
Open-plan office is the worst. Why can't we kill it? - zzaner
https://blog.nuclino.com/open-plan-office-great-for-photo-shoots-terrible-for-collaboration
======
floren
At my previous employer, I worked in an office with real walls and a real
solid wood door, in a cubicle with a sliding plastic door, in a cubicle with
no door, and in a couple of larger open areas with between zero and three
other people sharing the space. The real office was by far the best, but
having a cubicle with a couple cabinets and a sliding door was almost as good.

I've experienced an "open plan" setup that worked; we based the setup on Bell
Labs' Unix Room after visiting them. The Unix Room model is actually great,
but it's different from your standard open-plan setup:

* People in the Unix Room seemed to be largely working on either individual projects or projects involving only a few others.

* The room itself was not actually very big, so you couldn't jam too many people in there

* Workspace was pretty generous, you weren't expected to tuck your elbows in lest you rub up against your neighbor

* Everyone in the Unix Room also had their own private office with a door, which I think was the key to success.

The last point is the biggest challenge: implementing a good open-plan
workspace is going to require even more space than a traditional cube farm.

Edit: I work from home now, in a shed in the back yard. It's the size of a
nice office, has doors and windows, and if I decide to work with the door open
I get fresh air and birds chirping :)

~~~
floren
Posting a follow-up rather than editing:

I also wonder if open-plan offices are a symptom of the increasing
centralization of tech companies. These days people seem to think the first
step of starting a tech company is to move to the Bay Area. If we were
founding companies in Redding, Rochester, Yakima, Grand Rapids, or
Albuquerque, could we afford to give everyone an office with a real door for
the same price as a San Jose hellhole?

We've got better connectivity than ever before, but we insist on clustering up
more and more. Cray was out in the Wisconsin woods. Microsoft got started in
Albuquerque. DEC and Data General were both well outside Boston in small
towns.

~~~
ghaff
In all fairness though, DEC and DG _were_ part of the Route 128 cluster of
computer companies. They were just mostly scattered in small towns around the
region (as were their manufacturing and other smaller offices) because being
located in a city was not really something that tech companies did at the
time. [ADDED: AFAIK all of these companies mostly used the typical for the
time mix of high cubicles and offices for managers.]

Boston metro was still losing population up to around the late 90s and, when
Teradyne moved out, that was basically the last major tech employer in the
city proper.

The current fascination with urban living (in certain specific cities) by a
certain young professional demographic is mostly quite recent.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
I don't understand this comment:

> In all fairness though...

"In all fairness" to what? What is this referring to?

~~~
floren
I had used DEC and DG as examples of tech companies starting in small towns,
he was pointing out that while they may have been in small towns they were
still in a "tech corridor" right outside Boston. Which is a reasonable point
to make! I guess he means "in fairness to" the modern silicon valley trends
I'm criticizing.

------
wlesieutre
Because it's cheap. Less walls to build, more employees packed on to a floor.

Do you lose more money than you're saving due to decreased productivity?
Maybe. But that's hard to prove, and "This office proposal is $X million
cheaper because we can lease three fewer floors" is very straightforward.

~~~
jessemillar
My illogical hope is that one day we'll have the ability to run "simulations"
in parallel universes so we actually can prove that option X was better in the
long term than option Y.

~~~
sucrose
Either way, there's still too many variables. If a company's ROI drops after
changing to an open work-space... some variables off the top: decreased
product quality/quantity, both/none, competition, consumer needs/wants, all of
the above, etc.

------
clra
This article nails it:

> _Open offices clearly suck. So why are you (most likely) still working in
> one? Behind all the fluff, there is a simple explanation: they save insane
> amounts of money._

In the beginning, there was a lot of talk about open offices producing more
collaborative environments, and I'm willing to give this charitable credence
and believe that some people might really have thought that at the time. It
was an emerging idea and the complete ramifications were not really
understood.

These days though, I don't think anyone ingenuous would defend that idea
anymore — it's all about money, and this is doubly so in dense tech hot spots
like San Francisco where real estate commands a huge premium.

My large company is entirely open office, and has even been known to downsize
standard desk size in order to get more of them into the same area. It's
annoying, and there's no question that it creates a large productivity tax
(desks are packed tightly enough that even a small group of people having a
conversation at normal voice levels three rows over is pretty disrupting), but
it mostly works, and giving everyone their own office in our central location
would be pretty much financially infeasible. You learn to start working around
it as best you can with sound insulating headphones, working from home where
possible, or even reserving the occasional meeting room when you can.

I find some comedy in the fact that my parent's generation used to complain
non-stop about being ousted form their offices and into cubicle farms. These
days, my generation would kill for cubicles. Even a couple drawers to store a
few personal items are a fantasy at this point.

