Category : privacy screens

Ready for another great office joke? TGIF!

“The company where I work provides four-foot-high cubicles so each employee can have some privacy.

One day a co-worker had an exasperating phone conversation with one of her teenage sons.

After hanging up, she heaved a sigh and said, “No one ever listens to me.”

Immediately, several voices from surrounding cubicles called out, “Yes, we do!””

Do you co-work? This late to rise 21st century phenom of the temporary workspace is called by urban studies theorists the “fourth place”  for today’s workers. Such locations often serve workers who for whatever reason are not fully supported in the familiar spaces of the traditional office, work from home ? telecommuting gig or casual  “coffee shop” environment.

“Some even prefer to work around other people,” said Sande Golgart, western regional vice president with flexible workspace provider Regus. “They find it inspiring, they find it more cost effective and they find that they’re able to be very productive in that environment because of technology.” Golgart goes on to stress the flexibility of co-working space, with an emphasis on how good they can be for mobile workers who occasionally need a quiet space to reboot, catch up on items and take advantage of a recharging station.

Co-workers have a keen need for both socialization and privacy. They often aren’t part of a close knit team, where constant interaction is a must – rather, they are lone wolves who nonetheless want to co-exist in a pack setting.   Coworking space is often looked upon as the ideal answer for those who need a bit of “buzz” to be motivated and inspired, but who don’t necessarily thrive on constant direct contact with other personnel

However, simply adding “noise” to the equation isn’t what is looked for – not at all. In fact, co-workers normally cite excessive background noise and chatter as one of the two top annoyances at work! While solutions such as acoustic ceiling tile and wall coverings can provide a level of noise control, desk-mounted panels add another layer of protection  – and solve the second complaint, that of privacy issues.

Polycarbonate privacy panels work perfectly to provide both noise reduction and a feeling of personal space in co-working environments. They can be added to the layout at any time, from the conceptual stage by an architect, upon leasing a space by a facilities or floor manager, or as a redesign by an interior designer or efficiency expert seeking to streamline your office.

Could privacy panels be the answer for your co-working office space?

It’s Friday again, and that means it’s time to talk about workstation privacy.

When workspace is shared, how do you keep your private life private? Do you simply refrain from having items like personal photos of family vacations displayed? Do you lose the freedom to express your individuality? Or do you find yourself in a battle for dominance with a co-worker whose personality spills over and stamps the rest of the office?

Managers, how do you deal with disputes over decorating workstations? Is it anything goes, or work related stuff only? Have you discussed with your onsite employees how their workstations could be made more inviting? You can use a variety of tools, including panel extenders and privacy screens, to divide areas in the office and create a unique user-space for each employee.

Have you ever had an unhappy incident at work that hinged on your personal life being ion display at your workstation? Tell us about it in the comments.

It’s Friday, which means we are open for discussion once again on the topic of workstation privacy. Today, let’s talk about the infamous at work personal phone call.

Short of banning personal phones from the workplace (difficult when so many employees use their phones for work AND play), keeping a lid on the abuse of workplace phone privileges can be tough. In the cubicle environment, it can be even harder to maintain professionalism and privacy, even with cubicle wall extenders and privacy screens.

Allowing a quiet space for workers to make personal calls (a cubicle with extra privacy panels set up in the corner away from the main grouping) can help. It makes it fairly obvious to the manager who is spending too much time on non-work-related phone calls, but gives workers better privacy when they do have to deal with sensitive situations while at work.

Have you ever had an issue with a co-worker intruding into your life as the result of an overheard phone call? Tell us about it!

Our new feature on the OBEX cubicle panel extender blog is the “Friday Fan Club”. Each week, we’ll post a tidbit from around the web about how to increase privacy in your cubicle. These tips will range from silly to sensible and everything in between. We want to start this series off with a bang, so click on over to I Am Bored to see one innovative way to screen yourself off from the rest of your coworkers.

Does hanging cardboard saloon doors in front of your cube let everyone know you’re a straight shooter? Or do they think you’re secretly hiding in your cubicle doing shots? Would an opera stage curtain be more appropriate and dramatic? Would your boss like it better if you created a movable wall with a lovely mural on it painted in dry erase markers? What would you use to craft your own makeshift cubicle doors? Let us know in the comments.

