Large Tech Companies Moving Beyond the Cubicle 345
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.'"
What about personal things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about personal things (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What about personal things (Score:5, Interesting)
For fun I used to move all around the room and sit in other peoples seats. They'd freak out at first but I'd actually talk about it, make friends (or enemies) and then move somewhere else. If the people weren't complete assholes (maybe 10% were pricks), the entire class would lighten up and become friends. I only had one class where that didn't happen. Ah, the think they're better looking and smarter than they are whores, how could I ever forget them
It will become a turf war if these people aren't actually out of the office more than they are in it. One more worry people have to take on (assuming they're anal retentive, which seems to be almost all the engineers, programmers, etc. that I know).
Re:What about personal things (Score:4, Interesting)
As a dweller of cube land (and one of those people with no personal effects in my cube), I'd argue that the only reason people become defensive of 'their spot' (be it a cube or a chair in college) is because it is defined by a physical object or location. You remove the physical delimiter of 'my space' versus 'your space' ... and it's hard to fight over space. The same story has been done in a million TV shows. You have two characters that have to share a room, and they fight constantly. One of them has the brilliant idea to put a line down the middle, so each has one half. The moral of the show is that the line always makes it worse. Suddenly everyone is hypervigilant of the line. Remove the line, and no one notices if my stuff is three inches over it.
In college we had our regular table in the library, but if it was taken when we showed up, we had no problem sitting at another identical table nearby. I think people sit in the same seat in class out of habit, not because they fancy it 'their seat.'
I'm sure after a while people will fall into a routine in this open office environment, but I think the danger lies more in distraction than turf wars. You get a ton of people in an open room working together, and they are going to talk. I guess it depends on what kind of work they do, but I know as a lowly programmer, I can't think straight with people around me talking all day. At least for my job, I wish I had an office with a door AND a big common area. The office doesn't even have to be mine (or very big)... just something I can reserve for the day and shut the door to get some work done. The common area is absolutely necessary for team work. Ever try to work with people in cubes? I always feel like I'm invading their space and want to run away.
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Further, as a HW guy, I often keep equipment, boards, etc. that I'm working on in my "personal space" (cube, lab bench with my name on it). I do this a) to isolate stuff I've modified so that someone else won't take it and get hit with my nonsense and b) to protect the stuff I'm working on when some MGR tries to get promoted by short
nothing new about *that* economy... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:nothing new about *that* economy... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:What about personal things (Score:5, Interesting)
And I'm sure there's tons of others. If I, as an employer, were to institute this system, I'd ensure that the employees had the flexibility to organize the space as they wanted. If I, as an employee, were to be part of this system, I'd design a tightly knit squad of nerf-enabled roombas to guard my personal space, and lead assaults on other employees during lunch hour.
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Re:What about personal things (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not really a new idea. Here's a still [theaspectratio.net] from Orson Welles' "The Trial" (yes, from the Kafka novel), and that was made in the 1960's. The only difference now is that there's *nothing* kept on the desk - in the old days, there was at least a typewriter. Over time, other objects appeared; in and out boxes, pencil holders, etc. And that's when the concept of "assigned desks" and the cubicle took over, out of a necessity for both better working conditions and more productive workers.
This is a regression backwards; there's nothing new about it, and it's not what workers want, that's for sure. Management loves it in theory because they can keep an eye on many employees at once. They know who is there, they know who is working and not just staring at the ceiling or throwing darts at their cube walls.
But employees hate it, and I know this from experience. My previous job didn't quite go so far as having empty desks where employees could sit anywhere, but we did have a completely open office without walls. What you invariably end up with is as many people crammed into a room as the employer can fit, because there are no boundaries telling anybody "this is enough space for one person". At my office, this was easy to do because the whole office was just a series of long metal tables pushed together, so when we hired somebody new, everybody just scrunched down a little more. And because nobody has any claim to any personal space, or any "ownership" of it, they end up throwing garbage everywhere and not ever cleaning it up. So it's cramped, crowded, smelly, and there's no privacy. It's like what you'd imagine working in an office in the Soviet Union was probably like. Or some sort of sweatshop.
Cisco probably hasn't gotten to that point yet, but I guarantee their employees already hate it. And eventually, it'll become intolerable and everybody will be clamoring for the days of cubes again.
This is just another example of somebody thinking they've stumbled onto a great idea, not thinking through the unintended consequences, and not realizing that countless other people have tried the same thing many times before, without success.
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Pro:
-The boss can watch everyone!
