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[ClayKavalier]

Where no one has assigned seats and everyone has a laptop that they plug into whatever work station they feel like on a given day? And there's no offices or cubes, everything is open with few barriers or walls?

Maybe this is me getting old and averse to change, but my office is transitioning to this in the next year and it seems like a really, really bad idea to me.

Pluses:

• I can appreciate the egalitarian intentions. I'm not sure how typical this is but in our setup there will be literally no private offices, executives will be out and about with the rest of us
  
• The cool kids are doing it

Minuses:

• Less individual. No dedicated desk means no pictures of the family, desk toys, whatever else people use to make their area feel like their own space
  
• It's going to be noisy as hell. There's supposed to be conference rooms you can reserve but I imagine they'll nearly always be occupied. If you have to make a quick phone call you're going to be doing it in a full, open office
  
• No dedicated desks can only lead to drama. Anyone who has ever been to school knows how "unassigned" seating works. Everyone may jump around for a few days or a week but everyone will inevitably settle in in a group of people they enjoy being around or work with daily and then any time someone messes with the program someone is going to be annoyed. This is the point that bothers me the most, it's confusing to me. Like, it just seems so obvious to me that this "360 office" concept was thought up by some designer with his head up his ass and no concept of how humans behave. OF COURSE everyone is going to gravitate to the same space once they settle in. What the hell is the point of unassigned seating in an office where adults are trying to get work done?
  
• That leads into my next point, if people DO take advantage of the sit-anywhere-you-want idea, how the hell do you find anyone? Right now if I need to talk to Jenna in marketing, I walk over to her cubicle. In this bizarre future, I head over to her usual space and hope she's there. If she's not, I guess I get to play detective, asking known accomplices if they're aware of her recent whereabouts. Again, it seems so obvious that this concept was dreamed up by someone who doesn't actually work with a team in an office.
  
• No storage space. I try to be conscience of not wasting paper, but I like to print out important documents to proofread them. I like having physical copies of stuff I frequently reference. I like keeping a physical to-do list of stuff I'm working on. No dedicated desk means no drawers, no guaranteed space. I have to take home EVERYTHING that's mine every day. Now again, I assume everyone will gravitate to the same spot each day pretty quickly, so maybe we will get away with leaving stuff overnight, but at that point why not just have actual dedicated space with drawers?

I could go one, but man, I feel like I'm the only sane one in my office. Everyone is excited to get the same type of office that all the big tech companies use, but like I said it seems so, so, SO clear to me that the concept comes from people who were more concerned with appearing modern and young and hip then they were with designing a practical office conducive to getting work done.

Am I yelling at clouds here? Anyone have experience from switching from a traditional office to a 360? Especially curious if there's anyone who went from a private office to fighting for space withe the plebes. I don't have an office right now but I'm honestly shocked that people who do are on board like this.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Yes, at least my team does. But we all sort of decided our own seat and personalize then. For the most part people keep to them until there's overlap in our 24 hour coverage.

I'm also pretty sure the concept comes from people looking to save space, rather than a desire to looking modern.

Edit: We handle having drawers just fine. They all have wheels and most of us have them slid under the desks we usually use. Some have them pushed against the edge of the room and they just get into them coming/leaving for the day.

Edit2: My previous job I had my whole own office. Several in fact (one in each building). I didn't have much issue switching to this setup.

 

[T.v]

I don't work in an office, nor do I imagine I ever will, but that sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

 

[ghostofsparta]

That sounds terrible. Knowing where people sit and being able to walk over and talk to them is a huge benefit of working in the office

 

[Hazmat]

It sounds terrible, but I hate that I don't even get the privacy and personal space of a cubicle at my office. Open offices can get fucked.

 

[Jon Carter]

No and I'm glad I don't. I work in a team. We need to be in the same space.

 

[Laekon]

Your company is really behind the times. This was cool a decade ago but I'm pretty sure there is good research that it ends up leading to people being less efficient.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

As far as I know Microsoft in their Munich based area are doing this with the intention to send people to work from home. So there are apparently only places for 75% of the workforce and the rest has to work from home. The places they have is under the 360 principle explained in the op. At least that's what a friend who works their told me.

In the place I work, we have big spaces but everyone has their own desk. Any other way is going to severely slow things down since a lot of people stopped answering the phone or to skye / email because of work load. So sometimes you just have to visit them.

 

[akira28]

yeah this sounds like what you do when you want to get rid of your office space. Just do everything on the cloud and move your workspace to starbucks.

 

[Caramello]

It's stupid. I have a friend working in a large accounting firm and they don't even have enough seats for everyone.

