Some Apple Park Employees Said to Be Dissatisfied With Open Office Design

[ipedro]

What’s this then?

Some jobs require more collaborative spaces. Design, marketing, other creative fields thrive better with collaboration. Other jobs require more focused work that is best done uninterrupted and without distractions. That’s where the spaces above come in. It’s not one size fits all at Apple Park. People are freaking out from a few photos and before seeing the finished building.

If I worked at Apple Park and really wanted some peace and quiet, it’s a park! In California! Take your laptop and go sit under a tree. The park within the centre of the spaceship is many times over the square footage of the entire building itself. There’s room for every single employee to sit outside if they want to.

I predict that those used to having an office that they can mess up and personalize themselves will be mad but the younger employees who are used to working while mobile will take advantage of the fact that Apple Park is a campus that doesn’t require you to be chained to your desk.

 

[nicho]

Headphones aren't a great solution either. A lot of people in my office wear them, and typically the only way to get their attention is to tap them on the shoulder which scares the beejezus out of them.

Perhaps Apple could design it's way around that problem. Whatever tech is going into FaceID, in a small cubicle mounted device, used to recognise the fact there's a person's face behind you and alert you subtly it's time to look up. A little indicator light or something that won't make you poop.

 

[B4U]

Open floor plan is one of the dumbest idea ever.
Constant distractions and absolutely not enough merits.

That is why I am always coming to the office to work over the weekends, just to avoid getting bothered by co-workers asking for help on every single tiny thing.

 

[pratikindia]

Think of all the noises coming from 100s of people around you. It's too much distraction.

 

[bkkcanuck8]

Think of all the noises coming from 100s of people around you. It's too much distraction.

When I an "in the zone" -- no one can distract me. You can even speak to me and I will not hear you. It was an ongoing joke that someone would ask me a question and the first time they asked I would not hear them, they then had to knock on the desk to get my attention and re-ask the question.

Now when I am goofing off, I feel everyone's eyes on my computer screen and that is annoying.

I had an office for many years -- and found that I lost touch with "the regular" folk and people were generally less likely to stop by my office and ask questions... often spinning and not being productive because they were afraid to disturb me in my office. I don't think permanent offices are great solutions either. I prefer a combination where there are lots of small meeting rooms in the inside of the building that can be used when needed, but the work area within teams at one "table area" are more or less open (with a low divider - to keep peoples crap in their area).

Two issues that I would find annoying if this is all that it is .... the team areas are too large.... there should be some break between them.... though I suspect part of the reasoning of not putting too much breaks is that it takes away from the natural work environment (i.e. poorer air quality, less natural light).

 

[bommai]

First off, it's pretty sad to see people complain about something like this. The campus looks amazing and most people on the outside looking in would probably say it's an incredible design and a great place to be.

Regarding the quote below:
"They emailed Gruber, telling him that they're working on something that is "going to blow people's minds when we ship," but before that happens their team is transitioning to Apple Park. Gruber noted that the email was very level-headed and had a "perfect Apple sensibility," but the source nevertheless said that if they don't like the Apple Park workspaces, they're likely to leave the company after the product ships."

This person can enjoy their new "open desk" for another 2-3 years since this so called "mind blowing" product won't ship for quite a while. The next big thing is the HomePod which is slated for December.

Open concept sucks for engineers that like to focus. Many managers think it is great for engineers, but engineers think they suck. This is affecting me personally as I am also moving from an individual office to a more open concept building. I can't believe how loud it is going to be now.

 

[MacBH928]

No one else surprised this project was proposed when Jobs was still alive, its 2017 and its still not completed?

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

What one should learn from this thread is that you can't fit everyone into the same category. Experienced people that can either love it or hate it and juvenile armchair quarterbacks that have never worked calling the apple employees whiners.

If anything the apple employees will probably match the sentiments, love or hate, being espoused here.

 

[Rogifan]

Yep science has proven that open offices actually lower productivity. I understand why Ive pushed for it - it works for his small focused team. Making open offices across the whole company is mind-blowingly stupid.

