Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace.

Provided my back is to a wall i'd be OK but I can't bear anybody behind me.

A friend studied design of the workplace. She's in Toronto and works 3 days a week from home, as do many of her colleagues. When they have to be in the workplace they don't have a regular place to work, just find an open spot and sit down.
 
cerebus said:
We have a semi-open office. We all have partitions but for instance I can wheel around and ask a question of a dev/analyst sitting a few cubicles down from me easily. I don't mind the setup at all. For what I do, I need good proximity to the developers in any case.
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So you're part of the problem... ;)

It depends a lot on the kind of work that you do. If your tasks involve very short completion cycles in high volumes it can be fine. Also if you are actively brainstorming or collaborating while you work then it can also be beneficial... but only when everyone in the vicinity is involved.

If you are involved in tasks that have a longer mental cycle then the distractions are disastrous. Things like technical design work, high level software development and other tasks where you have to gather a considerable amount of data mentally, make a reasoned decision and then produce a considerable body of work from that decision, can't be interrupted by someone's "quick question" without significant productivity impact - typically a back-to-square-one type of situation.
 
depends on your personality. Some people need other people around to energize. Some , like me, find it draining.

I used to work in a helpdesk environment. Though not part of the helpdesk I was made to sit with them ( Politics meh ) And I found myself taking calls. It frustrated me that there were people that just wouldn't help users or just sat there and couldn't help people. Which made my work load double.

But When you have the right team together that motivates each other they tend to work better in open spaces.
 
Work in what we've nicknamed the cattle shed a large office with to many teams crammed into it. I used to work in one of our smaller branches with maybe five people in it and I could get work done. Also had the option to work from home some days sigh I miss those days and it was only a few months ago
 
As others have said, depends on went you do.

Our previous manager asked to sit with us instead of office when he joined
 
Never worked in an office and to me it sounds horrible, a quite un-natural way of living and spending your day
 
As someone who is working remotely for over a year... I much prefer it... i love the flexibility and the peace and quiet... i chat to my friends / colleagues via Skype / email / etc. I dont feel alone at all. I have regular meetings via Skype daily.. And because I am remote (infact we are scattered around the world)... I find the communication is 100x better than when I was in an office.

I do have a little office in town, but i only go there when I have a meeting with my sidekick or my boss is in the country.
 
WaPo said:
As a result, I can only work effectively during times when no one else is around,
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This, a thousand times this. The one thing that is most conducive to good concentration, and hence high work output, is quiet - and you sure as hell don't get that in an open-plan office. Unless you wear noise-cancelling headphones - in which case, you're losing all the advantages of open-plan.

I also don't like it when people walk behind me. I could probably deal with the other issues of an open-plan office IF I had my back to a wall.
 
maumau said:
Provided my back is to a wall i'd be OK but I can't bear anybody behind me.

A friend studied design of the workplace. She's in Toronto and works 3 days a week from home, as do many of her colleagues. When they have to be in the workplace they don't have a regular place to work, just find an open spot and sit down.
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Had a similar environment when I worked in London. They called it "Hot Desks". They had a floor dedicated to it. They had them in all their officers internationally. Your work id could get you into any of their buildings in any city and you could just plug your laptop into the network and start working. These "hot desks" where actually very quite places. I think it might be something to do with the fact that most of the time the people using them don't often use them and therefore don't know too many around them and hence the chatter is minimised.

I have always worked in open plan offices in both SA and UK. If people around you are noisy, just ask them in a civilised manner to quieten down. has always worked for me. Guess I am lucky to have worked amongst decent people :)
 
zippy said:
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If people around you are noisy, just ask them in a civilised manner to quieten down. has always worked for me. Guess I am lucky to have worked amongst decent people :)
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I've tried this...and it only lasts 10-20 minutes and then the volume is at 11 again. I've been rude...the silence then lasts a day.
 
Apart from the noisy colleagues, sometimes I also think the people designing open plan offices should be shot for the lack of attention to acoustics and sound dampening.
 
Depends on team & personalities. It's great for creating non-silo'd teams but bad when people aren't don't have personality type needed to get things done when required, i.e. easily distracted types. In group dev scenarios, where big projects consists if multiple team mates then it works well.

All in all i prefer it.. when i want to concentrate i will either put headphones on or just plainly say i need to get something done. no hassles.. so not sure why people complain. The whole people watching over shoulder thing = meh.. you learn to not care too much, besides it work so u shouldn't be doing something you don't want others not to see..

Where i do find Open Offices awkward is for 1. Calls will managers, 2. Appraisals of individuals, 3. Anything related to personal, team performance. I think this is something many managers overlook and assume everyone is just ok with it at their desk.. for me though, if i know i'm getting a call or want to make a call i do so in one of the quiet/call rooms alebit i have a desk phone. But yah.. privacy for these things is a concern..

PS. I don;t agree with management sitting along with team unless there is minimal calls at his desk especially regarding team.
 
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We had white noise in our offices that worked a treat, until something broke and they haven't bothered to fix it (3 years later).
 
The OP voiced their opinion and some of the negatives yet I am not wiser if the employers are worse off or better off. No doubt productivity of many employees have dropped yet for others it may have improved leaving the employer in a better position.

Personal hate is coworkers who require attention interrupting the task I am assisting another with; I have already been interrupted from attending to a customer's request. Then the boss expects me to drop everything.
 
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