Tag : cubicle extenders

The corporate world has been steadily moving away from the office model and towards a more closely knit workforce for years now, and one thing we’ve learned is that cubicles CAN work – if done right. Panel extenders can be a large part of that “rightness”.

According to Forbes,

“…even a small distance impacts employee communication and collaboration.  Once employees are 200 feet away (or more) from each other, the chances of them talking to one another is virtually zero; you might as well have employees be hundreds of miles away. The point here isn’t to say that face-to-face communication is dead, because it isn’t, and we certainly don’t want to get rid of human contact (at least most of us).  Instead organizations need to implement more flexible work environments for employees to allow them to decide how they want to work.”

Panel extenders let you keep employees close to each-other while creating a privacy shield that gives each worker a sense of their own space. Most workers are happier and more productive if they have both the option to hunker down and blaze through a pile of work and the option to pop around the side of their cubicle for some human interaction.

For workers assembled into a team, who need constant interaction to be productive, lower cubicle walls provide the ability to make eye contact and speak to each-other without yelling. For workers who work solo, panel extenders can raise the height of their walls to create an area they can work uninterrupted in – without completely removing the possibility of human interaction during working hours.

Back to the Forbes article – the new generation of cubicle workers isn’t the same as the last generation.

“Millenialls are projected to be the majority of the U.S. workforce by 2020–just a few years away.  This is a generation that is used to being connected.  Millenialls grew up with social platforms such as Facebook , Twitter, and Google and they are comfortable sharing and engaging with people and information;  it’s a part of our daily life.  This is a generation that doesn’t know what it’s like to get 200 emails a day while sitting in a cubicle. Organizations need to adapt to this employee.”

Allowing employees some measure of freedom as well as the occasional telecommuting day, work out of the office day, and so on can make cubicles more appealing for when serious work needs to get done. Panel extenders can create spaces that aren’t shunned and which work well with the idea of flex space!

Office jokes are among some of the funniest out there, mainly because we’ve all been there. Here is one of our favorites:

“Two office workers are talking. The woman says, “I can make the boss give me the day off.” The man replies, “And how would you do that?” The woman says, “Just wait and see.” She then hangs upside down from the ceiling. The boss comes in and says, “What are you doing?” The woman replies, “I’m a light bulb.” The boss then says, “You’ve been working so much that you’ve gone crazy. I think you need to take the day off.” The man starts to follow her and the boss says, “Where are you going?” The man says, “I’m going home, too. I can’t work in the dark.”

Of course, a well run office doesn’t make employees look for any excuse to go home! Obex panel extenders can turn each workspace into a customized area for the designated employee, making them feel at home and comfortable. Think about ways you can make your office more appealing for your workers!

Oh, and share your funniest office joke in the comments.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Is your office a cacophony of racket, making it nearly impossible to get work done? Here are some ideas to help.

First, a cubicle extender could mean the world if your boss can be convinced it’s in his or her best interest to make the investment. You might do an informal poll among your office employees to see if they feel productivity would go up if they had a more private place to work in.

Cubicle privacy panels can be adjusted at different heights for each employee’s needs, and really enhance working conditions for those who work alone, while other desks can have shorter cubicle walls to allow collaboration between team members who need a more back and forth working environment.

While corporate is taking the idea of adding cubicle panel extenders to the budget, here are a few things you can do to limit distraction.

1. Wear earplugs. They can help down out repetitive annoying sounds, like the guy four rows over who keep clearing his throat, the printer coming on and shutting off, or the fax beeping incessantly.
2. Wear headphones. These are a boon if other people continually want to chat when you are trying to work. It’;s a social barrier as you are obviously listening to something and they would have to shout to get your attention.
3. Play soothing sounds. Even if your boss doesn’t allow a radio in your cubicle, you might be able to slip a sound machine in that produces a calming overlay on top of the office jangle. You can even find websites that can play soothing sounds like rainfall on low on your speakers.
4. Be firm about interruptions. Let co-workers know you have a heavy workload and you can’t get everything done if you take time out to gossip.
5. Ask for a desk in a quiet part of the office. Can’t hurt!

Don’t give up if you have trouble staying focused. Keep trying things until something works, and rally other employees to your cause. Your boss might be tempted to try something new if you show them stats on how better working conditions do increase quality performance and productivity!

Yeah… that’d be GREAT…

We’ve run down a lot of Friday pet peeves over the last couple of months. maybe we’ve missed one that you’ve been dying to tell us about. Does your cubicle neighbor jog a mile before work and then forget to shower before coming in? Does your boss not seem to understand that standing outside your cubicle with a cup of coffee for an hour keeps you from being productive instead of the other way round? What eats you up about cubicle life? We want to know what is the single thing that would most improve your workplace if changed.

While you are thinking, we’ll throw one out there. So many offices we see have cubicles that don’t really serve any purpose, with walls that are so low they don’t block any noise or provide any privacy. A cubicle wall extender would make a huge difference in keeping the peace in a busy, noisy office! (You wouldn’t jump every time the dude with a cold snorts through his nose, for one thing…)

Is your cubicle chair broken down and squeaky? Does it refuse to roll the way it once did? Does the back give way, suddenly, leaving you hurtling backwards to land on your back like a scene from Nine to Five? Or is it just uncomfortable?

Studies show that workers are happier when they have a good office chair to sit in. As a manager, requisitioning decent office chairs should be something you address regularly, to ensure that everyone can function at maximum productivity levels.
By standardizing chairs with a model that has a lot of adaptive function, you can bring joy to every cubicle. You can also use cubicle extenders to help customize each workspace without losing overall uniformity.

If you can find the balance between buying a custom office chair for everyone and half of your staff being miserable, you’ve done a good job! Listen to your cubicle workers and find a compromise that works for the majority.

You may like to think of your cubicle as your home away from home, but it’s really not. It’s more like being invited to your boss’ home. You have no expectation of privacy, unbuttoning the top button of your jeans after the Thanksgiving dinner is frowned on, and you can’t kick back and watch the big game.

You have to treat your cubicle like a workspace. Doesn’t mean you can’t be comfortable, but steer clear of these things if you can help it!

Don’t:

1. Do things you would do in a bathroom. Personal grooming should be a no. If you need to tweeze an eyebrow or nose hair, floss a tooth or clip a nail, take a break and do it elsewhere.
2. Cook at your desk. Food prep is out, too. If you bring your lunch to work unassembled, take it to the break room to put together. Your sandwich doesn’t need to be stacked on your desk as mustard and mayo fly willy nilly.
3. Go nuts with the decorating. Over the top decor should be reserved for your Aunt Genevieve’s parlor. Don’t stuff every available nook and cranny with photos, pictures, seasonal decorations and so on. It’s your cubicle, not a crafting room!
4. Expose toes in public. Stay clothed, please! Taking off a suit jacket is one thing, but when the shoes and socks come off you’ve gotten a little too comfortable.
5. Do your shopping at work … if you can help it. We know it’s the holidays, but obsessively clicking on the eBay button to see if your bid won is annoying.
6. Use your work computer to stalk your ex. Just because your computer IP won’t trace back to your home doesn’t mean authorities can’t find you. Let it go! (In fact, don’t stalk, period, should be the message here!)
7. Be a yapper. Stop chatterboxing. Not everyone wants to hear about the trip you took to Vegas for the ten zillionth time. Ask for cubicle height extenders to protect other employees from you if you can’t restrain yourself.
8. Bring everybody down. Sure, you have a right to your feelings, but stuff them down while in the workplace. You can meet one of your friends for a cry in your beer after work.

Keep it real, and keep it professional! Your cubicle should be an extension of your professional self.