Counterpoint:
-Employees always feel like th
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Yeah, tried that once by throwing a cup of hot coffee to a co-worker and yelling: "Think fast!".
It appeared that he couldn't react quickly enough to a changing situation involving fluids.
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Nope...I need my own space....oh yeah, I need filing cabinets to keep my work papers organized too.
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I need a place to hang up my data dictionary posters.
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Re:What about personal things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about personal things (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What about personal things (Score:4, Interesting)
But what about the view? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to walk a hundred paces just to see the outside. If there was no seating assignment, I'd at least have a chance to get my fair share of natural light -- especially in the winter months when the only daylight I see is on the drive to work.
When it comes to personal effects, programmers (at leas the one
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Unassigned seating is currently implemented at the company where I am employed and this sort of request is accommodated easily because you generally don't see people moving around a lot - people settle in.
So the system need only accommodate the storage and logistics of personal effects. We use a box for this - store it in the file room when the employee is not in the office and put it out for them when they decide that they need a cubicle for a few weeks.
I keep my cu
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They are also a big proponent of telecommuting.
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What a soul crushing environment.
Re:What about personal things (Score:4, Insightful)
It took me about three weeks to get used to the new arrangement, completely different from the 66" high, eight by eight cubes I had at my last job. We've got a little space to hang personal goods; a little over a foot of wall protrudes above the desk surface, and you can set little things on the wall rim. After settling in, I found that I like this arrangement far better than I liked the other system. You can look at people while you're talking to them several cubes away without getting up, and you can keep an eye on your clients without leaning over their shoulders. It makes you more accessible to your clients too, which his good in my case, but that's not best for everyone.
I'm a very social person, and like interaction with people. That's not for everyone, and I'm probably a bit outside of the norm for my chosen profession. If I want some privacy, I put on my headphones and make the world disappear. The boss, who frequently walks up to check on the state of the world, doesn't care if we surf the web, so long as we don't abuse the privilege and get our work done (I can post this without staring over my shoulder). For the most part, my counterpart and I are left to our own devices so long as nothing goes haywire.
That's something that a lot of companies (for instance, the electric utility I left to take this job) would have a hard time with; the idea of leaving people to do what they do and not worry so much about work style. If you take down people's walls (literally), you have to make them feel like they're not exposed. The cultural shift has to start at the top, not at the cube wall.
Re:What about personal things (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about the the people occupying those cubes in between you and the person you're talking to?
My company did this to send people home (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My company did this to send people home (Score:5, Funny)
Hope you got to keep that red stapler, at least.
Don't kid yourselves, it's all about costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't kid yourselves, this is just about some PHB wanting to save on office space, cramming yet another dozen workers in the same space.
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Open plans don't give those that need a quiet place to work a quiet place to work as everyone's phone calls can easily be overheard.
Re:Don't kid yourselves, it's all about costs (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Don't kid yourselves, it's all about costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, I'm not sure why you view this so negatively, or have such bad feelings towards management. I've worked in open floor plans when my role was conducive to it (requiring lots of interaction, etc). Now my role is much more autonomous, and I really need uninterrupted time to get my time-sensitive work done (hence relishing office privacy and coming to work at 6 AM). My experience with unassigned floor plans was that I got more accomplished, and thus felt better about my work -- AND I enjoyed better relationships with my coworkers. The downside was inhibited ability to hunker down and cram out work -- this was solved by setting aside a portion of the office as a DND area. Except for real emergencies, DND was observed by everyone.
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Re:Don't kid yourselves, it's all about costs (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much of this is due to the Hawthorne Effect [wikipedia.org]?
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How the hell is it easier to round up the team when no one has a known location?
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As a european from (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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I personally don't really see much problem with cubicles and open offices. It is all well and good having laws making everything great for employees, but countries that do that are often also the ones that think 10% is a low unemployment rate.
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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 unemplo
Re:As a european from (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like code talk to me what do y'all think? (Score:2)
Am I just being cynical?
Sounds like a problems with you yanks (Score:2)
Management != Techies (Score:5, Insightful)
But not for me. I'm a hardcore techie. I spend days not interacting with people, fighting with the code, and I need my concentration. Every time I get interrupted, I need about 20 minutes to get back to work properly.
Yep, I'm in a cubicle. I hear everything that happens around me, and maybe I'm just not good enough to blank it out. I regularly have to reserve meeting rooms just to have a little peace and quiet to be able to think.
Yeah, I'm mad because my request for noise-isolating headphones was turned down. Does it show?
