The Office Design Strategies of Amazon, Samsung, Adobe and Others | WSJ Open Office

So basically they copy a university library…

As a Marketer in tech who's extroverted but also has ADHD, all the open space is truly difficult to navigate. Instead of forcing everyone to do deep work in open spaces, we should just create beautiful, community spaces with an abundance of seating where we can opt in to communicate for meetings and bond etc. The only thing I think these companies got right was the leisure aspects and the natural light, the rest is great in theory but mid in practice. Instead of eliminating cubicles, surely there's a way to optimise them?

mahn i'd love to work at that amazon sphere. such a cool escapist place. i love escapism, its really great for thinking. just wish these have more private spaces so it can be best of both worlds.

good

Please do any of you work there my fellow commenters

Open work place is an open privacy work place.

great but still prefer wfh or wfa if bored

Create and show me the modern office building full of presidents, business people, managers and ceos that wears a clean and covered suit. Show me that 3 videos only

it's legit guys! thank you so much!

Just by the way you speak, makes me want to hire you as my personal consultant🎉

Note that Samsung is a S Korean company so the American offices are likely taking notes on office design and employee efficiency from them. But they also have one of the highest suicide rates amongst young adults. This is attributed to a combination of things one of which is the pressure to perform and succeed. Something to keep in mind before praising these “innovative” office designs. Aside from that, I also work at a company with an open office plan and zero privacy, I mean ZERO. The entire building is basically glass. I deal with people coming straight to my desk sitting down on said desk and proceeding to start a conversation without any care of what I might be doing. It’s not always as collaborative as these CEOs would have you think it is. As an employee it’s often intrusive, stifling, and frustrating. Even the “focus” areas are top to bottom glass. Believe me, it gets tiring for many people.

MAN,
THIS IS BRAIN WORKS FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE.
WE NEED PRIVACY.
NOT PIRACY.

Amazon sphere is a work of art. Something I want to visit at least once in my lifetime (but don't think I will ever get to)

well well you a big idea

So much ethnicity divesity... so wonderful!

Who wants to work at an airline lounge?

Nothing about Amazon, including the Spheres, is green or climate-conscious in any way

The Cisco one looks like an absolute nightmare

700 to 800 calories? BUUUUUUUUUUUUUULSHIT

The amozon office🎉 such a dream to work there

It doesn't look like much work gets done. No wonder the quality of all things tech and/or electronic devices have gone down tremendously. Geez. Thanks WSJ for showcasing this lackluster fluff piece.

Adobe literally has a monopoly on how legal documents are filed in courts. Law firms don't need a tech vibe or whatever, they need reliability. Adobe's "new layout" was a total bomb with attorneys who need consistency on a program they have been using one way for 20 years (Acrobat Pro). Attorneys have to deal with tens of thousands of pages of documents in the fastest but accurate way possible.

“This design is about connecting people” the sentence you use when you don’t have anything smart to say

Work spaces of the future! The best was the Samsung's office.

What I've noticed, is the need for someone who understands the consumer. A room full of people who aren't average can't design around boredom from someone who lacks ambition, but the consumer doesn't work a meaninful job. The consumer works to pay for their leisure time. Tech workers tend to be invested in their product, cubicle workers tend to be invested in their benefits package. Making the work place fun is counter productive because, either you work from passion, which is fun, or you work for money, and you'd rather not be at work. Just an observation. I really like the plants, fresh air and sunlight though, that is a very useful idea. The farm to table is awesome!

The CISCO bit was very weird, almost Orwellian ! In any case, I do agree with most of the comments: open space is the worst configuration: it is exhausting, the noise level is always too loud, too many distractions... As a process engineer, I had to make some pretty complicated calculations so I had to put my noise cancelling and I hated that. I also think that the concept of not having an assigned desk is also annoying and leads to a time waste. Overall, this video looks much more like a PR operation for all the companies mentioned.

This is so out of touch by these companies. I am shocked at the amount of money wasted on these spaces. They are beautiful, but they are not for work. As an employee, I would hate the idea of not knowing where I'm going to sit every day (hot seats). And the amount of open floor plan, activity, and frankly options, just wouldn't suit a place for concentration and work to get done. More so, how would I know where my co-worker is sitting each day who I need to talk to regularly? Do I have to slack him/her each time to ask where they are today? And all those open floor plans--carrying my stuff around, making sure there is an outlet, not having multiples screens in the open spaces---just awful. I fear that in the very near future these buildings are going to be ghost towns, unless the companies mandate back to office. And then also make improvements to make the spaces more consistent with traditional assigned seats.

GOOD CONTENT !!! Very engaging right from the beginning These are tough times and frankly I appreciate how you discuss global finances in such a delicate way. Business and investment are the best way to make money even under the nose off

100% Cisco is using that tracking camera strategy to collect data on how many of their hybrid employees work, and using it to cut employee headcount. And then sell that strategy to other companies. Who in turn buy more Cisco products. Diabolical and genius. Why else would the president of the org get involved in design?

I worked at Amazon as a software engineer. The spheres is beautiful to visit it once or twice but impossible to work in it. It’s very hot inside and there’s way too much noise and movement to really focus. Almost no one I know worked there

They all became WeWork offices.

And yet most people would still rather work from home

Talking for the automotive OEM engineering world - is a nightmare and terrible idea. 1.- does not help productivity you can't have a quiet place to work, you cant concentrate. Most of releasers are in meetings 3/4 of the day. The ones doing the design, code, validation work can't conentrate because all this people in meetings all day. Now you can't have a meeting room booked all day.
2.- You don't have privacy; you fell people overshoulder all the time, you can relax because "of the looks" - NO ONE ENGAGE FOR WORK most of people talk about random daily stuff, if you need to talk about work you walk to that people desk if you have walls you will be able to meet with that person in privacy and you can talk sensitive topics without being all secretive.
3.- Cleanliness; there is people all the time, sneezing, farting, caughing, snorting, picking their nose; etc... people need to do it is inevitable avoid all this bodly functions all day everyday and EVERYONE IS EXPOSED OF YOUR BACTERIA AND VIRUS!
4.- " HEADPHONES ARE AGAINST OFFICE ETTIQUETE" if you use headphones to concentrate people need to go to your desk to talk they can't catch your attention; so this deviate the intention of an open office. But then you can have you privacy moment.
5.- You have "meeting room" or "privacy rooms" - you can't be there all day there are not enough space.
6.- ANY SOCIAL AREA LIKE POOL, PING PONG, ARCADE ARE NOT FOR OFFICES! THIS WAS CREATED SO YOU FEEL CAN STAY LONGER AT WORK - THIS DOESN'T WORK!!!!! IS NOT HEALTHY!!!!

Bring back small offices PLEASE! PLEASE!

Homeless people get the most amount of steps per day

Amazon is causing people to die on the job from heat exhaustion but here we are praising them for making open buildings! Good job Amazon! Maybe their building achievements are correlated with how many employees they kill? If that's the case, I'm sure we can all support more sacrifice!

Cool

Do the people who work in the cafe, the delivery drivers, and the gardeners get to use these things as well?

standing desk is a must
do you have that ?

There is no amount of money they could pay me and no amount of amenities these companies can add to their overpriced buildings that would make me want to go into the office. I rather have geographical freedom to travel & be wherever I want to be.

The fact it's so difficult to get staff back in the office tells you everything you need to know about what people really think of open plan and hot desking. Isn't it funny the highest paid employees still have private offices...

Alternative video title: What big tech elites' workplaces look like.

The guy who talks about produce/ garden, he looks like he's 9 months pregnant 😅

I dont need a foosball table ... It does not help me get my job done

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