
The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration - prostoalex
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/1753/20170239?fbclid=IwAR3A-nDBbBAt4eNvVfNVThZ8wV3fuvUTYmfV72hhLpsMKDZDYUcJ9tX-Dz4
======
dang
All: if commenting, please make it specific and unpredictable—such as about
this study—rather than posting generically about open offices and hating them.
There have been tons of those threads and they're all the same. It's the diffs
that are interesting.

------
olliej
What I don't get is why they hand wave as to why the f2f interaction reduces.

They even say "people isolate themselves with headphones", and don't look at
the converse: if you need to wear headphones because of people talking, you
probably realize the frustration you cause other people if you have a
conversation around them.

This is not a hard concept, and it remains weird that they don't address it.

They talk about all sorts of complex topics ("Similarly, recent collective
intelligence work suggests that, like our open offices, too much information
from social data can be problematic", "assumes that spatial boundaries built
into workspace architecture support collaboration and collective intelligence
by mitigating the effects of the cognitive constraints of the human beings
working within them.", etc), rather than going:

1\. Open plan means more distraction. By design: that is the increased f2f
interaction.

2\. Basic decency means people attempt to reduce unnecessary distractions for
others.

~~~
bradknowles
Unfortunately, "basic decency" is like "common sense", in that it is actually
pretty rare.

~~~
olliej
Not my experience - people do talk in open offices because fundamentally there
is a point where email, etc just doesn't work.

Open offices shift the cost of f2f communication vs. email/chat. Different
people have different thresholds, but I suspect that there are few people for
which open office doesn't move the talk vs. text bar.

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otakucode
>yet there is scant direct empirical research on how human interaction
patterns change as a result of these architectural changes

wat.

There are literally more than 1,000 studies that have been done on the impact
of open floor plan offices to productivity (almost universally finding very
significant negative effects). My mind boggles at how anyone interested in the
topic could possibly conclude that there is scant evidence on the subject.
It's extremely well-trod terrain.

Office spaces were designed for repetitive office tasks which assisted
repetitive manufacturing operations. Mental work is profoundly and
fundamentally different in character, and offices have never been designed
with the goal of enhancing it. The place of work in society, the idea of the
40 hour work week, and all such things are still following practices optimized
for manufacturing. That human beings have different capacities for mental
exertion compared to physical exertion, that the benefits of uninterrupted
concentration are super-linear in terms of time spent in that state, and that
mental work of poor quality can have very negative value, causing the
expenditure of far more effort overall than necessary, these sorts of things
get ignored. Doing anything in a business which appears to make things
'easier' on workers is reflexively viewed at least with suspicion, if not
outright derision. That's a social problem, mostly, and not one that is likely
to change over short time spans or without great effort and risks being taken.
It's understandable that most companies are risk-averse, so change happens
slowly.

------
mr_tristan
I wonder if any of these studies of workspaces take sound into consideration.
These studies seem visual in nature, where sound tends to be as significant
for many of us.

I've worked remotely, from cubes, open offices, and have spent plenty a
working hour in cafes. And amazingly, I've noticed I focus best either
isolated (at home), or at a cafe, where I'm effectively surrounded by white
noise.

Edit: I'm not just interested in "is person talking" or not, but what is the
nature of the sound environment.

~~~
bradknowles
For me, people talking is not "white noise". People banging on things is not
"white noise". Machines dinging and donging and bleeping and blarping is not
"white noise".

For me, only actual white noise would qualify as "white noise".

And even true white noise can be pretty distracting if it is too loud.

YMMV.

~~~
mr_tristan
Enough people talking, such that you can not follow any one conversation,
functions like white noise.

------
chiefalchemist
> "In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face
> collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human
> response to socially withdraw from officemates and interact instead over
> email and IM."

Moi? I see flags raising when tools are blamed (?) for cultural issues. In
addition, it's not the quantity of face to face interactions that matter but
the quality.

All that said, the open office approach itself is a cheap cheat / proxy for an
open minded collaborative organization. It's popular because it worked at
successful companies. The problem is, for those conpanies it was more a
correlation than a cause.

