How to Make an Open Plan Office Suck Less

Not working in an open office was an important factor in picking my current job. I really don&#x27;t get why employers keep insisting on this terrible setup. It&#x27;s impossible to work for 9-10 hours in such an environment.<p>The EU actually has strict rules about office space but companies seem keen to ignore them. My last employer had an office where it was always to cold or to warm, it stunk and was always noisy. Terrible place to work and I feel that this was reflected in the output of work.<p>All famous management books about managing programmers seem to agree with me on this yet it&#x27;s still a trend. Terrible.

I read a lot of hate for open offices on Hacker News, but I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s as simple as &quot;open offices are bad.&quot; Last year my startup moved into our first office and I did an informal survey of the team (who had previously been working from their respective homes) about whether they&#x27;d prefer their main desks to be in private offices or an open room, and the winner was the open office.<p>My point isn&#x27;t that open offices are better. But some people clearly prefer them, and I think this community would benefit from a more nuanced discussion about when an open office is better vs. when private rooms are better.<p>This article takes a step in that direction by pointing out that some open layouts are better than others, but the author also makes it pretty clear that he never thinks an open office is a good thing. The world is rarely so black and white.

Privacy is one of the most important - and yet overlooked - design elements in the new SF coworking spaces.<p>During my last trip to Westfield mall in San Francisco I noticed the new Bespoke coworking office space.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bespokesf.co&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bespokesf.co&#x2F;</a><p>My inner thoughts trended on the same observations as the OP has stated. The Bespoke designers created a coworking office space that shuffles 12 or more folks at a single table, allocates window views that are accessible by mall patrons, and limits soundproofing to user brought headphones.<p>The only upside is for the commercial investors: be trendy to attract startups who are more than willing to spend big bucks on attractive, temporary office space. Productivity be damned.

This delivers a key point that is often overlooked about open plan office space vs private offices: regardless of whether or not you&#x27;re an open plan fan, the layout of an open plan office can make a huge difference in comfort and productivity.<p>I work in a private office currently but am not opposed to working in an open plan office. However, if you violate simple rules like seating me so close to a co-worker that I can see every move, smell every smell and engage in afternoon game of footsies, or if you seat me with my back to a high traffic area, my productivity and satisfaction with my environment are going to suffer greatly.

I would give up all the free lunches and massages in the world to not work in an open office.

These are all great points, but unfortunately they detract from the main reason employers choose open offices: cost. You can fit more employees in less space.<p>Office leases are written in terms of dollars per square foot. Fewer square feet = Fewer dollars. Yes there&#x27;s all this nonsense about &quot;increasing communication&quot; and so on. Bullshit. It&#x27;s cheaper, end of story.

I have seen a ton of open plan offices, and the office where I work is in fact an open plan office showroom, but I&#x27;ve never seen the layouts advocated here. I suspect it&#x27;s because the primary reason for open plan offices are related to cost reduction, and putting desks in long rows is the most compact way to arrange things (with clustered groups the closest proxy).

It&#x27;s nice that the article provides solutions other than &quot;just get private offices for everyone&quot;. I work in a small research lab and there are only two tiny rooms for about 12 people, so strategies like these are about all we have.

I had an idea about this some might enjoy. My boss was open to it. Setup a conference room which cannot be used for meetings, which has several dual monitor &#x2F; keyboard &#x2F; mouse &#x2F; mousepads set up. This way, you can choose to be in the open office when needed, but when it&#x27;s a detriment and you need quiet you can unplug your laptop and go in the &quot;quiet room&quot; to be productive. A companies openness to this would signal they care about employee health and productivity.