Ask HN: How are the acoustics in your open office?

Re:Ask HN: How are the acoustics in your open office? by robmiller on Sunday December 21, 2014 @12:20AM (#8779020)

Acoustical consultants are well trained in the optimization of the open office environment--there's even an ASTM standard. Over the last several years that scheme has been challenged in favor of the architect selling the owner on the industrial look (whether for aesthetic or budget) without significant consideration for the acoustic result. If an acoustical consultant is on the job and cannot win the battle for better acoustics, what is the effect of the resulting compromises?

By asking the original questions I hope to learn the results of what design considerations were included and perhaps if the millenial worker is less sensitized to office conditions of yesteryear. My suspicion on the latter is "no."

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Re:Ask HN: How are the acoustics in your open office? by redtexture on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @09:52PM (#8818047)

There have been hundreds of studies in the last 20 years demonstrating via the study conclusions that for most humans, noise matters, control over one's space matters, including ability to adjust light, temperature, personal visibility and privacy, and that these can be measured by sick-leave absences, and other fairly simple productivity and personnel-cost measures.

The discussion about open offices has been in the general media for quite a while as well. For example: a few days after the original inquiry, in the general media:

"Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace: Workplaces need more walls, not fewer."

By Lindsey Kaufman - Washingyon Post - December 30, 2014

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/g...

Cited in the article:

"The Open-Office Trap"

By Maria Konnikova - The New Yorker - January 7, 2014

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-t...

This gives a lay-person's history and survey of the economics and loss of productivity of open offices.

Excerpt quotation from Konikova:

"In June, 1997, a large oil and gas company in western Canada asked a group of psychologists at the University of Calgary to monitor workers as they transitioned from a traditional office arrangement to an open one. The psychologists assessed the employees’ satisfaction with their surroundings, as well as their stress level, job performance, and interpersonal relationships before the transition, four weeks after the transition, and, finally, six months afterward. The employees suffered according to every measure: the new space was disruptive, stressful, and cumbersome, and, instead of feeling closer, coworkers felt distant, dissatisfied, and resentful. Productivity fell.

"In 2011, the organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Compared with standard offices, employees experienced more uncontrolled interactions, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of concentration and motivation. When David Craig surveyed some thirty-eight thousand workers, he found that interruptions by colleagues were detrimental to productivity, and that the more senior the employee, the worse she fared.

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