Yes, face to face matters. But, as mentioned, so does quality and context
(i.e., culture).

~~~
mlthoughts2018
> “It's popular because it worked at successful companies.”

Is there evidence of this? I’ve only ever heard of cases where companies
succeeded _in spite of_ the open plan office, meanwhile you’ve got a place
like Stack Overflow that is succeeding even when footing the bill for private
offices in Manhattan. Nobody’s copying them...

I think you have to enter the reality of executive status-seeking, cargo-cult
copying, narcissistic corporate vanity and opulence, and other sociological
problems to begin to understand open-plan offices.

~~~
JeremyBanks
> Is there evidence of this? I’ve only ever heard of cases where companies
> succeeded in spite of the open plan office, meanwhile you’ve got a place
> like Stack Overflow that is succeeding even when footing the bill for
> private offices in Manhattan. Nobody’s copying them...

Stack Overflow is going out of business...

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I searched around for info on this and couldn’t find anything really
supporting your claim. At best I think you can say SO is going through all the
same stuff that most other growing startups go through: needing to layoff some
workers, pivot product strategies. That they are still raising money seems an
indicator there is belief in the products, but sure, they might not make it.

For purposes of evaluating whether open-plan offices are effective, your
comment seems at best disingenuous and at worst just some axe to grind against
SO.

------
mlthoughts2018
It’s critical to not let up on this topic, and to pedantically keep energy
focused on hammering home the points that cost-effectiveness does not support
choosing open plan layouts, headphones don’t solve the problem, and to
understand this choice by corporations you have to look at status signalling
and sociological problems.

Even treating the topic like it’s some kind of even or fair debate about
productivity is a problem now. It’s well beyond dispute that productivity
suffers to such a degree that it erases any cost savings. It’s important to
stop acting like there is some need for further proof or debate about this,
and move on to social outrage and unwillingness to engage with companies that
choose for _everyone_ to be embedded in open plan layouts (rather than letting
some workers choose open spaces if they like it, other workers choose private
offices if they need it, and simply just paying what this costs).

------
izzydata
I don't think the article sets out to answer this specific question, but is
face to face time inherently better than online interaction in terms of
workplace productivity?

Maybe the counter intuitive nature of open office layouts is actually better
because it has people communicating faster over email.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
There's tradeoffs involved for moving things to text. On the bad side, it's
inherently a low-bandwidth channel, and you cannot interrupt to prune
irrelevant digressions from the conversational tree.

On the plus side, however, it creates a written artifact that people can refer
back to later. This can be incredibly useful, particularly for people with
working memory or other executive function issues. Or for things that are
complicated enough that a normal amount of WM/EF cannot cope with what's being
communicated.

------
rpeden
As dang mentioned, threads about open office hate are pretty common on HN, so
I'll talk about the time I liked an open office plan, and try to figure out
why I liked it.

The one time I really, really enjoyed an open office was when my desk was in a
corner. I sat with my back to the corner, facing out toward the open room. So
I felt like I got to enjoy a bit of privacy, while still enjoying the benefits
of the openness. Things never really got so noisy that I couldn't concentrate,
which was nice. I wore headphones sometimes, but it was because I wanted to,
do because I felt like doing so was necessary for concentration.

In contrast, I don't think I'd do as well in an office with nothing but long
rows of developers packed in like sardines. It feels a bit too much like this:

[https://maas.museum/app/uploads/sites/7/2018/08/xCaption-9_e...](https://maas.museum/app/uploads/sites/7/2018/08/xCaption-9_edited.jpg.pagespeed.ic.i3lfVHEVEg.webp)

Does anyone else feel this way? As though there are both good ways and bad
ways to do open plan offices?

~~~
abtinf
I also once (and only once) had a positive experience with an open office.

At the first startup I worked at, the entire team of about 10 people sat in a
~700sqft "war room." Computers and desks lined two of the walls, whiteboards
lined the other two walls. Open space in the middle. Everyone was in a
technical role.

I was very junior at the time, but I learned a lot. I had the opportunity to
listen to how the senior engineers discussed problems and the considerations
they thought important. The writing and diagrams on the whiteboard were the
reference for component interactions and process flow. The room was mostly
quiet, except for technical discussion. It was easy to run end-to-end tests by
simply talking to the person who owned the component at the other end of the
stack. I learned a lot in that role.

We were a small team focused on the same product. Every issue any one person
ran into was within the scope of concern of every other person in that room. I
think it was an effective setup.

------
fogetti
I think similarly important research would be to measure the health impact of
these offices. We should make the business world visible/transparent and
legally responsible of their impact on human societies.

