Anecdote: Working IT in an open cubicle environment is absolute pure fucking hell. Nevermind that the last guy left me with cable management that would make a three year old sick to their stomachs, not having an area that I can cordon off and close when I absolutely MUST shut out the world and focus on a task has been a mental and motivational drain. (This is compounded by being 1 IT staff in a company approaching 120, but that's a different affair)
I agree with everyone who says "Sure you may be saving leasing costs but you're sacrificing so much more". A perfect example of this is my sales center: an open office plan with desks lined up and about 60 people in a room the size of a large 1br condo, all talking at once, not to mention this obsession with having music played over speakers during business hours and loud annoying gongs going off whenever someone makes a big sale-I may as well be working on a trading floor (first the dashboard TV makes a big gong, people applaud, and then the person who made the big sell goes and bangs a physical gong, more applause. If I were a sales person trying to work through all that I'd quit immediately. I wonder if an exit interview survey of the sales people we've lost in the last month alone would testify to "productivity" related causes for their departures, and in high numbers). Customers can rarely hear agents, agents can rarely hear customers; I looked at my last inventory purchase and we blew $2000 in a month on replacement headsets because people kept slamming theirs down in frustration, ultimately damaging them because of the inability to hear sales calls. If my Android sound meter app is accurate at all, fully staffed the sales wing reaches 92dB in ambient/background sound.
And a litany of other problems that would be solved could I get senior management to take conditions as seriously as I do, and express a willingness to invest in the worker beyond a "Here's your paycheck, get back to work".
Open spaces are good. A commons area lightly equipped, maybe with a phone and a tv for quick 'huddles', I'm all about. 100% open office however I can't wait to go away forever. Thankfully we're moving offices soon. Regrettably, it's just a larger "open" design.
That's quite valuable information to me; given I'm sick of troubleshooting that damn wireless music box and have been trying to get rid of it for months.
I agree with everyone who says "Sure you may be saving leasing costs but you're sacrificing so much more". A perfect example of this is my sales center: an open office plan with desks lined up and about 60 people in a room the size of a large 1br condo, all talking at once, not to mention this obsession with having music played over speakers during business hours and loud annoying gongs going off whenever someone makes a big sale-I may as well be working on a trading floor (first the dashboard TV makes a big gong, people applaud, and then the person who made the big sell goes and bangs a physical gong, more applause. If I were a sales person trying to work through all that I'd quit immediately. I wonder if an exit interview survey of the sales people we've lost in the last month alone would testify to "productivity" related causes for their departures, and in high numbers). Customers can rarely hear agents, agents can rarely hear customers; I looked at my last inventory purchase and we blew $2000 in a month on replacement headsets because people kept slamming theirs down in frustration, ultimately damaging them because of the inability to hear sales calls. If my Android sound meter app is accurate at all, fully staffed the sales wing reaches 92dB in ambient/background sound.
And a litany of other problems that would be solved could I get senior management to take conditions as seriously as I do, and express a willingness to invest in the worker beyond a "Here's your paycheck, get back to work".
Open spaces are good. A commons area lightly equipped, maybe with a phone and a tv for quick 'huddles', I'm all about. 100% open office however I can't wait to go away forever. Thankfully we're moving offices soon. Regrettably, it's just a larger "open" design.