I think it's more about the noise level. Open plan office means that there's constant noise from talking and phones. Some can ignore that noise but for others, noise cancelling headphones are the only solution.
Easier communication is certainly a benefit but I'm not sure if it outweighs the loss in productivity, especially for people that don't constantly have to talk to others to do their job.
Easier communication also lead in my anecdotal experoence to people brain borrowing all day from the resident domain expert. This is great for overall productivity but constant sidetracking burns developer will fast. When combined with performance metrics based on delivery alone it becomes a recipe for total disaster.
Yeah, you really have to develop a personality that's able to deal with the interruptions. From both sides: you need to change, and you need to change others.
Besides that part, there's plenty of roles where you can negotiate time to work from elsewhere on the odd occasion. At that point it becomes a time management excercise that's mostly not too difficult to solve.
Oh, and take these types of situations into account when discussing your KPIs, if they affect them. Always have KPIs because they're not just there to help your employer - they're also your leverage in negotiations. You did better than your initial goal because of [X], but you can also be worse than your goal because of [Y]. This means [Y] needs to be adjusted. Or your KPIs.
This. It's not "only" noise, it's not "only" visual distraction. It's a combination of elements that create a very distracting place that by it's basic dynamics impedes deep work.
People who suggest noise cancelling headphones to fix this are childish and immature. The employee has no moral obligation whatsoever to adapt to a working space that is not suited to the work at hand.
Putting expensive software engineers into an open office is wasting a resource that has huge running costs to save on a resource with less running costs. Although, I understand some places the cost of office space actually is quite high, and I realize in these cases the tradeoff has merits.
The problem with this is that management in other locations start to ape this inane concept even though their office space costs are considerably lower.
So, sure, if it costs an arm and a leg to have office space then just maybe an open office has merit financially.
I have nothing against shared rooms that are actually separated with walls as long as they are not used for hotdesking. Those don't have the same disturbance dynamics as an actual open office and I enjoy them the most of all the combination of work spaces I've been in 12 years as a software engineer.
"oh there's bob, does bob want to say hi or is he busy? he looks stressed probably dont want to interrupt him, should i say hi? nah well he's talking to fred now so i'll go back to fixing this unit test i guess...now where was i? oh look there's gary, i probably should say hi, (he's also a manager), does he want to talk about issue X if i interrupt him", nah it will probably piss him off without a meeting and a heads up, plus i'll look like a noob,
Disturbances from noise in office environments fall into 3 main frequency bands: low (ventilation/Ac), mid (conversations) and high (some parts of ventilation noise, some noise from office equipment).
The most disturbing frequency band (on cognitive tasks) is probably the middle frequency, especially when the noise has "information" (language, tones, signals); but on a physiological level (directly affecting health (CNS function), performance and well-being it is the LOW frequencies that, albeit not cognitively disturbing at first, will have the greatest effect on a long-term perspective.
Headphones/noise cancelling headphones are good a fixing problems in the mid/mid-high range but perform poorly in the low frequency range.
My suggestion is this: your health comes first, no matter what. If you develop a noise-related disorder, you will under-perform and eventually get fired. I would do two things: use an app like SPLnFFT to document the noise level. Use a spectral analyzer to find out where the noise peaks are. ... then get proper in-ear hearing protection from an audiologist (comes in skin-colored, looks like an hearing aid). No-one can blame you for investing in your health to maintain your ability to perform, right?
Thank you for an occupational health viewpoint and the citation.
Do you have a good recommendation for a recording dB meter and recording app suitable for graphing noise levels over a daylong period? Such a thing would be useful in proving the noise load of a busy open office and allow it to be compared to OSHA standards.
I recently bought a set of MDR-1000X and this is how they behave. At work I’m sat next to the sales team, and without them I wouldn’t be able to do any work.
When they are on, but not playing music, I can still hear loud voices but it’s significantly dampened (like in the room next door).