~~~
bradknowles
These are companies, whose sole purpose is to generate wealth for their
shareholders.

For them, humans are a cost center. And cost centers exist for only one
purpose -- to be squeezed out of existence.

So why do you think they would care about how the humans in the company are
treated?

------
abalone
There were a lot more cubes in the olden days and people hated those as well.
Please, don't forget that historical knowledge. But open plan is not better.

I think what happened is, very basically, we saw that water cooler / hallway
conversations were so much easier than going and bothering someone in their
cube or office. You knew in that context that you were not bothering someone
so much, just mentioning something at lunch. At lot more cross pollination. So
people took that and ran with it, thinking that tearing down the walls would
increase collaboration.

But what the missed was the _context_. Hallway context = you're not bothering
too much. Open plan context = now you're bothering not only that person but
_everyone around them as well._ It wasn't the walls, it was expectations for
focus in a given space.

The Big Thing to remember here is that we still need regular workday contexts
where we do lower the threshold to team collaboration. Many of us engineers
here on HN love to get on these thread and say stuff like, total isolation and
concentration all day long? Sounds great! Maximize my productivity! That
brings us back to cubes. But it's actually important to strike a balance with
team productivity and cross pollination as well. Open plan is not it though.
Maybe we need to bring back the water cooler with the tiny cups.[1]

[1] Just kidding, that would be terribly wasteful.

~~~
newnewpdro
> There were a lot more cubes in the olden days and people hated those as
> well. Please, don't forget that historical knowledge.

People hated cubes in contrast to having an office, not in contrast to sharing
one huge office without any privacy at all.

~~~
maxxxxx
Exactly. Cubes and open office are on the same end of the spectrum. Private
office is on the other.

~~~
olliej
Cubes are far closer to an office than they are to open plan. Easily.

~~~
pdonis
_> Cubes are far closer to an office than they are to open plan._

Not if the major disadvantage to open plan is that you're constantly being
disturbed by your coworkers because there is no noise isolation.

~~~
newnewpdro
There's a whole lot more noise isolation than no cubicles at all. This greatly
varies depending on the cubicles.

The cubicles at the feynman computing center in fermilab were practically
reconfigurable offices with dividers nearly reaching to the ceiling.

There are certainly bad cubicles which serve almost no purpose at all. I think
what you'll find is it's mostly just a regression over time from private
offices to open floor plans. Throughout the middle ground it starts out with
office-like cubicles, and towards the open plan end of the time window they
have low, thin walls before completely vanishing.

In my opinion it's mostly cost-driven. Companies are trying to increase the
worker density, especially in areas like silicon valley where ft^2 is at a
premium.

They're just using "improved collaboration" as a consolation prize without
admitting "we simply can't afford to give you all reasonable isolation
anymore, and there's so many of you engineers on the market you no longer all
have leverage to demand it"

Frankly, the talented folks easily get sufficient leverage to work from home
or wherever they want anyways. So it's not really all that big of a deal,
unless you're stuck in the office because you lack the leverage to escape.

~~~
pdonis
_> There's a whole lot more noise isolation than no cubicles at all. This
greatly varies depending on the cubicles._

You realize that these two statements contradict each other, right?

My experience has been that cubicles offer little or no noise isolation as
compared to no cubicles; both alternatives are basically the same (i.e., much
worse) in comparison with offices.

~~~
newnewpdro
YMMV is not a contradiction.

You're applying a worst case experience with a cubicle to all cubicles. I've
had offices that sucked too, it doesn't mean offices are universally bad.

~~~
pdonis
_> YMMV is not a contradiction_

YMMV was your second statement. Your first statement was a flat assertion that
is false for many people, including me.

 _> You're applying a worst case experience with a cubicle to all cubicles_

No, I'm saying that the worst case experience exists and is basically the same
as no cubicles. Your statement that I objected to was "There's a whole lot
more noise isolation than no cubicles at all", which is simply false for the
worst case (which I think is fairly common actually).