Re:Management != Techies (Score:5, Interesting)
Or it could just be simple boredom/frustration/fatigue with doing a task for long stretches of time.
What's stopping you from bringing your own noise canceling headphones?
Re:Management != Techies (Score:4, Interesting)
I have adult ADD, and work in a cube. It's a lose-lose scenario. I used to listen to music on headphones all of the time to keep from being distracted, and was told that it was giving everyone the impression that I didn't want to talk to them.
Of course, it's still better than some ridiculous open seating plan where I couldn't customize anything. I have three monitors at my desk that I scavenged when everyone else was getting rid of their CRTs. Being able to have so much simultaneously-visible working space is great for my concentration. I use it kind of like the display in Minority Report - moving various windows around depending on what makes sense for any given moment. I had to use a single screened laptop for 2-3 weeks when my PC died and it cut my productivity in half.
Context Switching (Score:3, Interesting)
No - I think the main point here is for very technical jobs, the employees are required to load up a large amount of information into their mind to solve large, complex problems. Anytime a person comes into their space to ask them about something unrelated this causes a context switch in the employee. They have to unload some or all of the information for the task they are currently working on to contemplate the topic that person who interrupted them wants to talk about. Once the interruptor has left, th
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... says the guy who checks /. often enough to jump on a new story and post a comment right away. :)
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Chris Mattern
Bad idea (Score:4, Funny)
Now get back to work wage donkeys!
One must simply adapt and survive (Score:2)
I'm lucky (Score:3, Interesting)
-They don't plan to move me around anytime soon.
-No one wants to share such a noisy environment.
Re:I'm lucky (Score:5, Funny)
books and junk (Score:4, Insightful)
I see some sterile nerds in the near future. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I see some sterile nerds in the near future. (Score:4, Informative)
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?
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No, this is only phase one, where they eliminate the cubicles. They don't eliminate the desks until phase two.
The King Is Dead - Long Live The King (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone else will continue working in the exactly the same was as they normally do because companies cannot afford and cannot be bothered to spend the money to do this for 90% of their employees.
"I've just seen this new strategy re the comfy seating and un-assigned working locations"
"Excellent, that's marrrvellous"
"Yes, most of our chairs already meet the recommended comfort standard so we'll keep those. The only thing is they're not really suitable for using laptops with so we'll keep the desks too since they're handy places to put the phones and coffee etc on. Now most of our guys work in teams and are kind of settled where they are but obviously we don't actually directly assign specifc seats so I guess that takes of everything ?"
"Marrvellous, our new strategy is a grrreeat success !"
"Yes, I knew you'd agree."
Backward Tech Companies (Score:5, Informative)
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:Backward Tech Companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really? And that applies to software development as well does it? And it means more productivity as well, right - of course many people are happy to sit in a big open office and chat all day, but do they get more work done?
Joel [joelonsoftware.com] believes [joelonsoftware.com] it's all rubbish and private offices are much more productive. Personally, I have seen exactly the same thing. When I started at my current job we all were in one room. It was very sociable and we all agreed on what to do
Frankly, those studies are either not applicable or just missing the point.
Re:Backward Tech Companies (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd rather have the cube walls than glass walls and a door. At least I can talk quietly and the white noise can muffle the rest.
Glass walls though....Might as well bring back the village mentality and have public flogging for people that don't conform to the group think. I don't see any illusion (afte
So we get to implement Snow Crash's Office Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrast that with Joel's Software, where each person gets his/her own office with a window, read what he says about it and how it improves productivity. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html [joelonsoftware.com]
In Support of Open Plan (Score:3, Interesting)
It takes a little getting-used-to; you need a little bit thicker skin when it comes to distractions, but it is not nearly as bad as I first thought it would be - and the benefits in day-to-day workplace communication are significant.
If you can see someone is at their desk by standing up and looking across the office, you are much more likely to walk over and talk than to send an email or call someone who is 20 feet away. It may sound inefficient to a slashdotter, but face-to-face communication is really useful.
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Yes and no. While face to face may be able to bring a faster exchange of ideas it's also nice to have that black and white conversation trail to work from. Not unlike Slashdot, just talking about an issue without a reference po
They're moving *to* open plan offices? (Score:2)
There have been times when I have *longed* to work in a cube farm. I'm sure they have their
This is not new (Score:3, Interesting)
it's much better for not having asshat coworkers playing radios in their cubicles, for not having people hide away and do bugger all for days, for a myriad of things.
