Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 21 replies
  • Subscribers 16 subscribers
  • Views 1853 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Engineering efficiency in open plan vs seperate offices

Andy Millar
Just for once I'm working in an open plan office *. I've been, from my point of view, very lucky (or rather, very determined!) - for the last two years I've worked from home, and for 15 years prior to that I have had a succession of private offices (in a company where the official policy was that only the president and VPs had private offices!)


HOW DOES ANYONE GET ANY WORK DONE IN AN OPEN PLAN OFFICE??? Sorry, that just burst out smiley


Now, thinking back to a LONG time ago when I was working in development teams of maybe 2-3-4-5 engineers it did actually seem to work well for us, we could share and bounce around ideas, however when I started managing the same team in a large office space it was clear that those discussions were also extremely disruptive to anyone else in the same office area **. The best arrangement I've worked in for team engineering was probably when we had 5 of us in a single (fairly soundproof) office.


Equally, having been involved in business management, I am very well aware that large open plan offices are cheap and flexible, but personally I'm suspicious of the impact on overall productivity, at least for engineering functions.


I haven't even started discussing getting the air conditioning set right for everybody...


Does anyone here have any views? It's a serious point.


Right, I will stick my headphones on, play some brown noise, and try again.


Cheers,


Andy


* Our company Mentoring scheme is being audited by the IET today, hence the fact I've been asked to work at HQ and prepare to be quizzed by the IET!

** I led a raiding party and commandeered a soundproof space away from anyone else where that team could work, before any actual murders occurred. I ignored the suggestions from the rest of the engineers that it should also be made airtight...
Parents
  • 0

    Mark Tickner:



    ...they confiscate things that you left overnight



    Year ago I was furious (as was my line manager on my behalf, which was really nice of him) when our overall engineering manager cleared my desk for someone to use while I was on holiday, and threw away the very impressively bent con rod from my old Renault 4 which I kept there as a paperweight. Did teach me - as I always said to my own staff - that you never take into work anything personal which you don't mind losing. Even so, it was a naff thing to do. (To be fair, the manager concerned did apologise. A bit.)


    Much more recently I had a fantastic admin assistant who would tidy my office while I was on holiday and very pointedly put everything in sensible places. When I got back she would peer at me over the top of her glasses and just say "notice anything different?". Every office needs a Karen.


    Talking of holidays, and the problem of team arrangements in non-hot desked open plan offices - including friends wanting to sit together and enemies wanting to sit apart - the only time I semi-successfully solved this one was the last office move I "managed" where the move happened while I was holiday. (This genuinely was a coincidence!) Having managed several moves previously I told my team, of about 12 engineers, that this time they had to decide between themselves how the desks were to be arranged and who was sitting where. Some were rather grumpy, as they wanted me to referee, but actually in the end it worked very well - and I noticed on a recent visit there that they are sitting in basically the same places four years later. Not relying on a "management decision" meant they had to consider for themselves, and hence appreciate, the pros and cons of different arrangements.


    Cheers, Andy

Reply
  • 0

    Mark Tickner:



    ...they confiscate things that you left overnight



    Year ago I was furious (as was my line manager on my behalf, which was really nice of him) when our overall engineering manager cleared my desk for someone to use while I was on holiday, and threw away the very impressively bent con rod from my old Renault 4 which I kept there as a paperweight. Did teach me - as I always said to my own staff - that you never take into work anything personal which you don't mind losing. Even so, it was a naff thing to do. (To be fair, the manager concerned did apologise. A bit.)


    Much more recently I had a fantastic admin assistant who would tidy my office while I was on holiday and very pointedly put everything in sensible places. When I got back she would peer at me over the top of her glasses and just say "notice anything different?". Every office needs a Karen.


    Talking of holidays, and the problem of team arrangements in non-hot desked open plan offices - including friends wanting to sit together and enemies wanting to sit apart - the only time I semi-successfully solved this one was the last office move I "managed" where the move happened while I was holiday. (This genuinely was a coincidence!) Having managed several moves previously I told my team, of about 12 engineers, that this time they had to decide between themselves how the desks were to be arranged and who was sitting where. Some were rather grumpy, as they wanted me to referee, but actually in the end it worked very well - and I noticed on a recent visit there that they are sitting in basically the same places four years later. Not relying on a "management decision" meant they had to consider for themselves, and hence appreciate, the pros and cons of different arrangements.


    Cheers, Andy

Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines