Category : workplace privacy

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?

Sometimes, the mechanics of workstation privacy aren’t as important as the social aspects. That’s the point Chris at the LockerGnome makes in his response to a question about cubicle etiquette. Loretta asks what she can do (other than screaming at or killing her coworkers) to gain some respect for her personal space at work. When everyone works together to create a polite and considerate atmosphere, even thin or low cubicle walls can be bearable. The basics are simple. Don’t barge in to someone else’s cube, keep your voice down, stay tidy, avoid smelly foods.

What Chris doesn’t address is how to help your coworkers follow these guidelines. Setting an example is a good start. But you may also find it necessary to have a few awkward but frank discussions with top offenders as well. Yes, that’s one key to workstation privacy. Simply say, “Hey, Fred. I like to make sure I keep in touch with my coworkers. But I’ve been having trouble staying focused on work lately when people drop by my cubicle to talk. Maybe we can catch up around the water cooler instead?”

How do you set good boundaries or teach coworkers good manners? Let us know in the comments.

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.

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…

According to a “Science Tech” article on the DailyMail site, there are two major threats to productivity in the workplace:

• Open plan offices
• Uniformity in workstations

The article cites a number of studies demonstrating the effect of constant interruptions, high noise levels, and lack of privacy endemic in open offices. We’ve covered a lot of these studies before, but it never hurts to get a refresher course. A neuroscientist who helped conduct one study that actually measured a subject’s brainwaves in an open plan office said employees may not realize the disruption to their thought processes. “Even though you are not aware at the time, the brain responds to distractions.” He believes that these open offices don’t actually improve either creativity or problem solving. Having 50 people in a room doesn’t increase the available brain power if no one is actually able to think.

A psychologist interviewed for the same article revealed another finding from the study. Employee productivity goes up by 15% when workers are allowed to decorate their space with their own belongings. Instead of being a distraction, these familiar objects actually make workers feel more relaxed and focused. So, giving employees the option to have private workspaces with more personalization could really pay off.

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.

At consumerprivacy.us, there’s a good blog post that tracks privacy concerns from the early days of office computer work through today. It points out that the 3M study we posted about a few months ago isn’t telling us something new. Employers have always been concerned about leakage of sensitive information and office workers have always been less productive when they feel too closely observed. According to the consumer privacy blog article, “As early as 1987, a US government report found that monitoring the quantity or speed of work contributes to stress and stress-related illness.” It’s just a fact that if part of your brain is worrying about being watched, you have less attention to devote to the task at hand.

Is Protecting the Computer Screen Enough?

Not really. The blogger recommends doing more than adding a privacy screen to the computer monitor. There need to be areas even within the workplace that boost the sense of personal privacy while muting sounds. Here’s his proposed solution: “You can create the same environment by creating small, closed offices with doors that have a work counter and sound-absorbing, acoustical wall surfaces that can be used for heads down work or sensitive phone calls.” On the surface, that sounds like a good idea.

Sadly, this would probably lead to some groups hogging these little private offices all the time. Introverts might crave this refuge from the noise of the open office. Or, corporate climbers might think staking claim to even a tiny, temporary office is a way to increase their prestige. Simply having a door that will close has replaced the corner office as the marker of rank in many workplaces. Scheduling time slots for this space would probably start some really vicious interdepartmental wars.

What Other Alternatives Are Available?

There are many “pods” and “touchdown” stations being promoted by office furniture manufacturers these days that avoid this issue. They offer a space enclosed on three sides, but no door. That way, there’s a certain amount of privacy, but not the ability to completely shut oneself away from the rest of the workforce from nine to five. A less expensive and more egalitarian option would be to make desk mounted privacy panels available to all employees who want them. That way, they can choose their own level of privacy instead of vying for a turn in the pod.

It’s time to look at another entry in the Best of NeoCon 2013 competition hosted by Contract Magazine. This entry is from Peter Pepper Products, a company that’s well known for its trendy and eye-catching office furniture accessories.

