Monthly Archives : August 2012

Have you read Haworth’s paper on Why Daylight and Views Matter in the workplace? Apparently, workers who have a view of the outdoors (preferably a natural scene rather than a cityscape) have less stress and more satisfaction on the job. We would all probably like to have an office with a big picture window to let in the sun and give us a panoramic perspective on the great outdoors. Of course, we aren’t all lucky enough to work in that type of space.

Perhaps the next best thing would be to decorate the office interior with nature scenes? Our privacy panels can be custom printed with any imagery you choose. This means you can bring the great outdoors indoors with pictures of mountains, forests, the ocean, or any soothing scene you can imagine. Relaxation is only one benefit of bringing art and nature into the office space. As a bonus, you’ll be happy to know that a visually interesting office helps stave off boredom.

As we help employers improve their workplace acoustics with our panel products, we always appreciate other companies that educate the public about this vital topic. Cambridge Sound Management has a very clear explanation of another aspect of noise control in the workplace that is becoming more and more popular. It’s the use of sound masking to mitigate distracting noises. Their illustration of a flashlight turned on in a bright room makes it easy to understand how a system such as the Qt Quiet technology works to make noises seem less intrusive. The use of sound masking equipment in conjunction with physical barriers like panel extenders is often the ideal approach to creating the productive work environment you need. Both can be installed in today’s modern, open office environments to quickly and affordably upgrade the sound environment with minimal disruption to workers.

Just a few months ago, the New York Times addressed the issue of noise in the workplace. The conclusion? We need less of it. Now, the NYT is talking about how adding sounds can help aid with focus and enhance your mood at work – you just have to pick the right kind of noise.

Music Makes Us Work Better

Apparently, individuals who are moderately skilled at their jobs (in other words, most of us) gain substantial productivity by listening to music while we work. This isn’t just true for manual jobs like assembly line work. It also holds true for knowledge work such as IT that require a high level of concentration, attention to detail and creative problem solving.

Choose Your Tunes

Musical pieces without words are the best option since there are no lyrics to distract the listener. With just instrumental music, you can get in the zone with the musical part of your brain without interfering with the function of the language center. Other than that, there’s not really any “best” music – it should just be something you like. Whether that’s Bach, Miles Davis or Union Station is up to you. Having control over the selection rather than being forced to listen to someone else’s music makes a big difference.

Create a Sound Sanctuary

Obviously, earphones are a necessity if you work in a cubicle or open office environment so everyone can have their own personal soundtrack. This raises the question of workplace collaboration. How can coworkers interact with you if you’re plugged in all day?

The NY Times article points out that you don’t need to listen all day long to reap the productivity benefits of music in the workplace. 20-30 minutes here and there is sufficient to help most people refocus. So, employees might simply choose to use the ear buds or headphones during those times when they really need to concentrate – which means coworkers shouldn’t interrupt them anyway.

Second, it might actually be helpful for people to limit the amount of cross-cubicle talk in open work areas. It’s disruptive to everyone and part of the reason people use music to block out excessive office noise in the first place.

What do you think? Is it OK to listen while you work?

Our cubicle panel extenders don’t just make employees happy by increasing their level of workplace privacy. One unintended side effect can be making office pranks more fun. Twitter user PaulPabst posts a clever photo that clearly demonstrates the simple physics of the equation: you can fit more packing peanuts in a cube that has higher walls. More surface area and volume capacity means you can take your fun and harmless pranks a little further. Of course, the interior of the cubicle can be better shielded by opaque panel extenders rather than the transparent ones in the photo. That means your “victim” won’t be able to see inside the cube from a distance. You can get the full effect of the surprise when they round the corner and peek into their workspace to find that you set all their office supplies in Jell-O!

Did you attend NeoCon 2012? You probably noticed that healthcare workplaces represent one of the fastest growing and most innovative segments of the contract furniture industry. Herman Miller, Steelcase, and many other leading manufacturers are spending lots of R&D and marketing money positioning themselves as experts in this space. They are doing extensive research into what both patients and providers want in healthcare furniture. Pieces that are ergonomic and easy to clean are generally at the top of the list. Privacy is also a major concern – above and beyond the basics required for HIPAA compliance. That’s where OBEX products could help in retrofitting existing healthcare workspaces.

The administrative and admitting areas of healthcare organizations are a prime space to install our panel extenders to block sound and ensure more visual privacy. For example, even a patient sitting down to discuss or dispute an invoice with a billing representative might not want their conversation overheard. Having workstations equipped with acoustic panel extenders can help prevent sound from traveling. The Sound Transmission Class (STC) rating is what you want to look for in these cases. It’s not just the material itself that makes a difference. The higher the divider, the better it will be at limiting sound “leakage”.

In the same way, someone filling out all their personal identifying information at admitting might want to keep those details away from prying eyes. Having a check-in table or bench style worksurface installed along one wall in the waiting area would provide a flat surface so patients don’t have to balance a clipboard on their knees. It could be equipped with multiple desk-top mounted privacy panels to create small, private spaces for completing paperwork. The polycarbonate panels in aluminum frames would be ideal for this setting since they can be easily sanitized.

