There is no tone-deafness going on; they know exactly what it means and what they want, and how to sell it down the chain. Think of it this way, every time management tells you that there's no raise because of budget reasons, are you really going to take that at face value?
Business is business, and we are workers. If we want serious change, it's no use complaining about this... they'll do whatever anyways. We should engaging in politics, out on the streets kind of stuff.
I've believed this exactly once. When upper management also received no bonuses that year.
I'not sure open offices are so unpopular in practice.
I suspect a handful of people with misophonia are passionately against them. A sizable minority think they makes work more fun, and the remainder are indifferent.
As someone who loathes them myself, I read all kinds of articles about how awful they are. But that's how news works: I'm a likely click for any article that vindicates my hatred of my stupid boss. So while I've seen plenty of surveys showing people complaining about it, I'm doubtful I'm seeing the same data management is.
I've simply never seen anyone really protest it. It's a small sample, but if I've worked with a hundred people, that predicts the real value is small. I even had a team that actively wanted management to remove the dividers when we had half-cubes, and I was the lone holdout!
Some of the studies: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/business... https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/when-the-walls-come-down
Now, imagine you are measuring the collaboration by the amount of meetings and chats/email. Of course these increase if we can no longer chat in your office! Now I have to book time or send you a slack/chat/whatever because having a conversation now requires finding that private space.
So previously unmeasured collaboration is replaced with lower fidelity, but measurable collaboration.
From what I've seen people who work in open offices try to find ways to work somewhere quieter when possible.
If open offices are worth it entirely depends on if saving on rent or having more productive employees is more worth it. Generally I see a trend towards open office + shared semiprivate spaces. Like meeting rooms or phone booth like cubicles with doors.
People? Human resources.
You know, things you use up and discard, like any resource.
Oddly enough, though it sounds more pejorative than "personnel" to me, "human resources" was thought to be positive as a resource is valuable.
And, in fairness, while your manager typically makes the call to fire you, HR are the ones who swing the axe, so no name changes can make them warm and cuddly.
Indeed, and that's precisely what most probably didn't need or want.
Because butts in chairs and fingers smushing keys is what's important.
How disconnected from reality do you need to be to think surveillance and converting to an open office is going to somehow increase retention of employees?
And a surprising number of people who haven't had to work in open offices before think "Oh, that'll be cool: social, innovative, and collaborative!"
Sometimes, Hanlon's razor works in reverse: don't attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by m̵a̵l̵i̵c̵e̵ marketing.
Vote with your feet if the surveillance starts feeling creepy. I think people sign up to do a job, not be a guinea pig in some sort dystopian Skinner box. There should be limits on what personal information is collected.
As a former McKesson employee, i'd say you found the issue.
What makes you think they even want this kind of understanding? Not to mention the handwavey vagueness of "understanding people."