From the Ski Slope to the Workplace

For this year’s NeoCon, the firm is entering the Slalom EcoFlex Partition System into the competition. It appears that PPP is the US distributor for the product. This particular piece is by designer Elettra de Pellegrin from Italy. The Slalom is named after the type of ski trail with poles placed close together for skiers to navigate between. In the same way, this flexible panel can weave its way between workplace obstacles to divide spaces in many different ways. Dividers can be connected in an intersecting fashion, in curves, or at right angles. The panels are modular (you can connect up to four in a row).

We see this product being useful as a temporary way to create collaborative environments in the open office or to make touch-down areas for mobile workers. They could also be used to manage the flow of traffic or keep noise levels under control in busy areas. You could even construct a maze!

Here’s What We Like About the Slalom EcoFlex Partitions

• They come in several heights to create a variable landscape
• They are available in many different colors to add visual interest to the office environment
• The surface can be customized with graphics for branding purposes
• The panels are finished with fire retardant, eco-friendly fabrics to comply with workplace safety and sustainability programs
• They boast a sound absorbent core to provide acoustic control (absorbency decreases the “leaking” of sound from one space to another)
• The products are recyclable at the end of their lifespan

Come to think of it, the things we like about these full-height freestanding panels are the same things we like about our OBEX panel extenders and desktop dividers. Maybe we should make a curvy desk divider next. What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments.

On this blog, we’ve written a lot about how to deal with noisy coworkers. But dealing with nosy coworkers can be even more challenging. We found one tale of nosiness posted on Yahoo Answers that made us shake our heads. The questioner asked what to do about her mom’s coworker who is always in her business. This coworker crossed the line way past giving unsolicited advice in some pretty disturbing ways. However, most of us just deal with the occasional coworker who apparently just doesn’t have enough going on in their own life.

The answer posted includes some very good tips for dealing with a run-of-the-mill busybody. Here’s an excerpt: “Sometimes a nice way to begin the confrontation process is to just thank the person for being a caring person. If their goal is to feel like a caring person, and you satisfy that, they may not feel the need to be so nosy. If it increases the nosiness, a specific thank you for their advice/observation can be given, so they know that the specific advice they gave “got through.” Then they might feel like their obligation to get their point across has been satisfied.”

How do you deal with nosy coworkers? Is the answer none of our business? Let us know in the comments.

Contract Magazine now has the lineup for this year’s Best of NeoCon (BON) competition live online! As always, it is chock full of brilliant ideas and beautiful designs. We’re paying particular attention to the architectural products category because this is where we get to see products that complement our own. This year, there are quite a few privacy screens of various shapes, dimensions, and materials. It appears that contract furniture designers and manufacturers are coming to the realization that enclosure, noise control and privacy will be key characteristics of the evolving open office space. We’ll be taking a look at one NeoCon showcase product per week for the next month and giving you our opinion.

Get In the Zone with KI Privacy Screens

First up are the Connection Zone Screens™ from KI. These freestanding panels have a writable surface, making them function as a giant white board. However, a traditional white board on a movable stand or tripod easel doesn’t serve to really create any privacy for a quick meeting in an open plan office. In contrast, KI says their screens are “mobile marker boards for information capture and impromptu space division”. It’s their attempt to bring actual, practical collaboration to the open office by making it temporarily cozier for small groups.

Here’s What We Like About the Connection Zone Screens

• They are quite tall to offer more than just token visual privacy for dynamic teaming
• They are wider at the base than the top to resist tipping
• The color will reflect light and keep the workspace from feeling dark or closed in
• They feature casters so they can be wheeled from place to place
• Multiple screens could be used to divide up even large spaces
• They have a narrow profile that doesn’t take up too much space
• It looks like you can store materials such as markers and erasers inside the base
• The white hue and curved shape make them look like sails on a ship (very romantic!)

If you get a chance to see these in person at NeoCon, try them out and let us know what you think.