Cubicles are isolated and depressing. Embrace the european style.
As for no set desks - well that's a little tricky for engineers who have multiple workstations, and I'm not sure it's the best idea, but scrapping cubicles is definitely good.
BTW, i work for a huge multinational you _have_ heard of, not some little startup, this is not new.
Re:This is not new (Score:4, Insightful)
No thanks. I have 10'x10' space that is all my own, desks on three sides of it, a 4 shelf bookshelf, room for a mini fridge and I can put whatever I want on the walls short of nude pictures. My cube is practically a study. No way i'd give it up except for a larger cubicle or office (which is a cubicle with a door)
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It comes down to structure. 90% of the people I communicate with are within a few steps of my cubicle, all closer than the break room and the bathroom. It doesn't take 15 seconds to poke my head in their cube. If your cubicle layout corresponds with your organizational structure, it really isn't bad.
I prefer the open way of working. I'm sure not everyone does. Personally I don't feel the need to put things on the walls, have
That's why god invented headphones (Score:2)
just don't put sales in the same room/floor.
All I can say is... (Score:2)
Perfect (Score:5, Insightful)
I am glad to see that Intel has now answered that call.
Not Exactly New (Score:4, Funny)
Who am I kidding, I still have little geek toys decorating my workspace.
SIgn me up! (Score:2)
I can just put on my mpeg3 player, put the chair back into recliner mode throw up the leg rest and veg the day out reading
Sure type can somewhat suck and laptops can get a little hot but such are the hardships of working in a modern environment.
Unassigned seating (Score:3)
Open-plan offices aside, I think that unassigned seating is a bad idea. People are creatures of habit and they will generally sit where they sat yesterday, they will take the same route to and from work etc.
I've had two jobs in my life, one with open-plan offices and another with a private office. I vastly prefer the private office merely for the peace and quiet and a space to call my own. All my co-workers are a few offices down the hall from me which makes it possible to have easy face to face communication which is so touted by the open-plan evangelists.
Won't somebody think of the chi^H^H^HH&S (Score:5, Interesting)
In the photo (in TFA) there's bad posture and trailing cables. How this got past health and safety I'll never know.
HAL.
Those who don't know history... (Score:5, Informative)
Behold exhibit A, TBWA Chiat/Day.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/chiat.html [wired.com]
Welcome to lawsuit land (Score:2, Insightful)
Give it four or five years and there will be a lot of lawsuits because of Repetitive Strain Injury. Laptops are bad for ergonomics and RSI, as are "comfy" chairs etc.
These companies are just setting themselves up for a whole heap of trouble. I'm glad I don't work there.
RSI Info [demon.co.uk]
This is how I work (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition, just being able to hear the conversations around you can frequently be useful, as you overhear problems that you might be able to help out with, and there's a much higher level of teamwork.
How/why is this news exactly? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like what Delphi Automotive was already doing way back when I left them in 2001, if you remove the wireless connection of course. Seating was based on a cross-departments project base. Let's say you're working on Project A this week, you'll sit in the A open space. Next week you're on project B, move over to the B open space. Paperwork from Project A stays in the A zone, paperwork from the Project B stays in the B zone. It created a bit of a mess for tech support, as it could be hard to locate the us
Let us all work form Home - saves big money (Score:2)
If they would say pay half of internet charges (so we could VPN in) say $25-30/month then pay for an additional phone line (for work use only of course) - abou
Joel on software said it best (Score:2)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html [joelonsoftware.com]
A new idea? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cubeless office? Some bureaucrat working for the British Raj invented them 100 years ago.
terrible terrible terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
Did I have photos in my cubicle ? No. but some people do. They have plants, action hero figures... etc etc. I personally only had specially crafted documents (crap no one else understands), but I know how deep people get hurt every time they moved them.
2. YES personal items.
No, I do not mean photos. I mean coffee stains, skin particles, food grease, saliva, boogers, pubic hair. No I am not a health/cleaning freak at all, but these are the personal items you ALWAYS find at someone else's desk/area.
3. My chi
I am sorry, but sitting at a different place disturbs my concentration, provides new distractions, and it takes time to learn to learn how to lock out that annoying new neighbor who chats to the wife screaming on the phone.
4. Special devices
Unless you are that uniform person who works with the standard given crap you are in trouble. Do I need a 22" to program code?
Well, not necessarily (even though at home I have one, so more text fits on it), but at work the standard 17" will do.