With music playing, at a relatively low volume, I can’t hear anyone - unless someone is shouting right next to me.
I've found the opposite to be true. Got a pair of QC-35II that block everything but speech, which subjectively appears to become even louder, even when you listen to music.
They're great for airplanes, trains, and low-frequency background noise, but for a crowded office where people are having chats and telcos, I'd rather use Shure in-ear monitors.
"Wearing headphones will be treated as insubordination, management wants you participating in conversations".
This was only slightly paraphrased from written policy at a former workplace.
You have to show some political savvy; wearing headphones in a open office is exactly like being noticed playing games on your phone or sleeping while the CEO speaks at gathering, or making a big production of refusing to answer phone calls or questions from certain coworkers.
There's a critical distinction of scale; if "they" don't want you working and prefer talking and distraction to the level that they bake it into the physical architecture of the office, that's really bad for the company on a large scale, but on a small scale trying civil disobedience by wearing headphones will just get you fired. Personally on the downside you're better off crashing the company than getting fired and on the upside the people responsible for the large scale operation of the company probably have quiet private offices anyway and aren't going to reward you for fixing the company anyway even if by some miracle you did it.
Open offices are literally in the most straightforward sense a declaration the company has no idea what its doing so talking about it is a good first step. Cutting yourself off from that with headphones means they may as well not pay you.
Civil disobedience in this case has no positive outcome; ditch the headphones.
My Bose Quiet Comfort 20 in-ears are excellent for machine noises like air conditioners in server rooms or traffic drone but terrible for voices or radio.
Active noise cancellation generally works best for consistent background noise. Sound that changes rapidly, like human voices, will be difficult for the cancellation hardware to react to, and headphones that provide sound isolation may be more help. See https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-noise-cancelling-headphone-....
I have headphones which provide sound isolation, as well as noise cancellation: Sennheiser PXC-450. In a room with a noisy server cabinet, I can actually hear people talking better with my headphones and NC on than without. The headphones cancel much of the fan noise, to a greater dB level than the isolation from the headphones attenuates the voices.
A constant background noise is unpleasant but not so distracting - and it gets filtered out.
Sudden voices are way more distracting and they don't get filtered out. On the contrary, they stand out even more once machine noises are filtered out.
I had Bose for a long time but now bought a much cheaper pair on Amazon (TaoTronic brand, £35). They work surprisingly well, without music voices are already much quieter and with music (on low volume), I cannot hear someone calling my name even when they're close to me. It's by far better than the 3yr old Bose NC headphones I had before (I can imagine today's Bose are at least on the same level though).
I think it's the unpredictability more than the frequency range. Passive noise isolation always works but takes a lot of mass on your head. I'm on my second pair of HD 280 in about ten years because they're comfortable.
Erm, no. It's not just the auditory noise but also the visuals. We are wired to react to movement seen from the side of our eyes. What am I to do, wear sideblinds like a horse?
If “open office” makes you think “another human nearby”, you may not be informed enough to contribute on this topic. That would be a shared office - an open office generally means many people nearby.
It doesn't necessarily mean many people nearby at one time, it could just mean a lack of walls (or very low walls), so that people who walk by are a distraction. I worked in an office like this for a while: there weren't many people sitting around me (it was pretty empty actually in my sector), but I was in a low-wall cubicle next to an aisle, so there was a constant stream of people walking by my desk, with their heads constantly appearing over my monitor. It was extremely distracting.
It's doable sure but there is a better option so why not persue it? It's a relevant and genuine concern. Any business owner should be interested in making sure distraction free work is possible somehow in their company, distracted employees are less productive.
On the thinking about what they are doing with their life comment, not necessary and what they seem to be doing with their life is finding a better place to work. Seems pretty productive to me.
Yet you'll find a lot of people resorting to remote work when they need to be at their optimal productivity level. In these open office plans, not much work gets done. This isn't necessary a bad thing because working hard is tiring.
