Come on, realistically, no company can afford private offices for all their workforce. Even for roles that do require complete concentration like programming, it's not feasible to expect even Big Tech companies to foot the bill. The infrastructure cost alone would be astronomical. Such buildings just don't scale, and the setup couldn't keep up with the growth rate. So at best, they can have private offices for tech leads, managers and senior staff, but this undeniably goes against the "flat" organizational structure some companies like to virtue signal.
What can be much more manageable is to have comfortable cubicles for everyone (not the cramped desks with dividers, which is what probably gave cubicles the bad rep), and also have many small and large meeting rooms where people can congregate and collaborate in. This has the benefit of defaulting to semi-private workspaces which can easily scale, and moves the noisy collaborative areas to closed rooms, so that they don't bother anyone else. The smaller rooms could even serve as rotating private offices, if needed, that anyone can book for a limited period of time.
But the open floor office only has practical drawbacks, and definitely has to go. It only got popular because it's really the cheapest option for companies; just place some desks, chairs and monitors in a huge space, and sell it as "collaborative". But if they really want to entice people to come back to the office, they need to invest in better working conditions.
Do these companies hire thousands of employees a year? I doubt that.
Private offices for everyone just doesn't scale at the same growth rate of tech companies. Where would they realistically fit thousands of new employees per year if everyone had their own office?
> I benefit from my equity holdings in tech companies. They are choosing to give that money to me in valuation instead of building out proper offices.
And you expect the buildings to just magically expand for new employees? I'd rather not take a pay cut, and "settle" for comfortable cubicles. Or better yet, work remotely, and get a raise from the money the company is saving on not having to pay for my office space.
You are conflating costs with difficulty. I agree that it is difficult to manage growth. This is a way in which some organizations create more value per person and per dollar expended.
One approach is for an organization to use open offices while they are building out proper offices.
Facebook's open plan set up didn't come cheap. A Facebook insider once gave me a ballpark figure of how much their giant aircraft hanger cost and I recall it being 3x the price per square foot of private office space which means about 1 - 1.5x the price per employee.
I'm not saying these buildings are "cheap". Just objectively, it's much cheaper to transform a "giant aircraft hangar" (which sounds awful, BTW) into open floor working spaces, than to use the same space to build and design individual offices for everyone. I'm not a civil engineer, but the windows, walls, ventilation, cabling, cooling/heating, etc., is surely much more expensive for individual offices than what open spaces in a "hangar" would require. The cost of interior design would be substantially lower as well. How could this be 3x the price per square foot of private office space? Was this some expensive military property?
I visited one of these open office spaces recently. It is ridiculous. They have white noise generators in the ceiling. In order to be heard when talking with someone adjacent, one has to speak loud enough to disturb others. Almost everyone wears headphones and does not collaborate in person. They should just be working from home.
I recommend that all those who might compete with me adopt these situations and give up on the difficulties of managing office space.
> How could this be 3x the price per square foot of private office space?
It was designed by Frank Gehry and built by Gensler for a client that had an open pocket book. You'd be surprised at how much a pane of glass can cost when it's glass that has to go into a Frank Gehry building.
What can be much more manageable is to have comfortable cubicles for everyone (not the cramped desks with dividers, which is what probably gave cubicles the bad rep), and also have many small and large meeting rooms where people can congregate and collaborate in. This has the benefit of defaulting to semi-private workspaces which can easily scale, and moves the noisy collaborative areas to closed rooms, so that they don't bother anyone else. The smaller rooms could even serve as rotating private offices, if needed, that anyone can book for a limited period of time.
But the open floor office only has practical drawbacks, and definitely has to go. It only got popular because it's really the cheapest option for companies; just place some desks, chairs and monitors in a huge space, and sell it as "collaborative". But if they really want to entice people to come back to the office, they need to invest in better working conditions.