 

[Syriel]

That leads into my next point, if people DO take advantage of the sit-anywhere-you-want idea, how the hell do you find anyone? Right now if I need to talk to Jenna in marketing, I walk over to her cubicle. In this bizarre future, I head over to her usual space and hope she's there. If she's not, I guess I get to play detective, asking known accomplices if they're aware of her recent whereabouts. Again, it seems so obvious that this concept was dreamed up by someone who doesn't actually work with a team in an office.

Slack. Or Hipchat. Or Hangouts. Etc.

As for storage for docs? Confluence, Google Drive or Onedrive.

 

[Kickz]

Yup I am at a major company with about 200 softwared devs and we have this arrangement as well. Everyone including managers are in an open space with no offices.

We still have our own desks, but they have wheels on them so they can move around.

 

[Hambulance]

Get in early so you can secure one of those yoga ball seat things.

 

[Copenap]

It's important that such a concept is only applied where it makes sense, i.e. in offices where people are very mobile and have a lot of external appointments (e.g. consultants). Doing this in an office where people are present 5 days a week is just dumb and a misunderstanding of the concept.

 

[AntoneM]

Hey OP didn't you just hurt your back *wink* and now need a desk that can accommodate stand up work?

 

[Paracelsus]

I'd love to see what goes through the mind of an introverted working all day in a place like that, like "first person mode with subtitles".

 

[MrNelson]

I used to work in an office that was set up like this. Corporate liked to refer to it as the "workplace of the future". Personally, I was indifferent to it, but I can hit a few of your points to assuage some of your fears.

It's going to be noisy as hell. There's supposed to be conference rooms you can reserve but I imagine they'll nearly always be occupied. If you have to make a quick phone call you're going to be doing it in a full, open office

My office wasn't all that noisy, and that was with over a hundred people on the floor. It's really no different than any cube farm. We also had both dedicated meeting rooms, as well as small one-person rooms that you could use to make phone calls if you didn't want to bother the people in your immediate vicinity.

No dedicated desks can only lead to drama. Anyone who has ever been to school knows how "unassigned" seating works. Everyone may jump around for a few days or a week but everyone will inevitably settle in in a group of people they enjoy being around or work with daily and then any time someone messes with the program someone is going to be annoyed. This is the point that bothers me the most, it's confusing to me. Like, it just seems so obvious to me that this "360 office" concept was thought up by some designer with his head up his ass and no concept of how humans behave. OF COURSE everyone is going to gravitate to the same space once they settle in. What the hell is the point of unassigned seating in an office where adults are trying to get work done?

In my office, our work was all project based, so a lot of the sections of desks were divided by project, and seats would either be assigned or you would just find an empty spot in that grouping. It really wasn't that big of a deal. If some wayward soul found their way into an assigned section all it took was a "Hey, Project X is here, you'll have to sit somewhere else" and off they went. And once the project ended the people would usually continue to occupy those seats until they were either assigned to a new project, or told that a project was going to be moving there in a few days and they needed to leave.

That leads into my next point, if people DO take advantage of the sit-anywhere-you-want idea, how the hell do you find anyone? Right now if I need to talk to Jenna in marketing, I walk over to her cubicle. In this bizarre future, I head over to her usual space and hope she's there. If she's not, I guess I get to play detective, asking known accomplices if they're aware of her recent whereabouts. Again, it seems so obvious that this concept was dreamed up by someone who doesn't actually work with a team in an office.

Skype for Business is your friend (assuming you use a messaging service in your company).

If you need to find someone, just ping them and ask them where they are. Simple as that.

No storage space. I try to be conscience of not wasting paper, but I like to print out important documents to proofread them. I like having physical copies of stuff I frequently reference. I like keeping a physical to-do list of stuff I'm working on. No dedicated desk means no drawers, no guaranteed space. I have to take home EVERYTHING that's mine every day. Now again, I assume everyone will gravitate to the same spot each day pretty quickly, so maybe we will get away with leaving stuff overnight, but at that point why not just have actual dedicated space with drawers?

We all had bags issued by the company, so if there were any important papers you wanted to keep around as reference, you could use those to keep them with you.

Really, the only thing I disliked about it is that I couldn't personalize my workspace. Other than that it was fine. The best part is that it allowed me to talk to all sorts of people within the office that I may not have come in to contact to otherwise.

 

[Randdalf]

Maybe you should raise your concerns with management.

Where I work, we have an open office, but assigned seating. Every few months we figure out a new seating plan depending on what's happening.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

I read threads on GAF about stuff like this and it makes me happy about my job but then I realize you fools make way more bank than me and I am cry.

