Submitted via IRC for chromas
Workers in open-plan offices are more active and less stressed than those with desks in cubicles or private offices, research suggests. This could be because they make the effort to find privacy to talk away from their desk, the researchers said. The US study used chest sensors to track movement and heart rate in hundreds of people in different buildings over three days.
The potential health benefits should not be ignored, they said.
But they said the study was observational only and factors like location of stairs and lifts could be at play too.
The University of Arizona study, published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, claims to be the first to measure activity and stress in office workers, rather than asking them in a survey.
It said office workers tended to be a sedentary group compared to other workers, making them more likely to have health issues, including heart problems, tiredness and low mood.
Being less active during working hours has also been linked to greater feelings of stress. In the study of 231 office workers in government buildings in the US, those in open-plan offices - with no partitions between desks - clocked up 32% more physical activity than workers in private offices and 20% more than those in cubicles.
And those who were more active had 14% lower levels of stress outside the office compared to those who were less active.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45247799
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday August 21 2018, @03:33PM (17 children)
I am one of the unfortunate people stuck in an office with a window and a door that closes.
Open Plan offices are [inc.com] such a [inc.com] great [chicagotribune.com] idea [entrepreneur.com]!
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 21 2018, @03:56PM (15 children)
I'm nowadays in a home office, which is even better, but in all my years in working for other people, by far the best environment was when I had my own office, with actual walls and a door. Even though that office was a space I'd spent a bit of my time converting from a storage closet. Next-best was high-walled cubicles with a fair amount of privacy. The open-plan companies I worked for were my least-productive, and more an indication of management being too cheap to spend money on their employee's work environment than they were reflective of somebody thinking it through.
The real reasons for open-plan offices are:
1. They're cheaper to set up than cubes or offices with walls and a door.
2. They allow managers to more easily spot people doing something other than heads-down work.
3. They create a new layer of perks for management to give out, namely "You've been promoted, so you can get a cubicle". This is along the same lines as the C-levels and VPs getting proper offices while the peons and team leads still have cubicles.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:20PM (8 children)
4) It's harder to stuff additional people into a cube. With "open plan offices", you can have one long desk designed to seat six...and then a month later it seats 8, and a month after that it seats 10, and pretty soon you've got people straddling filing cabinets all day long because what used to be one desk with a filing cabinet under each side has now become three desks.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @05:13PM (7 children)
Reminds me of a new hire we had once. We told facilities and HR we needed a new person. HR got on it right away, but facilities kept dragging their feet and then finally told us that they couldn't do anything until the person was actually hired. We hired the guy and IT provisioned their equipment, but certain secure things can only be accessed if you are connected via Ethernet. And because everyone claimed the various breakout and conference rooms, his "desk" was a file cabinet near the corner, as that was the only place near the rest of us that could reach all the necessary connections.
A few days in, VP was giving the SVP (who is actually a cool guy who knows what he is talking about) a tour and generally schmoozing and the SVP saw the guy in the corner working away. After inquiring about the situation and being greeted by excuses, the SVP said, "So let me get this straight. You think it is good management practice have a guy literally working on a filing cabinet for 2 months while you wait for a desk because facilities is too slow and people are too territorial? Tell you what, if I come back tomorrow and you can't find a way to resolve this by then, I'll show you how to manage a situation. But, and this is just a suggestion, you could give the poor kid one of your desks. [pause for 5 seconds or so] Wait, how many did you show me you had to 'maximize efficiency'? Six?" And then he just walked away.
Well, what do you know, we show up the next morning and the new hire has a desk, and it wasn't one of the VP's six! FWIW, the VP has a convertible corner desk, a convertible second desk forming a pentagon with the first desk, a treadmill desk, a breakout room on permanent reserve, and a sitting desk and standing desk in different areas of the floor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @06:18PM (6 children)
What's an "SVP"?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:13PM (1 child)
Companies learned long ago that if you give people a fancy sounding title, then they will take less money due to the prestige. So our hierarchy goes like this: Chairman of the Board; Vice-chairs of the board; the board; the President; 5(?) C*Os (e.g. CEO, CFO, CTO, COO); the ~15 SEVPs (Senior Executive Vice Presidents) of a specific area, such as accounting, or facilities, or legal; then comes the countless EVPs (Executive Vice Presidents) of whatever; SVP (Senior Vice Presidents) of whatever; VPs (Vice Presidents) of whatever; GMs (General Managers) of whatever; Seniors (as in Senior Job Title), (this level just uses the job title); and, finally, juniors (Junior Job title).
Hope that clears things up and helps illustrate how job titles in Corporate America are on a giant euphemism treadmill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:31PM
Oh, and fun fact. I'm a "General Manager" despite the fact that I have evaluation powers over nobody. It is literally the next step up from my last job as a Senior. They don't even ask me how my secretary is doing (sorry, I meant my Senior Legal Assistant, Compliance). Instead, she reports to the Senior Vice President of Legal Paraprofessionals.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:17PM (1 child)
SVP = Senior Vice-President
VP = Vice-President
They are predominantly American (USA) titles that indicate the relative position in an office hierarchy. SVP outranks VP.
