For those that don’t know it’s basically a room with tables. No privacy at all. Bean counters love it because it’s cheap.
What’s insane is that employers do this to reduce office space costs. What they should really do is have employees work from home and only come into an office when it is important. Traveling and sitting in a office to hold a meeting is foolish. The only workers I know who claim they like it, are the ones who mainly socialize at work and not accomplishing very much.
many people work at home like me. It is another big trend now
I had an office for over 10 years, and high-walled cubicles before that, so the change to an open office was a difficult conversion. Since I have a corner spot, screen privacy is not an issue for me. Phone privacy, however, is. I’m fortunate that my department has its own small conference room nearby, which helps.
It’s just the noise and background movements that throw off my concentration. Due to the value of space in NYC, just about every large company is moving to this type of set-up. Many of my younger colleagues have worked exclusively in open environments, so that’s all they know. I am lucky that my department at least has permanent seating. Others have “hoteling”, so have to remove all of their stuff every night and store in a locker, or take it home.
I like it but then again I’m a peasant and not one of the dudes using the table space. I love being able to look in the door and instantly seeing if The Power I Need is there or off on the production floor somewhere. It makes the hunt much faster and less frustrating.
This makes employees feel like they are there only temporarily by hoteling it.
a lot are actually temps now so it fits
I like it better than hot-seating/hoteling.
It’s nice to be able to just stand up and see if the three people I need to consult are around.
I have side rooms I can duck into for phone calls. I’m a bit loud on the phone so that’s more a courtesy for my colleagues than for privacy; I’m not working on anything sooper secret.
software places are very into it since they think it helps with the latest fad: scrum/agile programming
It made it easier for me to socialize with my coworkers but didn’t increase productivity. It reduced it for a lot of people due to socializing and the constant noise of coworkers.
I work from home, but “my” office went to open plan several years ago. My informal surveys say nobody likes it – the younger ones or us old guard. The ones who hate it either work from home as much as possible or departed.
Hate it. The ad agency where I work was bought by a different agency holding company last year, and they moved us into a building that they own in November. It’s an “activity-based workspace,” which, as the OP describes, means that we don’t have our own assigned desks anymore, and only little lockers in which to store personal items.
Yes, we have phone booths and small rooms for meetings for two or three. But, it’s still disruptive, and, three months later, it still very much feels like we’re in a temporary space.
The spin is, of course, that it encourages collaboration, but we didn’t have an issue with collaboration before. The noise level is worse than in our old offices, and no one likes it, at all. It’s something we’re stuck with.
I had my own desk for 30 years, and an office with a door for the past 20. I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t feel like a demotion.
I was already working from home two days a week, and if I could pull off working from home even more often, rather than sitting in the shared space, I would.
Hate it with the fire of a thousand suns.
Bean counters say it’s cheap, executives say “hey I can see people collaborating!” Then they retreat into their cozy quiet offices and pat themselves on the back for making a smart decision.
Meanwhile half the workforce rolls in around 10:30 due to “doctors appointments”, the other half rolls out at 3:30 to “pick up the kids”, some are chronically working at home because the dishwasher is always on the fritz.
The few people who do come in the office are wearing dinner-plate size headphones to tune out the distractions, or are cropdusting the office with sneezes full of flu-bearing saliva and sputum.
But hey, great job saving that money, guys! Keep working on solving the problem of super-expensive software engineers who don’t want to come into the office!
I like it and everyone from the top heads down does it, this is a huge worldwide corporation as well. I’ve got headphones if I need isolation and the ability to work from home if that would help.
We have huddle rooms and phone booths for telecons but I think overall pretty much eveyone prefers it. I had my own office with a door for quite a few years and I felt rather isolated. Also, it doesn’t provoke the sort of interactive, ad-hoc discussions that I find quite productive.
Also in an open office it’s easier for the bosses pet to spy on everyone and report everything they do to management.
We do an open office. I don’t really like it, but it is manageable because:
[ul]
[li]Everyone is in the same space, so there is no hierarchy of, “bosses get private offices, plebs get table space”.[/li][li]But everyone has their own spot – no hot-desking.[/li][li]A culture that is accepting of the fact that sometimes everyone is going to have some non-work thing up on my screen, and enough respect for people to realize that clamping down on that is not going to lead to a great increase in productivity. [/li][li]Good noise-cancelling headphones, to the point where it is hard to get people’s attention when they have them on.[/li][li]Lots of little conference rooms for people to have conversations/take phone calls/&c., and a culture of going to those, rather than having a loud conversation in the common area.[/li][/ul]
Personally, I like the sense of camaraderie that you get in an open plan office. While I don’t like being on show all the time, I think I would get lonely sat in a little cubicle (like my colleagues in the US)
My company did BOTH. They built out a multi-story very hip & cool office space, all open offices, plus other hipster things like booths (think like restaurant booths), single-person “phonebooth” style spaces, and lots of conference rooms that range from 2 person to 30+ people. Other neat things like window seats, hanging chairs, and nice kitchen areas complete with fresh fruit, nuts, and other snacks.
But folks are also allowed to work from home, and we have a huuuuuge remote population who live far from the office.
Result: really cool open space offices that are pretty much empty a large portion of the time because nobody likes working in them. It’s always weird to visit because it’s just so empty. So in practice, the open office isn’t so bad, because most of the time it’s like 4 people in an office space meant for 30.
My office is an open office, and I hate it. Right now, we’re going through yet another round of illnesses- about half the company is out sick, because we’re sitting right next to each other. Also, I’m the only one on my side of the office who actually likes light- everyone else insists that the overhead lights be off at all times. I’ve actually started getting really depressed at work as a result.
I interviewed at one place, years ago, where it was all cubicles on the ground floor. Management was on the second floor, and there were walkways where they could walk over everyone else, presumably to make sure everyone was working hard. I noped out of that interview immediately.
We went open office this summer. Everyone. Even our chief engineer. It sucks. I don’t care who can see my screen, but we’re constantly in Webex meetings or other phone calls, and so the whole floor is a noisy mess. We supposedly have special noise absorbing carpet-that’s-not-carpet and white noise generators, but it doesn’t work worth a shit.
All of the walls were painted a bright flat white. It’s cold and makes me want to murder people, and I say like liking my job and liking the people I work with. You know how pink walls calm crime suspects? White walls make me want to murder people.
We also got coffee makers. Last year, the company gave us all free coffee, except it was Folger’s liquid concentrate and tastes like balls. However with the new construction, we get three types of beans, and made while you wait. It kind of sucked at first because they’re really slow, but they’ve since added machines, and the coffee is awesome and still free. Heck, I’ve even started to drink the decaf after the first couple of cups. Who new that decaf coffee didn’t suck anymore?
My productivity is probably down because I find reasons not to go into work anymore. On the other hand, I’ve got much improved relationships with my suppliers because instead of two hours per week with them, I’ll spend six. Working from home is something I’m migrating to, too, but it’s hard to tell my wife that I’m working, and can’t play with our daughter (I am conscientious, after all).
Oh, there’s no place to store my stuff. Company “Land” told us this was intentional. Except I’m a manufacturing engineer, i.e., the hands on kind. I’ve got all kinds of shit that I need to store and have available.
We’re three months into this farce, and I’m not a just a grumpy, old Gen-X’er who can’t adapt to change (I like positive change!); this really, really sucks donkey balls.