 

[Peru]

For the noise, the areas should be separated into quiet and less quiet areas, and you should have the possibility of private spaces for phone calls etc. They need to be dynamic, if it's just "everyone sit at the desk you like" there's not much point to it.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Sounds shit

 

[The Real Abed]

Minuses:

• Less individual. No dedicated desk means no pictures of the family, desk toys, whatever else people use to make their area feel like their own space

Put your family on your desktop wallpaper and stick the desk toys to your laptop lid. Problem solved.

• It's going to be noisy as hell. There's supposed to be conference rooms you can reserve but I imagine they'll nearly always be occupied. If you have to make a quick phone call you're going to be doing it in a full, open office

I guess you're right there. Those cubicle walls are designed to absorb some sound I guess? But you could always go outside?

• No dedicated desks can only lead to drama. Anyone who has ever been to school knows how "unassigned" seating works. Everyone may jump around for a few days or a week but everyone will inevitably settle in in a group of people they enjoy being around or work with daily and then any time someone messes with the program someone is going to be annoyed. This is the point that bothers me the most, it's confusing to me. Like, it just seems so obvious to me that this "360 office" concept was thought up by some designer with his head up his ass and no concept of how humans behave. OF COURSE everyone is going to gravitate to the same space once they settle in. What the hell is the point of unassigned seating in an office where adults are trying to get work done?

Make sure you get in with the popular clique so you don't become an outcast.

• That leads into my next point, if people DO take advantage of the sit-anywhere-you-want idea, how the hell do you find anyone? Right now if I need to talk to Jenna in marketing, I walk over to her cubicle. In this bizarre future, I head over to her usual space and hope she's there. If she's not, I guess I get to play detective, asking known accomplices if they're aware of her recent whereabouts. Again, it seems so obvious that this concept was dreamed up by someone who doesn't actually work with a team in an office.

Well if it's an open office, I'm sure you can find her easily by turning your head until you see her. And if she's not in the room, it's not a big deal to ask "anyone seen Jenna?" Or, you know, text messages. "Hey, where you at today? I want to run something by you."

• No storage space. I try to be conscience of not wasting paper, but I like to print out important documents to proofread them. I like having physical copies of stuff I frequently reference. I like keeping a physical to-do list of stuff I'm working on. No dedicated desk means no drawers, no guaranteed space. I have to take home EVERYTHING that's mine every day. Now again, I assume everyone will gravitate to the same spot each day pretty quickly, so maybe we will get away with leaving stuff overnight, but at that point why not just have actual dedicated space with drawers?

Maybe they could have lockers? Or you can simplify, man? Carry a briefcase? I dunno.

Personally, I wish I had your problem. I don't have an office job.

 

[GG-Duo]

Yes, I've worked at a company that was a traditional cubicle model and transitioned to this.
I've also worked at a client site that was doing this already for a few years.

It's a complete sham. All of your concerns are valid and they will occur.

For the dedicated people, they will still just come in every week and always stay in the same spot so they get some sort of permanence... or they will just leave personal things on the desks and kind of make it known that this is their permanent spot, despite company policy saying everything is bookable. At our company, our executives just stayed at their window cubicles and pretended this is not a policy.

There's no upside for you. There's only an upside for the company to save on permanent desk resources. So if they have 10 employees, they can get away with having only 9 desks because someone is always traveling or on vacation.

 

[milanbaros]

I do, and honestly your concerns have never been an issue.

People are generally respectful of not being loud and can hold phone calls at a conversation level.

There is a broad consistency in where people sit but people also move around if the seat is taken/fancy a change/are working in a new team.

I've never been one to have a photo of my wife on a work desk.

I just IM who I'm looking for if I can't see them by moving my head.

 

[99Luffy]

Theres a term for that btw. Its called hoteling.

 

[StayDead]

Theres a term for that btw. Its called hoteling.

We call it hot desking in the UK.

 

[Smokey]

Where no one has assigned seats and everyone has a laptop that they plug into whatever work station they feel like on a given day? And there's no offices or cubes, everything is open with few barriers or walls?

Maybe this is me getting old and averse to change, but my office is transitioning to this in the next year and it seems like a really, really bad idea to me.

