Tag : desk-mounted privacy panels

Are you in a situation where purchasing new furniture just isn’t an option? Perhaps you’re working from a temporary space and don’t want to make a final decision about furniture until you have a more permanent office location. Or, maybe you simply prefer the full service nature of leasing a furnished space. Your choices may be somewhat limited when it comes to leasing cubicles and workstations depending on how many pieces you need and what your leasing company has in stock. There’s no telling if you’ll get to specify every component as you would if you purchased new. Fortunately, you can still make modifications to create the kind of workspace your employees need.

Improve Your Leased Workstations

Here are a few ways you can use OBEX products to help leased office furniture meet your needs:

• Make all cubicle walls higher in areas where many employees will be talking on the phone
• Increase the height of select cubicle panels in high traffic locations
• Divide facing worksurfaces so employees don’t have to stare across at each other all day
• Turn long benching surfaces or conference tables into multiple work areas for hot desking or training
• Add your branding and colors to the leased work space with customized panels

Will It Hurt When It’s All Over?

One of the best things about our panel extenders and desk-mounted privacy panels is that they are easy to install and remove. All you need is the Allen wrench that comes with the panels. The universal brackets shouldn’t leave any marks on cubicle frames or desk surfaces. When you are ready to return your leased furniture to the dealer, you can take the privacy panels and extenders off and reuse them with whatever office furniture you end up buying. The estimated time required for setup or take down is less than 5 minutes per workstation.

One of the coolest things about the new OBEX desk-mounted privacy panel is the customization option. Yes, you can pick the design you want on your custom printed tiles (as long as it’s not copyrighted by someone else). Here are just a few of the themes you could feature:

• Department names for ease of navigation through a large workplace
• Company logo for branding purposes
• “Employee of the Month” panel (remember, these dividers are easy to move from one desk to another)
• Scenes from nature (trees, dew kissed grass blades, sunrises, flowers, mountains, etc.)
• Motivational sayings from your favorite authors or inspirational speakers
• Your company’s mission statement

Have you heard of the concept of the super-cubicle? The term describes the size of the cubicle pretty accurately. But it’s not like the Seinfeld “Pothole” episode where Kramer paints over the dividing lines on the highway to create super wide lanes for a more luxurious driving experience. Instead of being a great big cubicle for one employee, it’s a group cubicle that encloses several workers (3 or more) in a single workspace. There are walls surrounding these workstations, but no dividers between the employees inside the super-cubicle. The idea is to create a tightknit team within these close quarters and, of course, promote the ever popular but somehow evasive “collaboration” that everyone’s excited about these days. The manager actually inhabits the super-cubicle with his or her direct reports to offer guidance (and keep everyone from slacking off).

No One Seems Thrilled with This Idea

As you can imagine, this concept is not terribly popular with the average office worker who is often no big fan of the traditional cubicle to start with. Rob Enderle points out one obvious flaw: if collaboration is going strong in the super-cubicle, it’s likely to get loud. It makes more sense to move that kind of brainstorming meeting to a conference room. After all, that’s what meeting rooms (with their closable doors) are designed for.

Ken Hardin, who came up through the ranks working and thriving in a very noisy, completely open newsroom environment holds a kinder view of the super-cubicles at his workplace. But he admits that he’s biased. So, he conducted an informal survey of how his colleagues feel about the setup. These were a few of the things they said they would prefer:

• More privacy (both visual and auditory)
• More choices for styles and colors in at least some aspect of individual workstations
• More flexibility in how the workstation is set up

With our panel extenders or our new desktop-mounted privacy panels, it’s possible to transform a super-cubicle to meet all these criteria. The desk mounted panels can be installed front to back to separate individual coworkers within the super cube – even if they share the same uninterrupted worksurface. Our polycarbonate panels come in a variety of bright colors, so workers could pick what they like best. The acoustic fabric covered panels can also provide a buffer against too much noise within the shared cubicle environment.