------
at-fates-hands
The interesting thing is just four years ago, Writer Nikil Saval penned his
book on cubicles and postulated about why cubicles made us all miserable and
opined for more open office spaces:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/our-
cub...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/our-cubicles-
ourselves-how-the-modern-office-shapes-american-life/360613/)

Four years later and we still see plenty of backlash from the open office
concept. Is there a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, or will there be a
sort of hybrid cubicle/open office concept in the near future?

I'm curious to see what the future holds for office spaces if neither of these
are decent solutions.

~~~
stevenwoo
My recollection is Peopleware lists as an anecdote a Coding War Games study
(not alot of data is in the book) where they pit team against team in
different work environments, the study is about 30 years old at this point and
as far as I know, no one has bothered to either recreate or disprove it. It
showed a clear winner in terms of work environments (which was written by one
of the book authors so it agreed with the general sentiments of the book.)

------
Karupan
I’ve mentally given up trying to fight open workspaces and hotdesks. Arguing
about why it’s become the standard doesn’t help me. So I either work from home
when I feel like doing intense work, or I’ve accepted that my productivity
isn’t going to be as high at office.

And it’s not just the noise. I don’t like it when I feel like people are
looking over my shoulder. I just concentrate better in a smaller, self
contained room.

------
hirundo
The quest for diversity in the workplace should include the physical layout.
To gather a diverse set of solutions to a business problem, collaboration is
essential, but so is a limit to collaboration. Assign three people to generate
a proposed solution. You'll get a more diverse solution set to cherry pick
from the _less_ they collaborate. After that is the right time to collaborate.
A physical layout that supports this includes both isolated workspaces and
conference rooms.

Or, coming soon, save money on floor space by cramming folks together like
sardines but wearing VR rigs to simulate isolation. Or use the same tech to
simulate collaborative spaces among remote workers.

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walshemj
The first line is incorrect "Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace
collaboration"

Its actually about saving money.

This is as they say in yes minister "not readily believable"

~~~
mrob
I don't believe it's about saving money, because the savings over cubicles are
too small to be worth the risk of reduced productivity. The more plausible
explanation is that private workspaces signal high social status, and managers
prefer their subordinates to look obviously inferior.

~~~
toomanybeersies
At my old job I worked in an open office coworking space and had to hotdesk,
so I have no idea where I was going to sit for the day.

We didn't have permanent desks because they were more expensive, and my boss
explicitly said so. He also refused to pay for peripherals or for stationary.
I'm ideologically opposed to spending my hard earned money on things for work,
so I just used loose copier paper and a Macbook with no external monitor,
keyboard, or mouse. Not my problem that my productivity was negatively
affected.

Some employers really fail to see the bigger picture on these things. Refusing
to spend a few dollars on notebooks for me to write in resulted in my notes
being scattered all over the place and lost (I'm a big fan of pen and paper).
Refusing to pay for a monitor just resulted in me being stuck using a tiny 13"
screen. Apparently when I was hired the CEO asked my manager if I would be
able to work with an iPad instead of him having to pay for a Macbook Pro. It's
really not an attitude conducive to employee moral, I never felt valued in the
company, because I was made to feel like a cost, rather than an asset.

~~~
maxxxxx
At least they were honest about it. Other companies talk like "we are all a
big family" while treating people like shit.

------
Blinks-
My experience has been fine once I got some good noise canceling headphones,
before that I had serious issues concentrating. My main issue is not having
long uninterrupted blocks of time to complete projects that require a lot of
focus.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
For me headphones don’t help. The constant peripheral movement and people
walking aroundbehind me are the biggest issues, just triggers a fight vs
flight reflex to constantly check where people are around me.

Lighting and other environmental factors are second biggest issue.

~~~
djhalon
You are not the only one: [https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/17/panasonics-
wearable-blinke...](https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/17/panasonics-wearable-
blinkers-concentrate-open-plan-offices-technology/)

The simple fact that Panasonic sees a (profitable) need for something like
their Human Blinkers, it feels more like a cure for the symptom and not the
cause.