~~~
IshKebab
I work in an open office and it is clearly more collaborative than if we were
all in separate rooms. You can easily talk to people about things and
interested parties often overhear and join the discussion when they wouldn't
have even known it was happening otherwise.

Also, being honest, I'd totally waste more time browsing the news if I had my
own office.

The key is:

1\. Have plenty of space per person. We have big desks and are only at about
60% occupancy at the moment.

2\. Don't make the offices enormous. I'd say never more than 100 people in one
room. Ideally less.

3\. Good acoustics. Carpets are essential.

I used to work for Dyson and they had 1000 people (no joke, I counted) in one
enormous office (actually it was a repurposed factory building) with no sound
absorbing material at all and it was awful. Current company is just insanely
better.

The only issue I have is there is one guy with a really loud and penetrating
voice... But it's not a deal breaker.

------
howard941
> Treat your office like a library, not a kitchen.

A VP at my fast growing and profitable Fortune 500 publicly ridiculed my
proposal to let our smallish engineering team geek in empty, unused offices in
the building, on grounds that the office was _not_ a library. He was kicked
upstairs and to another division, bless him.

~~~
zzaner
Honestly, they only upside of an open office is economic. When you have empty
offices in the building, putting up with it really makes no sense.

Basecamp actually designed their office around "library rules":
[https://m.signalvnoise.com/library-rules-how-to-make-an-
open...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/library-rules-how-to-make-an-open-office-
plan-work/)

~~~
jdsully
That office is mostly empty space, and with all the effort to noise damp one
has to ask - why bother? Just add offices at that point. At Microsoft you
could always chat in the halls and people would just close their doors.

~~~
TheTruth1234
Did you read the part about 'Library Rules'? It's a cultural leap, but that
would make all the difference.

Christ, I'm sitting in an open plan office right now with two telephone
conversations going on in my right ear.

Thank the hardware overlords for headphones ...

~~~
jiveturkey
That office plan, and 'Library Rules', are particularly stupid in a world of
lack of thought. That is, it's worse than just not thinking about it at all.

3-5 people in the office at any given day? Just build offices, christ.

One of the founders must have had a particular itch to scratch is all, and it
has cost the company money so that they could have the worst of all worlds

The 'Library Rules' are dumb because one of the prime reasons you need to make
noise in an open office is to share a screen with someone, as you collaborate
or problem solve or whatever. This is hard to do if you have to move to a
quiet room because you can't move your monitor setup with you, or have the
comfort and access of the things at your desk.

Even non-code discussions are easier at your own desk, with kbd and mouse for
notes vs laptop and trackpad.

Not being able to talk above a whisper, or at all, at your own desk is a
disaster.

~~~
ghaff
I mostly work remote these days but "library rules" in anything but a limited
area is silly. If I'm in the office, I have phone calls to participate in and
people I want to chat with. If I want to have an extended conversation with
someone, I'll (try to) find an alcove but there is zero point to my being in
the office if I have to go somewhere private every time I open my mouth.

~~~
TheTruth1234
I have nothing to do with Basecamp, but I understand they're primarily a
remote company. I think you're misunderstanding how their space is used.

------
paddy_m
I used to have a drive that required an hour drive each way in and out of
Manhattan. When I arrived at the building, I shared a room with two other
engineers who were team mates. I had so much energy after a day of work in
that environment, including the drive, than I did at a regular NYC open
office. Open office's suck energy through distraction.