'C-level' indicates someone on a company's board - like Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Financial Officer (CIO)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:06PM
EVP = Executive Vice President
(I happen to have the ear of one of those, and on occasion it is a good thing.)
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(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:42PM
senior vice president
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:55PM
Lots of people have answered this correctly, but I think they're all a little bit wrong too.
After working at a massive US-owned multi-national for a few years now I think a Senior Vice President is someone who once ran a part of the business, and was promoted into a role he (or she) has no clue about and in the intervening time lost any insight into the part of the business they did understand.
They then travel around the company asking irrelevant questions about things they don't understand and starting expensive and pointless projects that do nothing useful until they're found out and "retire".
At least that's how we do it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:12PM (4 children)
People here can work remotely, from home. I can definitely understand why some people do depending on what part of the US they are in or how far the office is from home.
I don't do that. I like keeping my home at home and work (and SN*) at the office.
* at least between commits or completing JIRA issues.
Then there is also the fact that I have a grueling 10 minute commute with 5 traffic lights. So it's easy to go to work and come home.
It once was a 7 minute commute with 3 traffic lights, until the city improved the road as traffic increased over the years.
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(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:46PM (2 children)
You should check because you may have died and gone to heaven.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 22 2018, @12:41PM (1 child)
The other possibility is that I have been involuntarily committed. But that has not happened, so far as I am able to determine.
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(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 22 2018, @07:33PM
I'll ask the nurse.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 22 2018, @02:00AM
I certainly understand that. Right now, I work out of a home office because I'm independent and there's no reason for me to take on the expense of renting out an office.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @04:01AM
Yeah right. Where I work people read the news for half an hour at a time even when managers walk in the room. People stand around talking. People do annoying things where the sound travels across the floor. Open plan offices suck. They don't improve productivity or collaboration.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:25PM
It's all just part of the Zero Privacy Future. Embrace it! Enjoy being tracked by facial recognition and gait analysis algorithms wherever you go. Smile while cash is forcibly made obsolete and all of your purchases can be effortlessly tracked. Revel in the fact that your employer and the many cameras everywhere in the office always have a clear view of you. Rejoice at the notion that not only will corporations hold all of this data, but the government will be able to get it too! Thank the government officials who conduct invasive searches of your person when you try to use any form of public transportation, all the while they tell you that the searches are completely voluntary because you could have just decided not to use public transportation. Finally, contemplate suicide as you think about how most citizens either accept these things for 'security' or 'convenience'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:23PM (5 children)
Yeah, I'm definitely "more active" in my open plan office than when I used to be in a cube.
It's not because I'm going to meetings, it's not because I'm going to discuss with people. It's because the noise and distractions drive me fucking mad and I have to periodically go spend a half hour outside doing laps around the building just to get some peace and to be able to get more than five fucking minutes of uninterrupted thought!
Open plan offices make me "more active" because they make me try to find any reason possible to get the fuck away from "my desk". They make me less productive for exactly the same reason.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:14PM (4 children)
There are some good nose counseling headphones that go over the ear and make it pretty quiet. USB rechargeable. You could even listen to music.
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(Score: 2) by Kell on Tuesday August 21 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)
And if you're doing anything even mildly maths related (eg. engineering, analysis), then that music is nothing but a distraction. Hell, even the pressure of headphones on my head is sometimes too much when I really have to think deeply. I am blessed as an associate professor to have an office with a noise seal. I'm also on the "steering committee" for the building refurb and everyone at the uni's C level are pushing hard (ie. telling us) to get open plan. The steering committee has been in open rebellion about this, citing study after study that it is a bad (and possibly catastrophic) idea. They flat out told us they are doing it anyway. The steering committee exists entirely to be a scapegoat when selling it to the rank and file.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @04:07AM
Think? Deeply? In the office? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
good joke
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 22 2018, @12:43PM
I just bought some on Amazon for about $75. They are very comfortable. Very quiet. I have not tried wearing them for hours. So that could be a problem I have not anticipated. They are supposed to run for 30 hours, but I have not put that to the test.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Wednesday August 22 2018, @11:20AM
Two problems:
1) Our office did at one time have a rule against wearing headphones. Haven't seen it enforced in a couple years, but that's a potential issue.
2) It's not people talking in general that bothers me...I don't mind the noise...it's people talking *to me*. I have no doubt that someone would rip the headphones right out of my ears just so they could tell me some idiotic story about their weekend or whatever other garbage, which I would not respond or react to in any way, but they're still gonna do it...
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:30PM (3 children)
Making my job more stressful would make my time not in the office less stressful.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:46PM (1 child)
Unfortunately, that's not how stress works. Your time outside the office might seem less stressful in comparison to in the office, but it would still be more stressful than your time outside of the original less-stressful office.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @05:50PM
I think he meant the de-stressing time after the heart attack.