Pluses:

• I can appreciate the egalitarian intentions. I'm not sure how typical this is but in our setup there will be literally no private offices, executives will be out and about with the rest of us
  
• The cool kids are doing it

Minuses:

• Less individual. No dedicated desk means no pictures of the family, desk toys, whatever else people use to make their area feel like their own space
  
• It's going to be noisy as hell. There's supposed to be conference rooms you can reserve but I imagine they'll nearly always be occupied. If you have to make a quick phone call you're going to be doing it in a full, open office
  
• No dedicated desks can only lead to drama. Anyone who has ever been to school knows how "unassigned" seating works. Everyone may jump around for a few days or a week but everyone will inevitably settle in in a group of people they enjoy being around or work with daily and then any time someone messes with the program someone is going to be annoyed. This is the point that bothers me the most, it's confusing to me. Like, it just seems so obvious to me that this "360 office" concept was thought up by some designer with his head up his ass and no concept of how humans behave. OF COURSE everyone is going to gravitate to the same space once they settle in. What the hell is the point of unassigned seating in an office where adults are trying to get work done?
  
• That leads into my next point, if people DO take advantage of the sit-anywhere-you-want idea, how the hell do you find anyone? Right now if I need to talk to Jenna in marketing, I walk over to her cubicle. In this bizarre future, I head over to her usual space and hope she's there. If she's not, I guess I get to play detective, asking known accomplices if they're aware of her recent whereabouts. Again, it seems so obvious that this concept was dreamed up by someone who doesn't actually work with a team in an office.
  
• No storage space. I try to be conscience of not wasting paper, but I like to print out important documents to proofread them. I like having physical copies of stuff I frequently reference. I like keeping a physical to-do list of stuff I'm working on. No dedicated desk means no drawers, no guaranteed space. I have to take home EVERYTHING that's mine every day. Now again, I assume everyone will gravitate to the same spot each day pretty quickly, so maybe we will get away with leaving stuff overnight, but at that point why not just have actual dedicated space with drawers?

I could go one, but man, I feel like I'm the only sane one in my office. Everyone is excited to get the same type of office that all the big tech companies use, but like I said it seems so, so, SO clear to me that the concept comes from people who were more concerned with appearing modern and young and hip then they were with designing a practical office conducive to getting work done.

Am I yelling at clouds here? Anyone have experience from switching from a traditional office to a 360? Especially curious if there's anyone who went from a private office to fighting for space withe the plebes. I don't have an office right now but I'm honestly shocked that people who do are on board like this.

I halfway do.

I work in an open environment, however I do have my own desk/workstation that I come to every morning. There's another coworker who sits directly behind me. To my left I have a small whiteboard. If I look over my dual screens, I can see everybody else on my team basically in a line.

It does suck to lose your own personal office. I had my own before we moved to a new campus with this open style, and it definitely takes some adjusting. The best part is when people are in their own meetings and everybody can hear whats going on. You soon learn to drown it out though.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Those things you mention mostly become a problem if there isn't enough space. They should plan for way more spaces and sitting room that is actually going to be used, so people can move around freely and have a few quiet places where it isn't too busy.

If they just try to put a lot of people in an open room, it is a problem. If the building is actually designed for it, it can work fine.

 

[Aiii]

This is a terrible idea and I don't see the trend lasting for very long.

Granted I'm in IT and have all the tendencies one might expect from someone in IT. I like having my stuff in exactly the place where I leave it the day before. I want my phone in the same place, my monitors where I have them. My chair in the exact right position, stuff like that. Having to "settle in" every damn day sounds like pretty much a nightmare scenario to me.

 

[Not]

It's kinda nice to have your own area...

 

[steveo0209]

So I've been working in an office like this for around 3 years now.

No assigned desks apart from the big dogs, and everything else needs to be booked in advance.

I personally do not like it at all. I pretty much have my 'own desk' that I book 95% of the time but we have a clear desk policy so have to leave it clear at the end of each day. I would love to have a permanent desk which I could personalise!

 

[Smokey]

I blame Google for this.

 

[*Splinter]

My chair in the exact right position,

Another point for your list, OP. Some people get real fussy about how their chair is adjusted (particularly if they have back/posture problems). I don't know how/if hotdesking allows for this.

 

[Vilam]

I haven't, and personally I think that sounds awful.

 

[TwiztidElf]

At the company I work at we've been doing this for 5 years now. It's as horrible as you'd expect.
It's humiliating, demeaning and dehumanising. I hate it. Everyone does. There is no doubt that it is a factor in the toxic unworkable environment. There is no question in my mind that it has destroyed morale and output of the staff.

 

[MGrant]

Hate the idea of it. Give me a desk and a place to sit every day and some walls for privacy. I'm not here to hang out like it's a cafe.

 

[John Kowalski]

I think it was shown recently that a lack of private space hurts the individual's productivity.

 

[andythinkpad]

I used to work in one like that, then I got rla real desk in my current job.