In April, Knoll introduced a new set of office furniture by OMA. The collection debuted in Milan, Italy, and features the provocative designs of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. This assortment of office “Tools for Life” features items that support both work and socialization. The underlying ethos of the project is unpredictable functionality. The pieces have obvious purpose yet can also be configured in unexpected ways to deliver surprising results. It’s the interface between people and object that makes the furniture come alive – like kinetic sculpture.

Spinnable Stack

The 04 Counter is an example of this animated furniture style. It starts as a solid stack of three horizontal beams. With a few quick movements, the stack can be twisted and separated to turn this monolithic wall into a space divider with all manner of angles. Each piece can rotate smoothly through 360 degrees to create a communal architecture for people to sit on, lean against, or gather around. We imagine the exposed beam surfaces would make a great place to set a file folder or a cup of coffee – until someone moves the beams again and knocks everything to the floor!

Sleek Styling

Additional items in the collection include height adjustable work/meeting tables, stacked swiveling coffee tables, bench and work/lounge seating. The materials featured throughout the set are simple yet diverse, ranging from natural elements like wood, leather and travertine to more sterile substances such as acrylic, aluminum and even concrete. You won’t find a lot of vibrant color (other than red) or 100 textile options, but the collection makes up for not being totally fashionable by being very capable. It’s all designed for a fairly mobile workforce that flits from spot to spot depending on the task at hand.

Sweet Silence

Naturally, there’s also an “ancillary” tool that serves as a privacy and acoustic screen. Here’s the product description: “A base of clear acrylic supports panels of foamed aluminum, travertine or wood grain laminate that can be cantilevered off-center.” No office toolbox is complete without some way to cut down on distractions and increase productivity.  These are floor-based models, so if you want something that’s desk-mounted, you can check out our OBEX privacy panels. The aluminum and clear polycarbonate would be a seamless match for the OMA collection.

Are you an office furniture or office supply dealer? Have you considered adding panel extenders and desk-mounted privacy panels to your catalogue? Here are the top 4 reasons to contact your regional distributor today and become an OBEX dealer:

Everyone Can Use Our Products

Whether your customers have traditional cubicles or a benching system with no panels at all, we have a solution that will suit their workplace. Our universal mounting brackets fit all standard panel widths and desk thicknesses. The range of sizes and materials gives them plenty of choices for an off-the-shelf solution that we can get to them with a short delivery time of just three weeks.

Businesses Know They Need Privacy Panels

There’s a wealth of information available about how distractions, noise, and lack of privacy reduce productivity. The move toward low or no cubicle walls and a completely open office has started to look like less than a brilliant idea. Employers know they need to do something about this problem. If you ask any of your customers if their employees would appreciate a work environment that increases focus and reduces stress, what do you think they will say?

We Make It Easy For You to Say “Yes!”

Does your client want custom sizes? We can do that. How about custom fabrics or paints? We can do that. Maybe the client would like some graphics that create a vibrant work environment or highlight their corporate brand? We do that too. Because we have the facilities and equipment right here to make each OBEX panel, we can help you say ‘yes’ to almost any customer request.

You Get More Satisfied Customers

If you need just a little more incentive to start offering our products, here’s a typical response we get for our products:

“I would like to take a moment to thank the staff of OBEX and let you know what a great product the OBEX panel extenders are. We are very pleased with the product and with the customer focus we received from OBEX. The entire process of order to installation was seamless. The OBEX panel extenders are versatile and extremely cost effective and will be used for a multitude of applications in our work environment. I would highly recommend this product to anyone that needs a quick and affordable means of adding privacy, sound reduction or even aesthetics to existing panel systems furniture without the hassle of having to purchase and install new panels. Thanks again OBEX!” Howard O’Kelly – LPL Financial, AVP Real Estate & Facilities

When you become an OBEX dealer, these satisfied clients could be yours…

Last week, we looked at some sofa-style lounge offerings that incorporate privacy panels. But the Coalesse collection takes things even further with the new “Work-Lounge” that can be equipped with a felt canopy. This design looks like something you might see in a beauty salon. Only, instead of drying and setting your hair, the giant cone over your head works to block out noise and other distractions. You can see a 2 minute animated video showing all the cool features of this chair right here.

