How to Find Privacy in an Open Plan Office

Open plan offices were always encouraged as a good way to communicate with people that you work with. It is supposed to ensure collaboration between teams and it is supposed to make people feel really good when they’re working together and feel like they’re getting things done. The problem with an open plan office design and no other alternative is that there is no privacy. 

It’s more important now than ever to make sure that physical distancing is happening in an office environment, because while the lockdowns may be over COVID definitely isn’t. There are plenty of ways however, that you can make sure that people in your office feel like they have some privacy, from telling them to clear Google search history at the end of each day to putting up temporary walls for office spaces for private meetings. In this article, we’re going to cover some things that you could be doing to help the people in your office feel like they have some private space.

• Make sure that you have the right materials. A good way to ensure that you have the right materials in your office is to look for soft materials rather than leather especially when it comes to chairs and couches. You want to make sure that sound waves in an open plan office are absorbed so that discussions can still happen and there are no noisy distractions. If you have workstations with panels in between each desk, adjusting the height can really help to make people feel like they’re in a more private space.
• Consider installing acoustic panels. Acoustic panels that are made of soft material are hung vertically to absorb sound waves. This allows much more privacy in a smaller space, and basic acoustic panels will get this job done. You can choose higher end options that match your tastes, but you just need to think about what can help with privacy rather than what’s going to cost you the earth.
• Set aside some time for focused work. There are some tasks that really do require some concentration, so make sure that there is a quiet hour or two where people are to stay at their desks and not approach other team members. You could even give your team members signage to put on their dividers to ask for peace and no distractions for a while whilst they get the work done.
• Put up some quiet rooms. You might not want to have a giant boardroom for meetings, but you can create designated spaces that are reserved for individual work or very quiet conversations. Phone meetings, interviews or employees who need a little bit of quiet while they are able to focus can use these spaces. Even partitioned off spaces can work, but still make sure you have at least one closed office for those difficult conversations with employees.

Your employees will thank you for your consideration when it comes to a quiet working space. Ask their opinion if you are planning to move to an open office to see whether or not they would actually enjoy working in an open space in the first place.

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