I have basically given up on finding a job that would give me an office with a
door that closes. I think it's much more likely that I could find a remote
job. If I ask for an onsite office I would basically be laughed at or thought
of as a prima donna.

~~~
maxxxxx
" Open office's suck energy through distraction."

that's how I feel. Since working in a cube farm I am totally shot when I come
home. The noise, lack of daylight and visual distractions suck all energy out
of me. There is no escape from the stress while I am at work.

------
saberience
Every time this topic comes up there are a bunch of HN people saying open-plan
is "clearly the worst" and that they want cubicles back. Note: this is hardly
scientific. It's just your personal anecdote, ok, you don't like being around
many other people and would prefer a cubicle or private office. That's fine.

However, don't discount the fact that other people exist that, gasp, actually
like open-plan offices. Like myself! I'm one of those more sociable engineer
types and I love the open plan bullpen at my current company, I love the
bantering and conversations we have there, and I love that due to our social
nature we have built a really cohesive TEAM that likes each other and supports
each other. The atmosphere, friendliness, and fun, simply wouldn't be as great
if we were all in cubicles or separate offices.

So now you have my anecdote too, which is of course not science. But I know
there are plenty of others like me (unless I'm some sort of engineer unique
snowflake out of the millions out there, which seems unlikely).

Instead of simply condemning "open-plan" as the "worst," why not try and
understand why it works and helps some people and teams and why some others
don't seem to like it. Maybe it's personality dependent, maybe it depends on
the exact size of the open-plan area, there are hundreds of other factors that
could make a difference here.

~~~
thatswrong0
I like bantering and chatting too, but I definitely don’t think it’s that
conducive towards me being a productive engineer. Sometimes it’s nice being
able to freely walk about and bounce ideas off others, and I’m sure this has
resulted in some positive benefits, but 70+% of the time I really just need to
go heads down on something and not be distracted. Always being near people who
are talking is very distracting. As a result I get more done when I’m not in
the office.

I think it’s pretty obvious that you could have a hybrid approach where you
have open areas for collaborating as well as a lot of private booths or rooms
for people who actually need to get things done. But of course that wouldn’t
be cheap..

~~~
saberience
The open-plan areas at my company are kept limited in size. Our area seats
about a max of 14 people and right now we have 10 people. Everyone has their
own movable standing desk and the company provides pretty good noise-
cancelling headphones if you want.

Given the limited amount of people and decent sized area, there is a good
amount of space between desks and the noise level never really gets that high
since there aren't really that many people around.

~~~
rpedela
I think we need another word for that. It isn't really the definition of "open
office" that is usually discussed. Open office typically refers to 10s or 100s
of people in the same room. <= 10 is something else because that is small
enough for everyone to respect each other's space, ears, etc even when on top
of each other. I have had a few jobs with that particular set up and I never
had a problem with it. However I have never liked larger open offices.

------
rdtsc
> Behind all the fluff, there is a simple explanation: they save insane
> amounts of money.

Yes pretty much. It's disappointing that companies cannot be honest with their
employees and just say that simply. People can understand price per sq. foot,
it's not inverting binary trees or building rockets.

But when they are told stuff like "We can _all_ collaborate better! Look at
all this (busy) work happening!". It insults people's intelligence. It's like
giving a kid who doesn't like potatoes, carrots and telling them they are just
orange potatoes. Yes, I have tried that with my 2 year old and it works great.
But doing it with engineers who you trust to build your product is just crazy.

------
clarry
I'm _so_ glad to have a remote position. Less distraction than any office I've
ever been to. And much more cozy, because I can choose exactly how to furnish
my own space.

It's such a massive perk I have no second thoughts about turning down jobs
with a considerably higher salary. It helps that commute time and expenses are
_zero._ Commute is essentially unpaid, unproductive labour; it's not your free
time, it's something you do for the sake of your employer, and you don't get
anything done except translate your corpse.

------
carimura
It's not just price.

Think about how trends evolve over time and how long it takes larger companies
to "catch up". The planning/facilities groups are still high-fiveing from the
major work it took to spin up open layouts, ignoring the growing evidence that
it was the wrong direction.

And completely opening and shoving people in like cattle is _way_ easier than
"well-planned open" (as mentioned in other comments), or even closed offices.

They're not about to embark on an expensive complicated project until it's
unavoidable.

Will be years if ever.

------
hmottestad
I have my own office. Very happy with this! Everyone where I work has an
office, so not that special here.

Where I worked before I fought tooth and nail to get an office, by the time I
was leaving I had the smallest office in the building crammed in with 2
others, while other (non-developers) had offices twice as big all for
themselves.