That’s the argument made by software developer Stephen Harrison. His take on the whole open office with no walls or privacy is this: Have the managers work out in the open and put the knowledge workers in enclosed workspaces. After all, the managers are the ones who really need to be in the thick of things since managing people is their job. The job of software developers is managing code. Imagine how difficult it is to create non-buggy code when you can barely concentrate! Stephen’s tried the “listen to music on headphones” solution and it didn’t work. He’s a bigger fan of the ChatterBlocker to help mask noise while he’s at his desk. We think he’d also enjoy our new desk-mounted privacy panels. They can be used to provide additional noise control in the ultra-modern, no-cubicle offices that so many tech companies are setting up these days.

The new OBEX desk-mounted privacy panel has applications beyond the traditional workstation. These dividers can be installed front to back at regular intervals along a long table or bench style worksurface. That makes them ideal for testing environments. You can easily turn a built-in, standalone, or flip-top table into a testing station to host 3 or 4 job applicants at a time. Administer typing or data entry tests, ERI, Wonderlic, and other job candidate tests in these “pods” anytime. You can also set these up for use during new hire orientation and web-based onboarding.

The panels are tall enough to provide visual privacy even in close quarters. They can be covered with acoustic fabric to dampen sound for added concentration. What makes this setup even more beneficial is that you don’t have to leave the panels up when you’re done. Removal is just as easy as installation. This means you can use both your office furniture and your office space for multiple purposes. Desk-top privacy panels take up little space in storage and are ready and waiting when you need them again.

Keep Private Info Private

It’s not just employee training or applicant testing that could be enhanced by these panels. Think about this the next time you do open enrollment for workplace health insurance. Workers won’t have to worry about anyone seeing their personal identifying information such as SS#s and birth dates as they fill out forms. This approach may also help you keep employee’s private health data and other privileged information from accidental exposure. That’s important since more than 50% of identity theft cases have their source in the workplace.

School Is In

Workplaces are only one example of an environment where desk-top mounted panels will come in handy. Educational organizations will also find these dividers helpful for creating study and testing areas for students. Can you think of other applications for our new product? Let us know – we’re eager to learn!

By popular demand, we’re preparing to launch a new product that’s the perfect complement to our panel extenders. The OBEX Desk Mount Privacy Panel is designed for use with any flat worksurface. Mount these panels on a desk, table, or workbench. These desk dividers are available in all of the same fabrics and polycarbonate options as our cubicle dividers. You can also order them with custom tiles.

Why Desk Panels Now?

As you’re probably aware, the cubicle is a type of office furniture that’s gotten a really bad rap over the years. A significant percentage of companies are moving away from panel based systems altogether. That’s not surprising with today’s emphasis on “collaboration” as a top priority in the workplace. This means that a lot of office designs are now fully open with no panels at all. Benching worksurfaces and other space-saving solutions are making inroads as alternatives to the cube.

Many architects, commercial interior design consultants, and facility managers see the value in these more open environments. However, the reality of actually working in this type of setup doesn’t always meet the needs and expectations of employees. But when you’ve invested tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in workstations that aren’t equipped with panels, it’s hard to consider switching to cubicles. Even adding freestanding panels would be a very costly process. Fortunately, it’s not necessary to start from scratch to give desks a makeover to add noise control and visual privacy.

Meet the Universal Desk Mounted Privacy Panel

Our customers have been asking for a desk-mounted divider for a while now. So, after half a year of designing and testing, we’re giving business owners exactly what they want. These privacy panels can be mounted front-to-back or side-to-side on virtually any flat worksurface from .75” to 2” thick. The panels are available in 12, 18, and 24” heights to provide just the desired amount of privacy. Like our cubicle extenders, these dividers mount in minutes with just an Allen wrench (provided with your order). Now, it’s easy to blend the collaborative environment of the modern office with the secluded spaces needed for work that requires more concentration.