
Open Plan Offices Kill Productivity. Here's What to Do Instead. - walterbell
https://readwrite.com/2019/06/20/open-plan-offices-kill-productivity-heres-what-to-do-instead/
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edisonchee
> Thankfully, you don’t have to play the guessing game when it comes to your
> team’s productivity. Time-tracking software like Time Doctor lets you keep a
> watchful eye on your employees from afar. This software monitors workplace
> activity by tracking time use, taking screenshots of employee computers and
> providing analytics on potential poor time use. Through this data, you can
> glean insights into your team’s productivity and even monitor your workers –
> without paying for an office.

Earlier on the author cited research that open office architecture makes
everyone more observable or 'transparent', which dampens office productivity.
And then suddenly this? I couldn't take the author seriously after I got to
this part.

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hc91
Completely agree.

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julianlam
Working from home is not a silver bullet for solving the "open office
problem", sufficient privacy afforded to employees is, although for individual
employees, flex time and WFH days have their advantages.

For small businesses without offices, what would an appropriate solution be,
cubicles?

I'm personally not someone who can work from home every single day. I enjoy
going into the office and often get more done despite losing two hours to
public transit.

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eldelshell
The best office space I worked at was divided in 6-8 persons rooms. Each team
had their own conference room isolated from the rest. It was kind of a mix
between cubicles and open space. It isolated us from other parts of the
business (sales, management, etc) but allowed fast & easy collaboration
between team members.

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dano
This is similar to what we built at MP3.com 20 years ago. Offices with two to
four work areas, maybe a table in the center, and grouped people by function
and overlap. The Systems & Networking team was next door to the DBAs and in
the same hallway as the developers on the content acquisition, management, and
delivery teams. We also had a number of open areas with seating and
whiteboards for casual conversations. I even recall designing the new storage
management system on a paper table cloth at the local greek restaurant and
posting it in a common area to start the design conversation. It was quite
productive and many of the team members remain great friends to this day.

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stunt
The article is mentioning remote work as the solution. But I was expecting to
see an office design solution after reading the title.

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TheChaplain
How about letting employees choose themselves?

Certainly there are those who are super-productive in open-space, and those
who are more efficient in closed offices, cubicles or working from home.

This is 2019, we have and enormous selection of tools that makes it possible
to work from just about anywhere.

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sicnus
This felt like a sly advert for Time Doctor.