Management wanted to cram 10 people into an office space the size of the
office for the boss. HR put a stop to that plan luckily.

~~~
sys_64738
I used to have my own office but now my desk is in the basement.

------
dwynings
We just closed a lease on a new space where every employee will have their own
office. Definitely atypical in Silicon Valley, which meant that buildings with
a lot of build out are less desirable. That made it easier to negotiate the
price.

------
cestith
My employer has the opposite of an open office plan after moving from our old
location to our current one a few years ago.

Tech support has a cubicle layout, but they are big cubes and assigned to each
person. There's no sharing even across shifts.

In other departments, each team has a "pod". You enter through a swinging door
from the hallway into the pod. Inside, you find a conference room with
conference table, whiteboard, and TV for shared viewing of code, project
boards, or presentations. Around the conference room are individual offices,
up to ten or so of them, mostly with sliding doors. A few offices have
swinging doors. The offices are big enough for a desk, filing cabinet,
bookcase, and a visitor's chair or a small couch/futon. Not every office is on
the outside of the building, but they all have windows at the top to get at
least some reflected natural daylight.

There are bigger conference rooms for bigger meetings, but a team can meet
whenever without going searching for a room. They can have a hack session
together or pair program right there in the pod. There's a break room on each
floor. Besides drinks and snacks, the break rooms have power outlets, bar-
style seating counters, tables, chairs for both heights, and great wifi
coverage for anyone who wants to work in a more open environment or catch more
hallway chatter.

Yes, the company had to expressly ask the architects for this layout. Yes, the
architects originally thought our management was crazy. From what I've heard
now the architecture firm has office pods and promotes the idea for their
other clients.

Management also specified mostly redundant hospital-grade air handling systems
that turn over the air in the building several times per day. We get not just
minimum and maximum temperatures and humidity monitored and handled, but
oxygen/carbon dioxide balance, too. There's no more drowsy afternoon mental
fog from a literal lack of oxygen which many offices suffer.

The last time I interviewed with some Bay area companies, they tried to
convince me that there are enough conference rooms to just duck into to get
some peace and quiet. That, I think, defeats whatever purpose beyond being
cheap that open offices are supposed to serve. I also think if you have enough
extra rooms that are never booked that people can do this, you might as well
put teams in those rooms instead of in a corral.

~~~
rommik
reading this with a mental fog in an afternoon... I feel a tear is coming or
maybe just dry eyes from the hot air and high CO2 balance...

------
mrhandy
This is painfully relatable... Marketing and sales teams don't seem to mind
much but as a developer I once had to quit a job because of this.

~~~
zzaner
I actually worked in sales and trust me, we DO mind the noise. Imagine trying
to talk to a client on the phone when you can barely hear yourself.

~~~
Irishsteve
Also gives me a pretty poor impression when I hear other sales people shouting
over whoever I'm talking to. Feels like they are in some kinda boiler room
selling me vapourware.

------
DigiMortal
Ideally, high ceilings and light are great. A hybrid office type is the best.
Offering several different work areas has most advantages.

I like to think of my college library, areas open and no noise restrictions.
Other areas closed off/private for hard focus. Some private rooms for group
meetings, private rooms for individual work.

Mobile technology has been a great thing, offering all that extra flexibility

------
root_axis
I find the open office preferable to a cubicle farm. Most cubicle setups don't
offer much in the way of privacy, especially with regard to noise and
conversation, but they are dreary and soul-draining to look upon. Obviously a
private office for teams or individuals is ideal, but if it's between open
office and cubicles, I'll pick the open office every time.

------
ionforce
As with all questions like this, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what
this is optimizing for. It's only "the worst" from one perspective. But it is
optimal for another.

The tension is not realizing that difference.