If you are a facilities manager or business owner looking to cut down on the square footage requirements of your office, you’re no doubt familiar with the terms “hoteling” and “hot-desking”. In these arrangements, workers don’t get a permanently assigned desk or workstation of their own. Instead, employees pick a station on a first come, first serve basis. Or, they check in and get assigned a desk that’s available.

This approach has a few advantages. Some employers are able to cut down dramatically on the number of workstations required for their staff. This works particularly well in situations where many employees have flexible work schedules and/or telecommute. They aren’t as likely to feel put out that they don’t get their “own” desk. Plus, the odds of all your workers being in the office at the same time aren’t high. This means that if you have 100 employees, you might figure out that you need only 60 workstations to serve everyone on an average workday. The details vary and not every office culture is a good match for hot-desking (you can get more great information about the pros and cons here).

How Desktop Mounted Privacy Panels Can Help

If you have done the math and decided that hot-desking will work for your company, here are some ways our desktop dividers can help:

Taking away an employee’s sense of “ownership” over their workspace shouldn’t mean taking away their sense of privacy. As you reduce the footprint of your office with hot-desking, noise and visual distractions become even more of a concern. Adding privacy panels can help reduce the sound level and give workers a greater chance to concentrate.

What if far more employees show up than you have desks for? Add more spaces at a moment’s notice by installing desktop dividers cross-wise along any flat worksurface. You could turn a conference table or a long table-style worktop into multiple “work pods” in minutes. If everyone’s using laptops anyway, they don’t necessarily need a lot of surface area.

A search for ways to cut down on workplace distractions is what led to the creation of OBEX panel extender and desktop privacy panel products in the first place. So, it’s no wonder that we also like to keep abreast of all the other ways employees can learn to cope with noisy office interruptions. Here are a few great tips from around the web at places like ChatterBlocker, Office Smurf, and GIGAOM.

Promote Good Etiquette: This is about more than not making calls from your cubicle on speaker phone. Make it a habit to take extended conversations into a conference room to avoid talking in group work areas. Encourage others to follow your example.

Mask the Sounds: Products like ChatterBlocker, white noise machines, pink noise machines, music played through headphones, or simply the whirring of a fan can be a big help in drowning out unwanted noise.

Practice Mindfulness and Meditation: Instead of having an annoyed response to the sounds that break your concentration, simply notice them and then get back to work. Spending less mental energy on anger means you can get back “in the zone” faster. Daily meditation can also train your mind to stay in the moment and be less distractible.

Adjust Your Schedule: Work on tasks that require little concentration during the noisiest hours at the office. Or, make a pact with other office employees that the first hour of the day is “no talking” time.

That’s a good question to ask if you are outfitting workstations at your office with our desk-mounted privacy panels. Some of our customers like to put up a panel across the front of the desk and add one along the side just like the setup in the photo. Here are a few questions that can help you decide whether you need maximum panel coverage. Each ‘yes’ answer means your employees are likely to be happier with two panels rather than just one.

• Are workstations located next to high traffic walkways?
• Is there a lot of noise in the workplace?
• Do employees have coworkers directly in front of them and on either side?
• Have workers expressed dissatisfaction with the privacy level afforded by their desks?
• Do employees work with paper or computer files that are considered confidential?

Of course, since these panels can be easily mounted and removed, you don’t necessarily have to make up your mind without trying both options. It’s just nice to have an idea up front so you can order the right quantity and sizes. If you change your mind, you can always buy more later.

No matter what people say about cubicles, one thing is true: They are comedy gold. Like all really funny stuff, cube humor works because it makes you feel like you are in on a joke with a bunch of other folks who really “get it”. Far from creating barriers, cubicle and their ubiquitous grey fabric partitions have actually brought white collar employees closer together. Office workers everywhere immediately identify with Dilbert – even if they don’t work in IT. That’s because the cubicle and the office culture it inspires have commonalities in every company. We recognize the bizarre and ironic realities of cube life because we’ve all got similar stories. Those who have never had the privilege of working in a cube simply don’t get it. They aren’t part of our little insular world.

Blogger Tells All

The Serene Scribe offered a hilarious peek inside the box at her blog. Her take down of fellow travelers in the cubicle maze is priceless. You’ll certainly recognize some of these characters (albeit under different names) from your own workplace.

• There’s the woman who thinks the phone only works long distance if she shouts into it
• There’s the guy who stinks up the microwave and the whole office with his fish and popcorn lunch
• There’s the coworker who blasts music (or sings, which is worse) with no regard for the tastes or tender ears of others

Rumor mongers, pot smokers, desk hogs, tacky decorators, and creepy stalkers all make an appearance. Keep in mind that the blogger only worked in a cube for a year. It just goes to show that it doesn’t take long to rack up some wacky stories when you work in such close proximity to your fellow humans. No wonder employees prefer higher cubicle walls. Some days, the weirdness is just too much to handle!