Open Plan Office - good idea or big mistake?

[PanamaPattie]

My employer (NHS) has made the decision to take down walls and make our office space open plan. Over 100 people will be sharing. Hot desks and lockers will replace the current arrangement of individual desks and drawers.

I don't like this idea at all - I imagine fighting over desks, lack of privacy, heat (we're losing the air con), noise, no eating or drinking at desks.

It sounds like utter misery.

AIBU?

Yura Not all hot-desk environments have laptop workers. They have PCs which, due to the hot-desking, have dozens of profiles clogging them up, so it can take 5 - 10 minutes just to boot one up and get logged into it.

I’ve never worked anywhere which isn’t open plan. We open plan and hotdesk, our office is pretty quiet and if I need extra quiet I put my headphones in.

what takes people so long to set up/pack up?

How set up goes for me:

Arrive to desk, put down my handbag and any foods I want at desk

Work clock starts.

Brisk Walk 70' to locker, take lanyard off b/c key is on it & key stays in locker when unlocked, unlock locker
Pause before opening to make sure coin doesn't fall out of locker to ground (falls out if open too quickly)
Extract:
barely fits inside laptop bag so must twist to get out, tea mug, pot of pencils, 2 teabags, back cushion, any snack things in locker I'd like to eat today
Stack all those up on windowsill 10' away until all there & ready to carry back
relock locker with coin, take key out, lanyard back on neck
Pick stuff up on windowsill, brisk walk back to desk
Take laptop out of bag, take notebook & pens out of laptop bag
Take my computer spectacles & headphones out of bag
Open laptop, place behind keyboard onto desk, plug into USB link to dock, turn on laptop
Arrange on desk: mouse, keyboard cords, specs, headphones, desk phone, tea mug, back cushion, ipod or phone if desired, pen pot, snacks.
Carefully get cords arranged on desk so untangled, & none overlap with mouse trackpad.
Laptop bag arranged under desk with my handbag on it and any spare bags or clothing that I want ; try not to place my feet on them & make sure they aren't in anyone else's foot space.

Laptop Charger will need extracting/plugging/cord arranged from bag, too, at some point in the day.

Arrange desk chair & monitor heights to preference & good DSE regs (typically not required daily, but could be, if I didn't always get in early).

I am supposed/allowed to have TWO pairs of headphones on desk, both with long cords; one pr is my own, works for music but not telecons & one work pair only functions for telecons. I can't be asked; the work headphones stay in the locker. Else they would need plugging in & arranging too. There is a work webcam I am supposed to put on a monitor every day, too (I also leave that in locker).

Time to Ctrl-Alt-Del & logon.

Doesn't take a mere 10 seconds.

Each desk space is about 1.6 m wide, I guess, maybe 1m deep? I must measure & report back.

ps: forgot to say, all those items in laptop bag, don't fit in same pocket, so lots of unzipping different pockets & digging down to get to items in each. Reverse precise placement into laptop bag at end of day so I can find stuff easily when we go to meetings.

I like the my job well enough, to be clear, I just do not like the locker-hotdesk system much.

Depending on my location im either in s office with a few others or a large open plan office.

I much prefer the small office, someone in the open plan has a phone that rings really loudly! It's also quite loud there and I'm wary of people walking and standing chatting behind me as I work on some sensitive stuff and feel like I can't do that work there :(