------
notjustanymike
At least in NYC, it's because of rent.

~~~
dcolkitt
Average compensation for software engineers in NYC is $150k+ a year. Add in
benefits and payroll taxes, etc. and you're looking at $180k+

Office space leases for around $75/year in NYC. A cramped open floor plan
requires 80 square feet per person. A spacious 2 window private office is 150
square feet.

A company only saves about $5000 a year, even in the expensive NYC market. If
an open floor plan results in an engineer being distracted for even 2 minutes
an hour, it costs more in lost productivity than it saves in rent.

------
MR4D
Great photo at the top. Replace the computer monitors in the photo with sewing
machines, and you have my perfect idea of a sweatshop.

No wonder I quit and started my own firm. I get hives just thinking about
that.

------
rb808
One thing I do like about working in a hot desk environment is that its easy
for people to move around regularly. Its nice to mix groups of people, work
close with those your current project is with and even mix up your day.

One problem with offices is that it gets territorial. People get their office
then its really difficult to move. Some offices have a better view or
more/less sun. Do you take turns or goes to most experienced or senior person
on the team? It becomes political and ripe for stupid games.

------
stunt
For the same reason why airlines are giving you less and less leg room.
Unfortunately, we sacrifice comfort for the sake of cost.

------
souprock
What should I call my situation? There are 2 people in a room with a door-free
opening. It's probably 11x13 feet. It has drywall and a high drop-ceiling.
There are a bunch of similar areas all off of a hallway.

It's kind of the degenerate transition point between open-plan and a
traditional office.

------
jiveturkey
I am so tired of this article. As far as HN goes, this is the new bi-weekly
'should I work at a startup?' post. As far as the general blogosphere (that's
still a thing, yes?) goes, it's the latest click attractor.

We all know by now why open-plan offices dominate. Cost. We don't need to
belabor the point.

This specific article is particularly annoying:

> The reasoning behind the idea of an open office is simple and makes sense in
> theory: fewer physical barriers – more communication and collaboration.

The author knows damn well that isn't the case. The way he presents this false
statement is annoying af. It's not setup as a false assumption to be torn down
(which he proceeds to do), it's setup as an actually true statement. It's
insulting to the reader because, nobody is so misinformed at this point in the
game.

He then goes on to speak from a position of authority on the history of the
open office plan, which of course he gets wrong. Wilkinson didn't create an
open office for Google, he created glass-walled cubes.

~~~
fatnoah
> The reasoning behind the idea of an open office is simple and makes sense in
> theory: fewer physical barriers – more communication and collaboration.

To be fair to the author, this is always the reason I've heard given by
management for having an open office plan, when the reality is, in fact, about
cost.

------
foxfired
Office Space made me hate cubicles. Open-plan made me appreciate cubicles.

------
NoblePublius
Because real estate is expensive and your boss is cheap.

------
organsnyder
Employee per square foot is an easier metric to quantify than knowledge worker
happiness and productivity.

------
georgewsinger
Because maximizing local task performance ≠ maximizing group task performance.

~~~
pseudalopex
What is the evidence it maximizes group performance?

------
Kiro
I feel like I'm the only one who likes open-plan offices.

~~~
wmhorne
What do you like about them?

------
deltamidway
Because it is the cheapest...

------
jordache
it's all anecdotal opinions

~~~
deathanatos
No, it isn't; there have been studies done on open office floorplans, and they
come to the same, obvious conclusion: they're bad on any metric you care to
measure them on, except the one the article points out: if you ignore the
productivity loss and all the other costs, they're cheaper. From the Wikipedia
article on open floor plans,

> _A systematic survey of research upon the effects of open-plan offices found
> frequent negative effects in some traditional workplaces: high levels of
> noise, stress, conflict, high blood pressure and a high staff turnover._

> _Open-plan offices have been found to elevate the risk of employees needing
> to take time off for sickness._

The article's citations will allow you to delve into the studies, if you wish.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan)

~~~
jiveturkey
The cited studies all date circa 2011. But open office was trending well
before then, and studies were done before then. For example,
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02724...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494405000538)

------
mrob
I think the real reason is that the bosses like watching all their
subordinates at once. They can see that nobody is slacking (or at least
everybody is pretending not to, which signals social submission almost as
well), and enjoy the feeling of power. Productivity statistics don't produce
the same feeling, partly because they're too abstract, and partly because
they're evidence of submission to the organization as a whole, not to the boss
personally.

~~~
drofmij
I can slack off just as easily in the office as I could at home. :D or work
just as hard at home as in the office.

~~~
loa-in-backup
You're lucky.

I automated my deployments and test analysis, which were the most time
consuming tasks (sequential process, with few quirks along the way) as a
developer. This gave me reliably 30-40 minute forced breaks.

Soon I got notices that there were complaints that I do not conform to the
office norms, and that apparently I "sleep instead of working", and people
"ask if they can work like I do" (never got any further explanation). I got
passed the slip and I'm moving on to a different job next week.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
If you automate your job, DONT show it. Use it and hide it, unless your job is
explicitly automation engineer or thereabouts.

Most places don't value the work you saved via automation. It's the company's
gain; it shouldn't be yours!

And shame on you for not cranking the gear next to your computer keeping it
working! /s Remember, the appearance of work matters more than actual work for
almost every employee.

~~~
rommik
yup, that's why I carry a notepad and take notes down with a serious face and
occasional frown... I doodle well too