You think Steve Jobs has no input on the new campus design? I’ll bet there’s very little he didn’t sign off on in terms of overall design and layout. I’m sorry but Apple spending $5B on a new campus that employees hate so much they’re going to quit is a raised eyebrow story for me. At some point along the way concerns would have been surfaced and plans adjusted. I think once again, like most things Apple, it’s a story blown out of proportion. But the headline Apple employees hate their new campus so much they’re planning to quit is a juicy headline great for clicks.
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There's loads of evidence that states that open offices DO NOT increased creativity or productivity. Closed, personal offices do. They reduce noice, give a private space to think without interruption and crucially - people are not constantly comparing their own work to others in the same space(ship).

How many corporations have campuses with closed, personal offices for anyone other than VP’s/executives? I would imagine most places if they’re not open plan have cubicles.

 

[brentsg]

I've worked as an engineer off and on, and I've been in various management and project management roles. I've worked in open spaces, closed spaces, little cubicles, shared offices, you name it. You couldn't pay me enough to work in the new Apple campus environment. Now I'm nearing the home stretch in my career, so perhaps that is a factor.. but it sounds like they are going to employ what is essentially an anti-diversity environment. They are going to retain only employees that can function in their new space. There are plenty of high-functioning employees that will be flipped to low-functioning simply by the environment. Well, they would be if they weren't in demand, which all Apple employees will be. They will simply leave.

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I have for all my career. Really good for communication and collaboration.
Guess what, people could focus before the invention of the cubicle. People could focus before the invention of noise-cancelling earphones.
The new generation is really lame when they pretend that they need to work in a vacuum to get anything done.

Or perhaps not everyone is like you?

 

[Roadstar]

At some point along the way concerns would have been surfaced and plans adjusted. I think once again, like most things Apple, it’s a story blown out of proportion. But the headline Apple employees hate their new campus so much they’re planning to quit is a juicy headline great for clicks.

Having been through some office remodelings, concerns are often surfaced but also almost as often ignored and written off as resistance to change. And naturally after the new and fancy open plan has been implemented, the same persons who ignored all the concerns and studies they were given to read (cognitive dissonance at work here) are baffled about why productivity has plummeted and emergency fixes are needed to keep top developers in the house.

So I'd say is perfectly possible that Apple is making an expensive mistake here. I guess we'll find out in the next couple of years.

 

[himanshumodi]

I am not a fan of open work spaces myself (I myself work in that layout). But I can't imagine people quitting over this! Maybe really senior folks might. But a developer? Besides, I have been to tons of offices in US, and everyone has cubicle structure, with walls only as high as the head when people are seated. That is no different than "open space" and seems to work for everyone else.

 

[dragje]

I'm a creative myself and prefer working in my home studio since it's much easier to focus and get the work done. I have my own world to live in without anyone looking over my shoulder, even using my moleskine sketchbook or iPad Pro, I do that at the local cafe whenever I want to. The open spaces may or may not work for certain engineers but it is a design problem on their end so they will have to find a way to improve productivity without the distraction.

However, I've seen some design or creative studios that have open spaces which made me cringe a bit wondering how they're able to get things done. Even game design companies as well have that set up. I think it depends on the type of personality of workers you bring in, so one can't really force the entire company to act 'extrovert' and cooperate all the time. That sets a dangerous precedent and in one book titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts In the World That Can't Stop Talking, the author nails the problem in open work spaces when it comes to introverts/extrovert work behavior. I won't go into details due to the depth of this book but it brilliantly breaks everything down in the whys and hows of that particular personality trait.

Thanks for your reply colleague! I totally agree on what you're stating here. Thanks for the tip for this book, I'll check it out!

As for the "modern" work spaces, it also comes along with a "branded" attitude, I'm using the term "branded" because many of the modern new work methods doesn't makes sense to me at all. I give you an example of what this journalist perfectly describes, it's quite funny and troubling as well.

Sorry if I sound like a drunk Swedish rabbit due lack of knowledge for English grammar, I'm Dutch you see, so I'm not that familiar with English as I'm with Dutch.