Either way recovering in the hospital or "relaxing" in a pine box, its less stressful.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:29PM
Open Plan Office --> More Active
What they actually mean is more active shooters.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @05:13PM (2 children)
More active, sure. More productive, depends of the kind of worker you are: a solver or a begger.
Open-Plan offices encourage beggers to continually interrupt other workers to solve their issues in detriment of their assigned tasks. And once you fall in the solver category are doomed.
That may be good for the company or not, but definitely rarely for those solvers not being able to develop their work as quick and far as otherwise could because instead are solving every other fellow worker problems. And you can be absolutely sure that won't be rewarded by anyone.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 21 2018, @06:30PM (1 child)
And if we follow that a bit further...pretty soon the "solvers" begin to feel that nobody in the office seems to be actually doing their work or have a clue what's going on, so why should they? Which then results in them redirecting a large portion of their effort into developing strategies for not being hassled. And at that point you probably do start to see the drop in productivity, but if the "solver" is smart about it their own work doesn't suffer, it's all the "beggars" whose output declines, and that makes it hard to attribute the cause of that decline because nobody was actually doing their own work in the first place.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:30PM
Also...
You can have an entirely 100% remote workforce that has beggars with high productivity scores and solvers that are doing horribly, because no one measures who is doing the work. The solvers look bad making the beggars look good. The numbers and metrics are for who has work done and how much, but not who is actually doing it. Those that read those reports are not really involved in what's going on, so those solvers also better have soft skills to explain to management what is going on.
If you do not, and choose to focus on your own work, you get beggars that claim they are not doing the work because the Solver would not help them. Suddenly, good deeds get punished even more. Why are you not helping? You're holding things up! When the real truth is they don't know how to do it. And you have no one to blame when your work isn't done.
All of this can take place remotely. No need for an open office. in fact, when working from home, that door is always open. Otherwise people wonder where the hell you are, why aren't you responding to IMs within a few seconds, etc. Calls can be done via voip or actual phones, meetings via lync/skype/whatever, IMs too, email is email.
You don't need to be there in person to have someone beg you to solve their problems. You don't even have to be in the same country or paid the same wage to be expected to solve the beggar's problems. You don't even have to speak the same language very well as long as the work being done is the same.
You might not last long in the position if you keep solving their problems and not focusing on your own projects, though; which classifies as being doomed in my book. The smug satisfaction of hearing of their IT meltdown on The Register a year or two later doesn't quite equal a steady paycheck, so it's best to try to leave on your own terms... rather than helpfully proving for management the beggars can do their jobs better than you can do yours.
Solvers often want to be helpful; and for that they often get abused. The smart solver is better off with finding strategies to not get hasseled. The beggar productivity drops, but perhaps that'll then reveal who is doing the actual work. With any luck, there'll be some changes... but none of that happens in a vacuum.
If you solve the problems and say nothing to your management about what the expectations are, it won't get any better because the metrics will always show they're getting work done.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday August 21 2018, @06:34PM (1 child)
Noisy open plan offices are among the worst places for doing anything requiring concentration. Stupid managers who confuse activity for productivity like to see their employees active in an open plan office
Then when the deadlines are missed...
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:23PM
Boss: Why did you miss the project deadline?
Peon: It is too loud in here to concentrate on this delicate task to finish it in that amount of time.
Boss: Then use a breakout room.
Peon: They are full all the time because we have 6 breakout rooms and 30-some people in here.
Boss: Then stay late or come in early so it is a less busy time when it is quieter.
Peon: Because I have a wife and kids, but I guess I could make it work if I could change my hours.
Boss: How will I know you are working if you are not physically present here when I am physically present here.
Peon: Because I'll actually be able to meet unrealistic deadlines?
Boss: Ok, but speaking of deadlines, why did you miss the project deadline?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:17PM
So this is actually a very good thing. It makes employees more active and healthy while decreasing their performance. But decreased performance is the company's problem, and since everyone's performance is decreased, the company can't just fire any one person and they can't back out and admit open offices were a mistake. Big win for the employees from what I can see.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:18PM
I agree, but its trying to find places to hide, and get away from all these people. Not active in a good way. Desks are now empty a lot, never was before.
And ya, i live in one of those places that just converted and tore down our cubes, it sucks. Sucks bad.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:54PM
Oh, it has so many health and stress benifits? Fantastic. Move all management to open office floorplans, including the C-tier and VPs. Until then, please realize everyone sees right through this bullshit.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday August 22 2018, @12:55PM
The activity that they observed (and assume is beneficial to health) is people snatching some time away from the stress of the open office. When I was in one I took a 10 minute walk around the grounds mid-morning and mid-afternoon (ie during work time) to de-stress my. Fortunately my place had grounds (lots don't) and my management were not so strict as to pull me up on it. But in some offices the management would not allow such wandering around - jeez, there are places where they raise issues with you for going for a piss.
FWIW, me and the guys around me in the open office had no work interaction with eachother - our jobs were dealing with out-lying sites by phone, email and documents. Yet the senior management, who had no idea what we did, still droned on about promoting "teamwork" in the office.
Here is Al Capone encouraging teamwork [youtube.com] (NSFW).