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When I was hired, my firm had its main office in the suburbs. I felt pretty good about the location and environment and purchased a house nearby. At that time, many employees and managers lived in the area. Since then, the firm has changed hands, and the original office space, as part of an ineffectual cost-saving move, has been reduced in half. Ineffectual because the new lease no longer included utilities. The "savings" were spent opening a new office in the city, and a bunch of young sales hires were made for a small bullpen type office. There are no cubicles in the city, and the few offices are reserved for a handful of lucky first movers. Now they are looking for cost savings again. The firm's plan is to shut down the office in suburbia because "having everyone in the same location inspires the best ideas."
Can someone point to some research (e.g., from HBR [Harvard Business Review] or similar) indicating that R&D teams may be best served by being in distraction-free environments separated from the gossip and hubbub of sales? Or that accommodating workers who want to be away from the city may save on labor expenses and employee turnover?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:43AM
There seem to be two issues here. One is open-plan offices. Go and grab a copy of Peopleware[1] - the first edition was published in the '70s, as I recall, and it already had a bunch of citations for why open plan is less productive.
The second is whether engineering and sales should be in the same building. I don't know of any studies here, but from anecdotal experience the more disconnected sales and engineering are, the worse the company does. Scott Adams[2] has a bunch of good examples of this, where sales forget that there's more to making money than getting the customer to agree: you must also be able to deliver the product. Short turn-around for queries here is vital, as is integrating the idea that engineers should be involved in scoping any project into the Sales workflow.
[1] If you read only one management theory book, read this one.
[2] The Dilbert books have a lot more than just the comics!
sudo mod me up