Here's the link I was talking about:

 

[DenisValcke]

These open space offices are just a current trend. Thinking that everyone can just work and focus in one big open space is a giant misconception and when you think about it objectively and logically you'll come to that conclusion yourself. I'm a developer myself and my previous job was in such an office and it was a daily frustration point. Even now I work in open space offices from now and then and most of my colleagues or friends that work in similar jobs have noice cancelling headphones (including me), just to be able to have moments where we can just focus and cancel out the distractions around us. This open space thing is just a trend and I believe that smaller rooms where small teams can work with focus and without distractions will always be better than one giant office where you can't focus on your code for 10min without someone walking behind you, some people talking a few desks away from yours, etc. If you want your employees to be productive and focussed, give them functional offices to do so. Nobody says we should go back to boring cubicles but should we jump from one extreme to the other just to look cool and futuristic?

 

[Marshall73]

Perfect opportunity to get rid of serial whiners. Then adjustments can be made for the staff you want to keep.

I recall an incident with a serial whiner when the client had new desks and monitor arms put in place. He complained that the new monitors were not as good as his previous ones.

Turned out that they were the same monitors he had before, he just didn’t like change. The company had put in new higher partitions and height adjustable desks at great expense so that each workstation was customisable and allowed the user to set it up to their preferences to avoid muscle strain etc.

Needless to say, he got the bullet shortly thereafter. Some folks are just like little kids.

 

[asiga]

I'm glad to read this article, because it means that it's not only me who don't like the new Apple, but even Apple employees feel this way. The new Apple is focused in telling you what to do and how to do it, and where to do it (in this case forcing employees to work in an open space). The old Apple was about giving you the best product for your total freedom. Everything has changed.

 

[anthorumor]

Should have taken the Pixar approach. The animators have their own rooms and spaces, yet there are collaborative area where they can collaborate collectively, by their choosing. And a breakfast bar.

 

[69650]

This office layout is seriously out dated. The most innovative office designs have a combination of quiet work spaces and open collaborative spaces.

 

[Rogifan]

This office layout is seriously out dated. The most innovative office designs have a combination of quiet work spaces and open collaborative spaces.

How do you know everything that this campus has? Have you actually been inside the building? I think Norman Foster knows more about building design than random posters on an Apple rumors site.

Phil Schiller talked enthusiastically about Campus 2 design back in 2015. I don't remember any outcry then so why now is the Apple Park floor plan the worst thing ever and employees are going to quit because of it?

http://on.mash.to/2us8zI5

 

[2headedgeek]

Well the film was called The Circle for a reason.

 

[amegicfox]

it looks like a sales department area, hopefully not a software space

 

[thekeyring]

I’m not surprised, the whole ‘open and collaborative work space’ stuff can go to far, and it’s become a joke. They should be building it around employee needs.

Steve Jobs helped design this, for goodness sake.

 

[Tiger8]

At my former client, they moved everyone in IT to open office. People whined like there is no tomorrow! Everyone said that their productivity is going to drop, they will have to work from home more often, even some of them came up with a weird excuses not to be moved to the new office. Guess what? Everyone moved, everyone adjusted to the open office, productivity increased and so did collaboration.

In fact, the idea was so successful that they started moving business and sales into open office spaces.

Welcome to the future!

 

[kdarling]

What one should learn from this thread is that you can't fit everyone into the same category. Experienced people that cal either love it or hate it and juvenile armchair quarterbacks that have never worked calling the apple employees whiners.

This. You can tell the posters who've never had a job that requires concentration.

Or the ones who don't mind being treated like just another cog in a machine.

If I worked at Apple Park and really wanted some peace and quiet, it’s a park! In California! Take your laptop and go sit under a tree.

Anyone working on a secret project can't do that. Moreover, Apple is more known for its requirement to stick to your desk for ten hours a day.

---

Not only is the ARM chip group staying in their own building, but so is another huge group.

It's been known for some time that the Apple cloud services teams run by Eddy Cue, including Siri, Maps, iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple News and parts of iTunes and Apple Music, are instead moving into the company’s existing Infinite Loop campus.

 

[Appleaker]

Steve Jobs helped design this, for goodness sake.

Yeah.... 6+ years ago. I don’t know why you’re pointing it out since everybody on this forum knows that.
Anyway, a lot can and has changed since then, especially with Apples more vocal attitudes and their increasing number of employees. It did not remain the same, all you have to do it compare the proposal to the final thing, and that’s external change to the campus.