Users can sit back, relax, and pull the canopy down to give them privacy even in a noisy, open workspace. There’s a light inside the felt dome to provide enough illumination to work by. It also features a bracket to hold mobile devices for hands-free conferencing. When it’s time to rejoin the “meat world” and collaborate in person, the canopy can be pushed back out of the way. Although this revolutionary concept made quite a splash at NeoCon 2013, it won’t be available for purchase through Steelcase’s Coalesse division until 2014.

One Chair, Many Options

The design is by Jean-Marie Moussad who envisions the chair bridging the gap between work and life, comfort and industry, privacy and teamwork. The lounge chair can be used alone for relaxation. However, it turns into a comfortable workstation with the addition of a height adjustable swivel table affixed to one arm. This small worksurface can be brought in close to support a relaxed work posture (much like the flexibility provided by the Gesture task chair). A storage ottoman completes the set by offering a space to store documents or devices and providing a place to prop up your feet.

The swivel base of the chair has auto-return for ease of movement, the headrest has a removable pillow insert for ergonomic customization, and the base has a cord pass-through to charge devices. All in all, this piece of lounge furniture appears to be a one-stop experience for work and play. If you pull the canopy down and turn off the light, you could probably even catch a few z’s there too.

Did you know that a desk mounted panel can be installed in more than one way? If you want more private space for your face, the panel goes on top of your desk. However, you could also install it upside down on one of the many benching workstations that are so popular these days. This way, it can serve as a “modesty panel” to give workers more privacy below their worksurface. This is a good way to conceal cabling or cords that hang down. It could also help divide under-desk floor space for employees who sit directly across from each other. That’s helpful if workers use this area for impromptu storage.

Tips for this type of installation:

• Pick the right product. The edge-mounted desktop privacy panel is the one to choose for installation on a flat surface.
• The translucent polycarbonate tiles are a subtle and unobtrusive material option for this type of installation. They go with any color scheme.
• Choose a 12” panel height for a basic modesty panel. Go with a 24” panel if you want to partially shield components placed under the desk from view and reduce the appearance of clutter.
• Measure and double-check the underside of the worksurface to ensure the legs and other features won’t get in the way of the universal brackets. The brackets can be installed at any point along the length of the panel, so be aware that there’s a lot of flexibility. They also aren’t very deep (just the right length to hold the panel firmly in place). But a lip that sticks down on the underside of the tabletop an inch or two from the edge could interfere with installation in the standard or upside down position.
• Realize that the brackets will stick up a little bit on the edge of the desk if they are installed upside down. Use strategically placed objects on the worksurface to distract from the brackets. An inbox, a picture frame, or a small potted plant will do just fine. Or, some employees might want to put tiny Lego action figures atop the brackets – you never know!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve taken a look at several types of space dividers that were featured at NeoCon 2013. There are also a couple of award winning designs in the seating categories that incorporate privacy screens. It seems that the office environment (and the individual workstation) isn’t the only place where more privacy is desirable.

Even in reception and casual gathering areas, people are drawn to furniture that makes them feel more secluded. In these spaces, there isn’t necessarily a table, desk or bench to hold a privacy screen. A full-height mobile divider might seem like too much separation. So, office furniture manufacturers are mounting panels and screens on the back of lounge and bench seating. Steelcase is leading the way in this area with two designs that won gold at NeoCon.

Holding Privacy in High Regard

The Regard lounge seating from the Nurture collection is designed for use in healthcare settings. This is where patients may be sitting full of the jitters in anticipation of their turn in the doctor’s office. Or, family members may spend time here waiting anxiously for good or bad news. This isn’t necessarily a time or place where people want to chat with others. So, the Regard sofas can be equipped with dividers to give visitors some personal space.

Little Lakes of Privacy

The “Lagunitas” in Steelcase’s Coalesse collection is a new kind of workspace. Much like the “Gesture” chair, this seating is intended to support the way the younger generation likes to work. These benches provide a place for employees to lounge as they operate a tablet or other mobile device. The pillows on each bench can be configured for alert or relaxed work postures. The benches can be grouped together to create a collaboration area. Or, they can be spread further apart and equipped with privacy screens for solitary enclaves that provide solitude for concentration.

What other non-traditional ways can you think of to mix office furniture with privacy screens? Let us know your ideas in the comments.