Monthly Archives : December 2013

Is your office plan open, chaotic, unproductive and maddening? The hoped for camaraderie of your employees just never materialized and everyone seems disgruntled, harried and tired. Phones are ringing all over the place, you can see workers arched uncomfortably away from the person seated next to them, plugging the ear not glued to the phone with a finger and trying to hear their client over the in-office noise.

It’s enough to make one long for the days of the closed office, but we all know those days are gone – square footage is at too much of a premium, and there’s no way the rank and file will be qualifying for four walls and a window anytime soon. Of course, the alternative – a regimented cubicle world – is almost as maddening – but what if a compromise could be reached? Cubicle height extenders could allow some leeway and prevent workers from being either too exposed or too isolated.

Studies show that excess noise can actually undermine motivation; one study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology disclosed that 40 female clerical workers  subjected to three hours of “low-intensity noise” were compared to a control group experienced three hours of quiet. Both groups were then given puzzles to solve – puzzles with no solution. The first group gave up quickly in frustration, while the second group stayed on task for much longer, trying new things and battling to complete the (unbeknownst to them) hopeless task.

If noise is one of the most disruptive factors, another is lack of privacy, When your workspace is continually encroached upon by chatty neighbors, food, and people walking around, it’s hard to stay focused. Wearing earbuds can block out sounds as well as serve as a sign that you don’t want to be disturbed, but it won’t stop people from frantically waving at in a co-worker’s sight line to share the latest gossip or gripe about the vending machine offerings.

Cubicles can provide a quieter, more private area, without devolving to feeling like employees are caged. Panel extenders can adapt low height cubicles to the appropriate height for each employee – those who need to collaborate can be grouped in relatively low cubicle height wall areas, while those who need more privacy and quiet can be given slots with higher cubicle walls and the corresponding amount of solitude.

OK, folks – it’s our last holiday pet peeve of the year. Since it’s almost that special day, let’s talk about New Year’s Eve parties for a minute. We all know about the drinking, the desperate pairing up to watch the ball drop, and so on – but what about the company mandated New Year’s resolutions?

We’re not joking – some companies are mandating wellness checks with monetary penalties or incentives for how healthy they think you are. Blood tests, waist measurements, weigh ins and so on are just the start – what if your boss decides a “pedometer” contest is the next “fun” thing to do and people get embarrassed when they don’t rack up the required steps – whether due to job parameters, health conditions or otherwise?

This article talks about the new age of information and your health in the workplace – read it and tell us what you think. Should your employer be able to set your New Year’s resolution? Or is it a gross invasion of privacy?

About 40 million working North Americans work in cubicles. Some like it, some don’t – and the correlation between those who feel positive about their workplace and those who don’t is directly related to how their workplace is managed, more than it is the mere fact of being a cubicle worker.

The modern-day cubicle has been formally denounced by the man who actually came up with the idea – Robert Propst. Cubicles were put forth by Propst in 1968 as a way to increase office productivity by providing personal work-spaces with plenty of shelving and increased work-surface areas. He hoped that this would help out office drones who were having difficulty with more open work-spaces that gave little storage or utility space and were so open distractions were common.

With cubicles, he felt, employees would have more room to work; partitions could be used to pin up projects and to provide the privacy that the earlier open offices lacked. Surprise – the original plan also called for adjustable desk levels, similar to today’s “newfangled fad”, with the idea that workers could benefit from the chance to spend some time standing up.

Overall, cubicles were supposed to be beneficial to the worker. After all, health can be largely dependent on your environmental comfort, which is determined by whether your immediate space meets basic physical, functional and psychological needs. A well appointed cubicle with panel extenders of appropriate height would give each employee space and privacy to work, without completely cutting them off form their fellows.

Sadly, economics completely screwed up Propst’s dream. Office space costs climbed, and instead of being focused on worker benefits, cubicles were used to maximize real estate. They became tiny and cramped, and designed to cram a lot of people into a limited area. Instead of being the flexible units that Propst intended them to be, cubicles became rows of cages, and the term “death by cubicle” emerged. TV shows, comic strips and movies made sharp commentary about cubicle life, pointing out that people were being trapped in boxes while being encouraged to think outside them.  Productivity fell, as did worker health, satisfaction, and stability.

But death by cubicle doesn’t have to be a thing. Cubicle panel extenders and a larger footprint can make cubicles worker friendly again!

It’s Friday, and let’s talk about one of the most annoying things in the office around the holidays. No, it’s not the canned music that seems to start up in early November, or the cubicle decorations that get out of control – it’s the office sweater party. Amarite?

Every cubicle worker knows about the ugly sweater party. It’s a horrible perversion of the traditional Christmas Party, the one for which everyone could dress up nice and get tipsy and maybe a little office romance would finally spark.

Of course, maybe that’s the point. No-one is getting it on with someone wearing one of the ugly Christmas sweaters…. I mean, have you seen these things? It’s like an elf threw up on your grandma’s nightgown.

