Increase Worker Productivity in Your Open Office with Office Phone Booths

Have you noticed worker productivity dropping at the open in office in your company? Maybe this is a trend that’s been going on for a while. But if you have an open office layout, decreased productivity shouldn’t come as a surprise. 

Here’s a look at why open office environments foster poor productivity and how you can change that with modern office furniture like work pods & phone booths. 

The Pros and Cons of Open Offices

Open office layouts have been around for centuries, particularly in fields like accounting and finance. But, they saw a revival in the 1970s across all industries, when business owners and designers thought doing away with walls would encourage greater teamwork and easier collaboration. 

This type of environment is currently prevalent in the technology sector, where many employees work in creative teams. 

While an open office format does facilitate work-related conversation between employees, it also promotes personal chatter and exposes workers to constant visual distractions. When workers are surveyed about their open office workplace, they often cite these issues as problematic: 

• Continual low-level environmental noise from office equipment, elevators, doors, coffee machines, and the like
• Work and personal conversations that distract from concentration
• Music and video noise from nearby workstations
• Lack of privacy for personal calls or confidential management discussions
• Visual disturbances from people getting up and down or passing by
• Increased illness spread by people who come to work sick

The Long-Term Consequences of Workplace Distractions

These concerns aren’t just nuisances that employees should be forced to tolerate. Study after study reveal that this type of layout actually results in significantly more worker sick days due to long-term anxiety and workplace stress. 

Many employees would sacrifice hard-earned perks just to get more privacy at work. Human resources personnel find open offices often make employee retention and recruitment more challenging. 

From a business perspective, this is obviously a disaster, and your company may be paying the price in lost opportunities and higher health insurance premiums. Even worse, a loss in worker productivity is quantifiable. 

A recent study by Humboldt University in Berlin showed that it can take employees up to 23 minutes to refocus after losing concentration due to workplace distractions. If this is happening multiple times with many employees, you can imagine the amount of work time you are losing. 

This translates to lost income for your business. It also opens you up to liability lawsuits if serious errors are made, and it can affect client relationships when deadlines are missed. And, are your employees really doing their best innovation when they can’t even hold a thought for 10 consecutive minutes?

Improving Productivity with Office Phone Booths & Portable Conference Rooms

You don’t have to move your office or revert to traditional office design to solve the problem. Zenbooth's phone booths are a relatively new product that let you keep your open office layout for its benefits while offering employees quiet and private workspaces. 

Office phone booths are exactly what they sound like: phone booth-like mini rooms that can be placed anywhere your office has sufficient space. Employees can use them for a five-minute phone call, a day of high-focus work, private management conversations, or group brainstorming sessions that would otherwise disrupt the workplace. 

The Executive size models are also ideal for client meetings. 

Zenbooth is at the forefront of office phone booth technology and has the needs of typical open office users, like tech companies, in mind. We offer office phone booths with features you’ll love. 

Instant Connectivity

Many office workers today live and breathe with their laptops and mobile devices, especially those in the tech sector. Zenbooths all come with the ability to connect instantly, through fast-charging USB ports, 15A 110v electrical outlets, and portals for phone lines and data cables. 

Soundproofing

Walls that are 3.5 inches thick dampen sound with recycled denim fabric and acoustic felt panels. Although these type of booths have yet to develop a numerical scale for soundproofing, we know Zenbooth can screen up to 40 decibels of office noise. This immediately improves workers’ ability to concentrate and therefore productivity. 

Size Variety

Because everyone’s office needs are unique, Zenbooth is manufactured with three different dimensions.

• Comfort Booth: fits one or two people, with the option of a health inducing height adjustable desk for sitting or standing, ideal for phone calls or a full day of solo work
• Executive Booth XL: for two or three people, also with a desk, perfect for employee reviews or confidential conversations
• Executive Room: accommodates four to six people and can be used for flex space, client presentations, or team meetings, replacing a conference room

Ventilation and Light

A window in the door and on the ceiling let in natural light or whatever light source your workspace uses. Electric interior lighting is also present. Ventilation is activated once someone enters the Zenbooth and refreshes the air every 60 seconds. 

Other Features

• Pleasing natural wood exterior in choice of color
• Low threshold for easy access with ADA in mind
• Quick assembly within a day
• Fastest lead time and shipping in the office phone booth industry
• Doors have magnet closures and spring hinges
• Easy to install with fire compliance

We let our reviews with companies just like yours speak for themselves. But, we’re happy to answer your questions on a phone call or chat. Give us a call today, and we’ll tell you more about how Zenbooth can solve the noisy open office conundrum and get your employees back on the road to high productivity.