Re:The Open-Office Trap
by rdl on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @05:16PM
(#8696669)
For tech companies and engineers in the Bay Area:
1) $100-200k/yr salary
2) $200-300k/yr fully loaded cost
3) $500k-$5mm/yr value created per employee (rev or market cap or whatever) -- this is actually more like -$huge to +$huge)
Offices cost $7/ft2/mo in Palo Alto, or $2-4/ft2/mo in SF.
A private office is probably 50-100 ft2 more than open plan.
So, we're talking about $100 to $700/mo difference.
I'd personally be willing to pay $500/mo pre-tax to have a private office, vs. a desk in an shared office. Productivity benefits to company are on the order of $10-50k/mo.
Next time I do a startup, I'm doing 3-4 person sized offices for each person (i.e. you have a guest desk, workspace, etc., normally empty), and project areas shared per team, after there are more than just founders.
1) $100-200k/yr salary 2) $200-300k/yr fully loaded cost 3) $500k-$5mm/yr value created per employee (rev or market cap or whatever) -- this is actually more like -$huge to +$huge)
Offices cost $7/ft2/mo in Palo Alto, or $2-4/ft2/mo in SF.
A private office is probably 50-100 ft2 more than open plan.
So, we're talking about $100 to $700/mo difference.
I'd personally be willing to pay $500/mo pre-tax to have a private office, vs. a desk in an shared office. Productivity benefits to company are on the order of $10-50k/mo.
Next time I do a startup, I'm doing 3-4 person sized offices for each person (i.e. you have a guest desk, workspace, etc., normally empty), and project areas shared per team, after there are more than just founders.