Then what? Oh well, I hate mice, and being a rather tall individual I cannot stand regular keyboards - too tight. Besides knowing how crappy the the keyboards and mice were the last Fortune 10 gave to the employees, even if I was ok with mice and regular keyboards I would differ to use any given one.
Pickiness? Well, when you spend 10+ hours at a computer (did I say 16+ ? ), and I am sure a lot of guys here do, you want the best input devices. I personally only work with a Logi trackman and any (non-cheap-o) split keyboard : MS, Fellowes are OK, without these I suffer after a few hours of working.
But then again I am a sociopath and quit a good job because I hated cubicle life so much, and I love to work bare-feet, underwear with my dogs sleeping next to me....
Anyway, this kind of workplace sharing is completely incompatible with me. I program and sysadmin, and while "sysadmining" tolerates socializing and noise at times of maintenance/support, programming needs dead silence and no changing environment for me. So does systems engineering, or even installing an unknown feature into an environment (e.g. reading docs, and try until it works kinda stuff).
Put it into any coating, it comes back to saving money to these corporations. It has nothing to do with you being well changing workstations.
Just my 2c.
damn I would do anything, even write a book on
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I'm intrigued about your work environment
Scorpio (Score:4, Funny)
Just been planning our own office layout... (Score:4, Interesting)
Cubes seemed too horrible to us and private offices seemed a bit lonely and isolated.
What we went for in the end was a set of 3-6 person rooms, some of which can be combined if required. The idea was to merge the benefits of each approach - you get a dedicated "project room" where ad-hoc conversations, whiteboad design discussions, etc. are encouraged. The team gets to personalise their space, as does each of the workers (for at least as long as the project lasts).
On the other hand if a team is in deadline mode, they can shut the door and agree between each other to be quiet. Similarly if a team wants to play music they don't disturb others, etc.
We'll see how it works out... Anyone else tried this sort of approach?
Depends on your job (Score:4, Insightful)
Jobs that are conducive to this environment:
- marketing
- pre-sales engineers
- artists (graphical, musical, etc.)
- people managers
- sales people (maybe). Depends if they are usually out in the field or taking calls from customers.
Jobs that should be conducive to this environment but the workers wouldn't enjoy it:
- human resources: easily accessible, able to really keep a pulse on morale but a constant need for privacy.
- desktop support: easily accessible, immediately aware of issues but unable to get proactive work done.
Jobs that absolutely cannot work in this environment:
- developer: needs absence of interruptions and quiet for concentration.
- security: no one should be able to peek at security information whether physical or logical.
- sysadmin: same as security plus during a failure the accessability and interruptions would be detrimental.
- accounting/payroll: security concerns as well as customer privacy issues.
I could see a hybrid environment working well - a handful of cubes and offices and 75% of the space as described above. Once you get past the job descriptions, then you must consider whether or not it's conducive for the company's industry. At Cisco and Intel where you have a high percentage of "idea" people and sales people, it works. I'm quite certain the engineers, IT and some back office functions will not and cannot be part of this experiment.
Same company, two countries (Score:3, Interesting)
From the one of the most developed country in the world (USA):
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=3&slideView=2 [wired.com]
And from one of the "developing countries", i.e. Korea:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=11&slideView=3 [wired.com]
Where would you like to work?
The *only* way to freedom: Go solo (Score:3)
No self-motivated person who works mainly with computers needs to be at a badly-lit noisy office every day, no matter whether it's a cubicle farm or open space. Computers have a network cable (or wireless antenna) for a good reason.
Given that most companies don't understand this, the only practical way to freedom today seems to be to resign and become a freelancer or start a business.
Been there, done that: While hordes of commuters burn up the whole planet with their CO2 emissions to go to work every morning, I happily go to nearby islands or hills with a laptop and 3G Internet and hack code or VPN/SSH to servers while listening to Mozart in the clean air. In fact only when the weather is bad or when I work on special projects I stay in my home office. The joy of actually making money while in the middle of the sea or at sunny beaches should make every competent programmer chained to an office to look themselves at the mirror in the morning and say "What contribution can I make to the economy? What are my greatest skills?" and then start hacking the next Web 2.0 hit, or get into consulting, or both.
Companies like it because it's CHEAPER!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
You can call it an 'open concept' office, you can call it 'hot-desking,' but at the end of the day it's a way of providing less space and less infrastructure per person. The companies toying with it are 'trying it out' not to see if it helps productivity, but to see if they can get away with it without causing their workers to revolt.
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"tomorrow they will also work remotely, from home"
Some of us do that right now