My observations on this is that it is a veneer for reducing floor space and costs because of fewer offices. They can squeeze them into these shared spaces under the guise of so-called “collaboration”.
Unfortunately in today’s world people are often meeting with people in other cities. Thus the open shared spaces sound like call centers on conference calls. Tacky.
I was lucky I stil had my office when I retired.
I have an office to myself and am grateful for it.
The new building has an open office plan and I am amazed that those people function at all. Noise and people walking through all the time.
Last year, a counterpart from Australia messaged me for the first time to discuss progress on something. He asked if the other guy in my department was at the same table.
I told him that he wasn’t in my office and I would go down the hall to check his. The Aussie was blown away hearing we all had private offices.