Open Office Environment

My company’s management has decided to spend millions of dollars (9 million) to renovate our plant, transforming it into an open-office environment. There are many studies on this that suggest it is, in fact, NOT productive or effective in improving efficiency. However, those making these decisions are imposing this dehumanizing environment on the employees at my workplace without regard to the overwhelming negative feedback early on.

The things that I was aware of firsthand are these:

Working without cube walls prevents one from focusing on one’s own work due to activity in one’s peripheral vision.
Focus is also affected by noise from other employees nearby.
There is an increase in errors due to these hindrances.
There is a decrease in productivity due to the need to restart/re-read multiple times.

I recall a coworker stating that she had made more errors in her work in the first three months following a change to an open-office area than she had in the previous 25 years of working there. I have no doubt this is not an exaggeration.

I did not understand the entire scope of the changes or the wide range of complications that would ensue once the construction began. During the second week of being “free-address” I decided to start a blog to deal with the stress that has impacted my day-to-day work life. In the following entries, I will share my experiences.

I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

I walked into the area where I planned to find a spot and smelled men’s cologne. At first, I thought “that’s a nice fragrance”. By mid-day that fragrance had given me a headache and seemed to be the source of the nausea I was feeling.

Co-workers helped me to understand some new procedures as I had skipped out on the previous meetings held on the changes we were about to see. We would have boxes to store the few things we wanted to keep onsite such as mouse, phone headset, etc. The boxes were to be placed on wooden shelves that were set up along hallway walls. We would be issued keyboards which we would need to either take home with us or store in or beside the boxes (they were too long to fit IN the boxes). If we were to be away from the desk we were using more than 10 minutes, we would need to pack up all our stuff and find a new spot.

By the end of the day, my headache and nausea were still present. The cologne in the air was like a fog that permeated my clothes and hair. I had to shower immediately when I arrived at home. It was a long day.