I think it's pretty easy. Can you honestly say you get more work done in a day with constant interruptions and distractions? Not only output is affected but the quality of the work completed. I might get the same volume of work out the door but if Im distracted I promise there are bit and pieces that have careless errors in it, which leads to re-work. This is something that you can easily ask your employees if they'd like private working quarters vs open office.
Even if people got more and better work done in private offices, maybe the increased communication in open offices is causing people to work on more important things, which could be worth the tradeoff. (I don't think it is, but such an effect is not something you'd notice with introspection.)
Plus, are private offices really the alternative for most people working in open offices? I think the cubicle is a much more likely replacement than the private office.
Amusingly, Wikipedia's page on cubicles has a photo captioned "before cubicles: open office with desks arranged in rows, 1937."[0]
I dont think they need to go full enclosed office, privacy cubes might work. I prefer an office being a programmer, but I can see how other people, like the marketing or sales department, might not need that extent of quiet and/or privacy. I know cubes are much cheaper than offices, so for any employer, unless you are flush with cash, cubes are probably what you are willing top pay for.
I wonder if open offices spread illness faster than other layouts? (I say this has I'm listening to half my office coughing their lungs up with a cold)
I'm not sure anyone really disputes the negative impact on individual productivity. The argument (other than reduced costs of course) is that open plans improve collaboration and therefore overall productivity. Personally I'm skeptical in most cases but measuring aggregate productivity is difficult given that it's really hard to make comparisons given all the other factors that come into play. (And the fact that "productivity" is a pretty squishy measure for a lot of activities anyway.)
I agree, Ive never seen such open and constant collaboration work at scale. Most effective teams are small, but even if you have a large team Ive never seen long stretches where collaboration persists for extremely long periods of time. Good effective communication is an absolute must in business, but your collaboration is probably bothering the major of people around you who are not collaborating on what you are working on. Small conference/huddle rooms are good for this.
