Search Results for: open office

Open Offices and Sickness

Posted on 2017-10-01 by jcs

In a study that should surprise absolutely no one, a paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health concludes that occupants of open plan offices take 62% more sick days than those with private offices. (The paper itself … Continue reading →

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Apple’s Open Office

Posted on 2017-08-18 by jcs

Managers and bean counters tell themselves all sorts of pretty lies to justify open office plans. It will increase collaboration, they say. Employees will know what the rest of the team is doing and be better able to solve problems, … Continue reading →

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Open Offices are Bad for You

Posted on 2017-01-26 by jcs

Who knew? It turns out, though, that besides the noise and risk of contagion, open offices are also bad for your memory. Research shows that we retain more information when we sit in one spot. That’s because ideas and details … Continue reading →

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Joel Spolsky on Open Offices

Posted on 2016-10-14 by jcs

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you know my feelings about open offices: despite the self-serving cant from management, they’re really about saving money. Everyone who does creative work knows how devastating the constant interruptions can be on productivity … Continue reading →

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The Truth About Open Offices Revealed

Posted on 2016-05-20 by jcs

Succinctly. Myth: Open offices result in massive collaboration. Reality: 2 people loudly collaborate; 30 must wear headphones to get any work done. — Jochen Wolters (@jochenWolters) April 7, 2016

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The Truth About Open Offices

Posted on 2015-11-26 by jcs

I’ve written many times about the foolishness and destructiveness of open plan offices. Here is a pithy summary of the truth about such plans. If you want to know why they are so beloved of management, take a look at … Continue reading →

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Making Open Offices Less Bad

Posted on 2015-05-30 by jcs

I’ve written many times about the evils and absurdities of open plan offices. There’s lots of duckspeak about improving communication or culture building but everyone knows that its real—and only—virtue is that it’s cheap. Given that fact, if you find … Continue reading →

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Roundup of Open Plan Office Research

Posted on 2015-07-05 by jcs

Jack Schofield over at ZD Net has a nice post on the evils of open plan office layouts. That’s a favored Irreal hobbyhorse, of course, so you might think I’ve said just about everything there is to say about the … Continue reading →

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Open-Offices: Still Going Strong

Posted on 2015-01-10 by jcs

The Washington Post has a nice article by Lindsey Kaufman entitled Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace. As the title suggests, the article is a crie de coeur on the horrors of the open-office. Kaufman … Continue reading →

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Open Space Offices (Again)

Posted on 2014-02-26 by jcs

Nathan, over at thoughts from the red planet, blogs about The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies. I’ve long been puzzled about this myself and have written about it before, most recently in my The Insanity of … Continue reading →

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