, and I also took more pleasure in non-work activities in the evening.
I am not kidding. Try it for a week: no personal email, no personal web browsing, no funnies, nothing like that during business hours (including the phone). Also cut the chitchat and the gossiping around the watercooler (or espresso machine). You won't believe how better you will feel. It's almost zen.
lucm, indeed.
I think one of these would be helpful in an open work space.
Surprisingly there is not a one size fits all solution for laying out peoples work environments!
Believe it or not there are some jobs where open plan offices are significantly better than cube farms or closed personal offices. And there are jobs where half way setups, ie small open plan offices of teams work better than large spaces or singular offices.
If you are in a sales role then open plan works a large amount of the time. If you are in a role where you are primarily focussed on your screen and writing something then smaller offices tend to work better.
If you can realise that not everyone's job is even similar, let alone the same, you will be able to understand that different layout will suit some more than others.
Every time I read an article that mentions Zuckerberg I know it is going to contain some idea, process or plan I am going to hate. Zuck is the worst possible CEO to have so much power which we know translates to the tech industry following his lead and also legislation. It is dbags like the Zuckerbergs that make me want to get out of tech since with people following their lead things are only going to get worse for the rest of us.
Every study ever done, every paper written by smart and productive people, says that knowledge workers need private spaces for concentration, and separate conference spaces for conferencing. The wide-open "collaborate all day" space sounds like hanging around the water cooler all day. At the cube farm I'm in now, I have a 7-foot wall between me and a main corridor; but people stop in the corridor junction and schmooze to the point that I can't hear myself think.
I worked at one place where the VP brought in Tim Lister for a 2-day "boot camp" seminar, and insisted that a new building have 1- or 2-person offices for engineering (no bigger than a typical cubicle or two, but an enclosed office!) (with common lab areas for test equipment). Heck, the accounting department and legal department and HR all got private offices (bigger ones) - why not the people doing the work that brought in money?
I used to be one of those 'multitaskers'. I took pride that I could crank on 3-4 things at a time.
It took me years to figure out I was doing 3-4 things badly. I now deliberately do 1 thing at a time. I make everyone set the priority they want. I make it CLEAR they what they are costing (time, money, resources). I use the scrumm burndown list method to focus my boss. I also make it clear that spinning people off task for that brain fart you had this morning costs productivity. I do not use online burndown tools on purpose. Most of them are exceptional at what they do. I can use it with some people to good effect. But my current boss seems to forget to actually manage it. So I use a manual process to put it in front of him. As it is in front of him as he is a 'swing by' kind of boss. "lets check the list" is a very good way for him to figure out what to do.
Multitasking is just a way of telling your workers you do not care about priority. Not everything can be at the top of the list. *SOMETHING* must be bellow the top. It may be a close call but you have to decide. In the words of the highlander there can be only one. Not everyone will be working on the top of the priority list either. Some will be getting number 2 and number 3 underway. However, something must be #1.
If you do not make it clear what people should do you get people wandering off task to do other things. Micromanaging is a symptom of trust issues that are fed by them finding you doing other things. People wander off because they were not told properly up front what the priority was. It all feeds on itself.
Each engineer had a desk. No deviders or walls.
All of the desks faced the same direction.
At the front of the room was a raised platform (about 1 foot high). On that platform sat the managers.
Four engineers shared one phone. That phone was on a swing arm that would swing in a circle above the four desks.
Oh, and I forgot. Your desk had to be completely bare when you left in the afternoon. And you do not want to be caught reading a newspaper anytime after the whistle blows at 8 AM.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Sheesh, I had to scroll down FAR to find someone else who didn't mind open office plans...
For me, working in an office is about maximizing Communication. Cubes and even conference rooms get in the way of communication, isolating and dividing groups so that they start wandering off in different directions and ends up creating more work to get everyone back on the same page.
Yes, distraction is an issue. But an important part of cognitive function is to be able to filter out distractions when you do need extended periods of hyperfocus. This is pretty easily handled with headphones and some discipline. My coworkers are polite enough not to approach someone who looks like they're "in the zone" and attach their comments and questions to their work tickets (woo documentation) and/or wait until standup to discuss things that need more eyeballs - usually things are resolved much faster that way anyway (as long as it's timeboxed not to waste the time of the entire team).
Plus, your workspace is very much a showcase of your work, personality, and work habits, and I find it way easier to display it on the open planform "science fair" office than in the empty nest "cube farm" booth format.
In the name of improving communication, I would even go so far as to split team members up and spread them around the office so they can better mingle with other groups in your supply / input / process / output / customer chain. After all, your teammates should already have a good deal of sync with each other, since they attend meetings together more frequently and back each other up on the same projects, so it's more beneficial to maximize inter-team communication by spreading your group out to keep tabs on the other groups in your office. They can do a better job passively filtering information discussed by other teams, helping keep track of the pulse of other groups so you have some advanced notice of when a deadline might slip or an important milestone is coming up. I always find it a greater waste of time when, after every 6 mo. reorg, they try to shuffle around everyone's seats so teams are seated near each other in a cluster by their current manager so they can "better collaborate" with each other, like they weren't going to be able to find a convenient way to do so anyway.
If you really need privacy, grab a break-out room, or work from home that day. But for the most part, I find that work sucks more when there's not enough communication, as opposed to when there's insufficient time for hyperfocus work (assuming your manager is doing a decent job shielding you from the BS, which I know is by no means a given).
you sound like a person who talks about work instead of DOING work.
well you could burn the place down.