And that's really the whole point.
It's why they are popular in Japan, together with the fact that thanks to the open structure, transgressor can apologize in front of everyone at once.
Half of our team is remote. Using physical space for controlling productivity (or lack of) is not a solution. You and the rest of your team should keep each other accountable through performance metrics that are mutually agreed upon. Being a remote team for so long (15 years) has forced us to find alternatives to traditional office babysitting and it has helped us design our new office as well.
I never noticed anyone caring that someone came in early, arrived late, left early or left late or taking a long lunch. They cared they got their work done in a reasonable amount of time.
That certainly the attitude I saw at Google. I assume it's the same at Facebook. Work wherever (office, home, coffee shop) and whenever you want. VC in for meetings if you're not on site. Get your work done.
Note: I also worked in Japan for 7 years. Both Japanese companies, both there was at most one other non Japanese employee in my division. One had strict hours, the other not. Of course the strict one effectively took roll call. But the other didn't. The strict one started with team cubes, switched to open office when they moved to a smaller place where there wasn't enough room for partitions. The other had personal-ish cubes. Most people had their own cube with partitions high enough you couldn't see over them when sitting down but could when standing up. A few at the ends of aisle shared a space for 3.
that is what basically everybody is doing around me. In that respect open office has helped to get rid of any sense of shame we may have been able to feel before. "Mass presence effect reinforced behavior" i'd say.
If there is an employee an employee who is constantly leaving early, coming in late, and not working, management needs to deal with this directly. An open office plan is not a good replacement for good management.
Any office or managers who feel the need to make note of when I enter and exit is a great red flag for the rest of the organization. Just a personal observation!
If anything, this prevents one person from being singled out because it's difficult to get mad at one person for slacking when everyone is slacking to a similar degree.
At least, that's my experience being in a 4 person cubicle. It built trust between coworkers and against the company.
If the boss is not there, then it's not quite the open office; it's a slightly strawman version of the open office which doesn't quite include everyone. Even so, the boss can come out peek at the workspace at any time and tell at a glance who is there and who isn't, and who is doing what.
Looks at HN karma. Yeah, if only they did that.
I guess a lot depends on company culture, but I'm yet to work in an open-office space where I could actually focus on anything harder than the most mechanical coding tasks.