I got to say being able to paster stupid crap like pictures I took on my hikes make me like my job more.

 

[TyrantII]

Yup, it sucks. Along with WFH, it ruins team cohesion.

Those things you mention mostly become a problem if there isn't enough space. They should plan for way more spaces and sitting room that is actually going to be used, so people can move around freely and have a few quiet places where it isn't too busy.

If they just try to put a lot of people in an open room, it is a problem. If the building is actually designed for it, it can work fine.

Seeing as it's 90% about cost reduction, most places won't be spending on way more spaces that can be used.

I also realized how much of a fire hazard this has become when it took almost an hour to get down a stair well during a drill. Since everybody has different non-standard WFH days, random grouping tends to happen like most people choosing Tuesdays to come into the office and making it a death trap.

 

[mrklaw]

When we moved into a fancy new Paddington office we did this. It fell apart almost instantly. They literally only had enough desks for 80% of the workforce assuming that would be ok with sales guys being out at meetings and a little working from home. But then you had problems with most teams wanting to be in on a Monday for admin/catch up so it was over-full, and fridays being a desolate wasteland as everyone worked from home.

And the hotdesks never worked for reasons already given - teams wanted to stay together for practical and social reasons

 

[RoadHazard]

I would hate that. I need my "home" space, and I don't need to be socializing and mixing with people all day. Enough meetings on my schedule already.

 

[cubicle47b]

It sounds like a nightmare to me. I'm glad I decided to look for remote jobs the last time I moved.

 

[EGM1966]

I do. It's fine if the bulk of staff are transitory: for example I'm only in office one maybe two days a week and don't require a regular place to sit and like there's lots of informal meeting spaces.

I figure if bulk of staff are 9 to 5 it's probably not great so I get your concern but I haven't been 9 to 5 for like 25 years so I could be wrong: maybe it'll be fine.

 

[BigBeauford]

I was under the impression these setups are mostly for telecommuting jobs.

 

[Gravy Boat]

Our office is pretty open in that there's no cubicles, but there are meeting rooms and stuff. We have 4 meeting rooms that hold 5 or so people, 1 big room that would hold 20 or so (more if people were standing) and 3x 1 person meeting rooms for Hangout meetings with people in other offices.

We have our own desks, but we also have a bunch of empty desks that people can just go and sit at if they want to move around, or work on a project with other people. We also just have sofas and beanbags stuff throughout the office, as well as a big kitchen with games, pool table, picnic benches etc so people can go hang out there too. So even though we have our own desks, there's a ton of options if you want to go and sit somewhere else. As long as you get your work done, no one really cares where you sit. If I'm looking for someone, I just ping them on Slack.

I like it that way. I like being able to go and sit wherever I want.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

I've worked in fairly traditional Japanese offices for years now so I'm at least used to open space style in the way they do it. Only the really high level execs have their own office. Managers and senior managers usually sit at their own desk stationed near their department.

I don't think I would like the fully mobile style though. I honestly don't like to work on most laptops and prefer to have my own desktop. And to be able to personalize my desk. I need somewhere to keep all my swag I can't fit at home!

 

[Carn82]

It's important that such a concept is only applied where it makes sense, i.e. in offices where people are very mobile and have a lot of external appointments (e.g. consultants). Doing this in an office where people are present 5 days a week is just dumb and a misunderstanding of the concept.

THIS.

I hate it, I hate "hotdesking" with a passion. But I'm glad that I have my own desk. I'm always present, I have quite some documents and books around as well; no way I'm going to drag that around. Also, I need to be able to concentrate (devops and support for our product) I don't want people around me constantly chatting or using the phone or whatever when I'm in the middle of resolving a potential crisis. We do have an open office (with a few free workspaces, and a little bar and stuff) but me and my team are in a 'corner' of the floorplan so that kinda works out. We also have some meeting rooms if people want to meet or have phonecalls, but not everyone uses them as such. If management wants to turn my desk in a hotdesk they can go fuck themselves. It's always the people who arent always present who think its a good idea.

Also; there have been some studies that hotdesking is actually not positive for productivity and quality of work (duh). In my opinion, it's only positive if you want to cheap out on proper workplaces.

 

[Friggz]

My office turned into one. Its actually one of the main reasons i became a full time remote work.

 

[Krakatoa]

Do you mean hotdesks? If so they have been around since the 90's. Large Consultancy companies generally use them as the consultants don't really need dedicated office space.

I can see it working for other trades as well.

 

[Apathy]

My company decided they are going to do this to the whole company, including their call center. I think that might be too far