Large Tech Companies Moving Beyond the Cubicle

statemachine writes in with a story from Silicon Valley about how Intel and Cisco, among other companies, are experimenting with cubeless, open, and unassigned seating. "Beginning this month, [Intel] will set up three experimental work sites. Open areas, comfortable armchairs, extra conference rooms and tables where people can plop down with laptops will replace the ubiquitous cubes that have been standard issue for decades. Each morning, Intel employees will log onto the corporate network using wireless connections. Their phone numbers will follow them. White boards that employees use to sketch out business plans and project strategies will be outfitted with electronics so drawings and plans can be transferred to laptops and e-mailed to colleagues. 'People feel much more comfortable coming up to me. It's more of a friendly atmosphere,' Cisco senior manager Ted Baumuller said. 'I hope I never have to go back to cubes.'"

As a european from

[MemoryDragon]

central europa I personally think the cubicle system is nothing more than a sick joke.
The company I work for recently had to move offices because it was not conformant to working laws anymore, every person hat about 5 times the space a single cubicle has :-(

Over here normal offices with 2-3 people are the norm, cubicles would not even remotely adhere to the law, and when I see them I usually think on those chicken farms where chicken are in the boxes only to be in there to lay eggs.

Backward Tech Companies

[PHPfanboy]

There are plenty of writings about this - Wired did a piece years ago about BBWA Chiat Day in the US, there's the famous management course Oticon case study and recently I just read a nice book by Ricardo Semler. Normally the open plan offices translate into qualitative benefits in the company (people are happier, more collaborative, less secretive etc...).

It's odd to read the comments here along the lines of "Send me back to the server room, I can't stand the lights....", but I guess there's no pleasing some people.

Re:Don't kid yourselves, it's all about costs

[morgan_greywolf]

Actually, it works both ways. They did this for a time in some spots at General Motors' Warren Technical Center some years ago -- for all I know they still might be doing it. They called the concept 'employee hotelling'. Essentially, they got rid of cubes in one area, and made big open desk/table space. They installed a wireless router and VoIP and gave everyone laptops and VoIP. They then let everyone in the group telecommute if they wanted. They already had flex time in place for all of their white collar people. Many of the people in this department seemed to like it very much, feeling much less restricted.

At the same time, this enabled workers to organize into groups in order to accomplish specific tasks as a team. This boosted productivity greatly. Some did note that it didn't make it easy for them to 'personalize' their workspace, but being able to move around seemed to be a plus for some.

At the same time, the VoIP saved the department money, they needed less office space and power consumption went down since everyone was using laptops rather than power-hungry desktops.

Google does some of this, too. I seem to remember watching some video showing employees working out in hallways and whatnot with ubiquitous WiFi and laptops.

Re:Sounds like code talk to me what do y'all think

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're not being cynical about this. I'm writing this from an open workspace, we've had this about 7 years now. I'ts hell. Most of us complain about the constant disturbance from loud talkers, loud talking passersby, loud telephone conversations, etc. Don't even bother asking about quiet rooms, yes we have them. But of course they're always in use. What pisses me off the most is those who spend a good part of the work day talking about football, or the others who talk incessantly about their cute kids or pets. Or both. Our productivity is measured by the half hour and we are required to hold at least an 80% debiting level (debiting customers at least 6 hours every day). My personal productivity has gone down to way below that; others say the same thing. Because we could get sacked for not holding 80%, we write our time as 80% anyway, no matter how much we actually get done. More than half of us (48 people) would gladly go back to a private room facility, which is what we had up until 7 years ago. This open space concept is another dotcom fantasy that just didn't work out in practice. Piss on it all.

Re:I see some sterile nerds in the near future.

[GIL_Dude]

While that part may be true, the worst part is that notebooks on laps or on conference tables are not ergonomically correct and really cannot be made to be correct without a bunch of equipment lying around (for example external keyboard and mouse, silly looking device to hold the machine with the screen in the right position, etc.). The way we are setup at my company (80,000 machines) - notebook users are issued port replicators with real monitors, actual ergo keyboards, real ergo mice, etc. Everyone also gets some training on how to best setup in a hotel room for the limited ergonomics you can get there.

While this "big open environment with nice chairs and conference tables" sounds nice and all - it will HURT people. Wrist, arm, neck, and shoulder problems will follow this around like crazy.

Oh, and like others in the thread have said: The company requires me to keep certain paperwork and some few receipts. Where do I put those?

nothing new about *that* economy...

[Connie_Lingus]

i had the "pleasure" of working for IBM advanced technology down in boca 5 years ago, and basically what you outlined happened to me.

one afternoon, my logins stopped working, then the next day (friday) my keycard didnt work. when i complained that morning, i was told i had been terminated and everything was escorted away.

poof...no notice no nothing just gone.

Those who don't know history...

[line-bundle]

will be forced to repeat it.

Behold exhibit A, TBWA Chiat/Day.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/chiat.html [wired.com]

Re:What about personal things

[KayPoe]

Sun has been doing something like this almost a decade ago. Only it is not open space, but offices. You have a rolling file drawer for your personal items, etc. When you come in, you are assigned an office. You get your rolling drawer, head to your office and your phone number follows you. There is a monitor that lets people know who is in which office that day.
They are also a big proponent of telecommuting.

Re:Backward Tech Companies

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Hawthorne Effect [wikipedia.org].

Re:As a european from

[Deag]

Well you are not going to find statistics on work space of cubicle farms directly affecting unemployment. My point was with employment in general, over-regulated employment laws generates more expense thus affecting employers desire to hire people.

Take it to absurd levels - if the law mandated 10 000 sq meters per employee wouldn't it have an effect?

I also seriously doubt there is a country that specifically out laws cubicles - show me one and show me the law.

You are wrong about the UK also btw, its unemployment rate is quite low - 5%, is that not considered near full employment?