What’s your holiday pet peeve? Tell us about it. we know you’ve got one. Maybe it’s something that bugs you a little all year round, but Christmas just takes it to Defcon 4 status. Talk to us!

Higher cubicle walls or cubicle height extenders may well be a mandate instead of an option in certain situations. While many offices have shifted to an open office layout, cubicles are still the mode of choice for quite a few industries, and amongst these are several with ties to medicine.

HIPPA constraints changed the way medical companies, providers, vendors and more conduct their offices. The need for privacy under ethical grounds meant that the shift towards open office design had to be scaled down, as records went digital and computers took over.

Today, a space being repurposed for use in the medical industry – such as billing or coding companies involved with medical insurance and so on – needs some modicum of security and privacy to ensure patient’s rights are not being compromised.

Cubicle height extenders can help. They provide a barrier of sorts that requires more effort to circumvent, prevent passersby from seeing monitor screens or paperwork on the desk, and also keep telephone conversations from being as public – especially if sound absorbing material is used in the cubicles.

In addition to the positives for keeping patient information confidential, cubicle height extenders can improve employee relations by keeping chatterboxes from ruining the workdays of the more focused.

There’s another advantage to cubicle height extenders. Undesirable employee behaviors that appear to spread in open office environments can be quelled in cubicle areas by raising the height of the walls, creating less opportunities for the bad apples to spoil the rest of the bunch. Gossip is harder when you have to get up and go round a corner and approach someone from behind to share it.

You don’t have lose visual and auditory channels, however – the great thing about cubicle height extenders is that they can be used judiciously, allowing you to fashion partitions that allow collaboration where appropriate and privacy when needed.

Consider how cubicle height extenders could benefit your office workers by giving them privacy and space when dealing with sensitive subjects and material, and allowing more freedom when indicated for those who need a more open layout to function well.

It’s time for another Friday Chat – and our theme this month is holiday pet peeves at the office – specifically, the holiday office party and gift exchange.

A lot of offices have “mandated” attendance at various holiday office parties and gift exchanges. They can’t exactly demand you show up, but there’s certainly a lot of pressure. What happens when you decline to participate? Do you get shunned by co-workers? Put in your boss’ bad graces? What about the holiday office events makes you nuts?

We’ve noticed several posts lately about ridiculous demands made on lower level employees, requiring them to bring a fancy food item, a secret Santa gift with a minimum value price tag, and so on. Don’t even get us started on assigned times to show up at the holiday office party, or restrictions on certain foods and beverages!

Then again, some offices ban displays of holiday cheer completely. How does your office deal with the holidays? Are you overextended trying to keep up, overwhelmed with the continual chaos, or unperturbed?

Advocates of open office plans say high cubicle walls restrict workplace socialization. As a result, many office managers don’t like to see walls that come up higher than a seated employees eyebrows, on the premise that workers who can’t see and hear the person near them feel isolated and alienated. However, that’s not the case at all for many workers, who find that they simply can’t concentrate without a place of their own.

Could it be that higher cubicle panels actually improve connection and communication in the workplace, rather than preventing friendly and amiable interaction at work? When surveying groups of office workers, it turns out that the pet peeve of many is constant interruptions when they are trying to finish a task before deadline or day’s end – or worse. Interruptions is actually often used as a polite term for unwanted socialization, with the workers who want to do the job and go home resenting those who treat the office like a ninth grade school hallway.

Cubicle height extenders can help alleviate some of the aggravation, by making it just a little harder to invade someone else’s space. When a co-worker has to literally walk into the other person’s private workspace in order to speak to them, generally having to get their attention from behind their back, the amount of unnecessary interruptions goes way down. In contrast, when someone can simply stand up and holler at a coworker on either side or across from them, the temptation to gossip, chat and socialize when not appropriate is encouraged.

Even the simple act of rolling a chair around the corner to talk to another cube worker has the potential to make employees more mindful. It’s kind of like having candy stored on the top shelf in the pantry instead of in a candy dish at your desk. You appreciate it more (and are less likely to overindulge) when the candy is not staring you right in the face all day.

With low cubicles installed as the standard and panel extenders used to customize work-spaces, all employees can have the level of privacy and comfort  they need to be happy and productive.

It’s the holidays, and the Kristmas Muzak is in full swing. Piped into every cubicle thanks to over-zealous office managers, the noise isn’t even the worst of it – it’s the petrifying boredom and annoyance that sets in around December 1 after it’s already been playing for three weeks.

Does your office have an alternative to cheesy generic Christmas pop? Are you allowed to wear noise cancelling headphones? Better yet, do you have a cool weekend manager who turns on Mannheim Steamroller or Transiberian Orchestra and encourages everyone to rock out for a while?

Let us know your thoughts on overall office music, especially around the holidays. Should your workplace be booming with so-called “good cheer” or should mandated auditory enhancements be kept to a minimum?

Tell us what your favorite (or least favorite) Christmas song is, while you’re at it – and why. We really, really want to know.