As the business world grows ever more competitive, each bit of added productivity matters. Unfortunately, the very layout of an office can torpedo plans for maximized output.

Zenbooth has created office spaces perfect for 21st-century operations. Our products allow companies to push for higher versatility and work levels by helping staff encounter fewer distractions. They may even enjoy better health as a result of installing our solo and meeting pods. 

The 20th Century Open Office Concept

In 1950s West Germany, innovators in office design started to pioneer the open office concept. Simply put, the idea was to remove walls from workspaces, encouraging more communication or collaboration.

Some American workplaces, such as newsrooms and police departments, where much work took place outside the office, had already employed this strategy. 

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Open office setups look cool and modern, but they do not bolster productivity. According to research carried out by the University of Sydney, most employees working find open offices expose them to too much co-worker chatter, small talk, constant noise, etc.

Though open offices have their minor perks, the noise and distractions can hinder productivity, and burn out even the most sociable or extroverted employees.

Focusing on important tasks in the office requires a calm and private space. A private booth offers just that. These booths insulate employees from casual banter, lunch invites, quick questions, etc. so that they can spend more time working. Keep reading to learn how office phone booths work and why every office should have them.

What is an Office Phone Booth? And How Does It Work?

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The way we get work done is changing fast, and therefore the office environment must change with it. To ensure maximum productivity and employee satisfaction in a world where today’s workforce will have five different jobs before the age of 35, company's need to get creative. 

Advertising for, interviewing, and training up new hires is expensive, so it makes sense to provide a workspace where employees will feel comfortable and free to work in a way that ensures high levels of workplace satisfaction. Soundproof office booths help to achieve this goal by lowering anxiety and offering people privacy. 

The Stress Problem Caused By Modern Offices

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Business owners strive to create quiet office environments that enhance productivity in their workforce. Unfortunately, this can be tricky, especially in modern open-plan offices.

So, how do you ensure your employees are comfortable at the office, while also safeguarding productivity? It's time to consider investing in open office phone booths.

Inside these individual work pods, employees and entrepreneurs can conduct private meetings, make phone calls and find a calm personal space. 

The Features and Benefits of Open Office Phone Booths

Zenbooths are designed to keep users cool by cycling fresh air into the enclosure once every minute. The booths come with cutting edge ventilation systems to enhance comfort. This system is motion activated so it starts running as soon as someone enters the booth.

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It’s no secret that office phone booths are the latest trend in open-plan workplace design. And, chances are, if you are a business owner that’s always looking to boost productivity, you’re just about ready to jump on board.

Before you hit that oh-so-tempting checkout button, you’ll need to decide which size booth is right for your office.  

In this article, we’ll walk you through the top considerations to make when selecting an office phone booth for your workspace. Grab yourself a well-deserved coffee, a pen, and some paper – let’s get started.

Is an Office Phone or Meeting Booth Right for Your Business?

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Imagine you’re an employee in a typical open office environment. You’re at a table or cubicle, which is barely separated from those around you by a very low wall. 

You have a presentation to prepare for a client meeting. As you pull up the data on your computer, the colleague next to you returns to his or her seat and fidgets noisily with their keyboard, pulling your attention from the task at hand. 

You drag your focus back to your data, but just as you get back in the groove of concentration, a cell phone buzzes on the other side of you. Even though your colleague is whispering, you can hear she’s having an argument with her spouse.

You finally get back to work again, when “Ping!” the elevator door opens and three people exit, talking loudly about the meeting they’ve just had. Such is the noisy life of an open office today, and it’s making employees sick and killing productivity. 

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Have you noticed worker productivity dropping at your company? Maybe this is a trend that’s been going on for a while. 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. 

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The concept of office privacy booths is one of the more popular innovations in the modern workplace. They're a welcome addition to just about any office layout, including open-plan offices, cellular offices and co-working spaces.

Although it’s the open-plan layout that has mostly driven the need for quiet spaces, more businesses, including startups, are keen on adopting these revolutionary office furniture features.

Why Your Office Needs Private Phone Booths

A privacy booth provides a secluded, noise-free area where anyone can comfortably make a phone call or work peacefully without worrying about background noise and eavesdroppers.

Plus, a phone booth serves as an ideal location for some alone time. A few minutes in a phone booth away from all the chatter and chaos of the workplace is an effective way to relieve stress and sharpen focus.

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We've read recent media reports of concerns about WeWork phone booths having potentially elevated levels of formaldehyde.  We suspect that these phone booths contained imported products that weren't subject to regulation, or that they weren't properly ventilated.  As we'll detail below, all Zenbooth products meet or exceed strict regulatory requirements and are properly ventilated.

Background

Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring chemical compound that is a wide range of products - from apples to drinking water, to the desk you may be working at.  Typically, it does not pose a health risk to consumers, however, exposure to elevated levels of formaldehyde may lead to eye irritation or other symptoms. 

In the United States and other countries, there are regulations in place to protect people from chemicals like formaldehyde that could cause potential harm.

In particular, the EPA and California Air Quality Resource Board (CARB Phase II) has set strict standards for wood products (1). The wood we use to create our booths is tested, certified and labeled by our Californian vendors to meet those standards. 

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Supporters of the open office design once promised that it would improve face-to-face communication, collaboration, and office relations. Over time it failed to deliver on its supposed benefits. Instead it added too much distraction.

 Business owners had to come up with ingenious ways to counter the ill effects of the open-plan office. For companies that embraced it and realized they made a mistake, commercial privacy booths or office pods became a go-to solution.

This is not to say that the open-plan office has been a total failure. Open-plan offices help maximize space, save on costs, and increase face time among office workers.

However, studies have shown how open office spaces are also disruptive and how they negatively impact concentration, productivity, and efficiency at work.

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You don’t always need training and motivational programs to boost your employees’ morale and work productivity. 

According to a study conducted on employee output, 58% of Americans say they need quiet and private working conditions to improve their performance. 

For those working in an open office space, Zenbooth is an incredibly efficient and effective way to heighten your work environment for everyone involved.

Open office layouts can have major shortcomings that affect efficiency, such as noise, harsh lighting, over-the-shoulder lurking, and other disruptions from coworkers. 

A closed-plan office layout, on the other hand, aids in sorting our hierarchies, establishing personal space, and keeping a workspace organized.

Zenbooth is here to help create this new layout, without adding an impersonal or harsh aesthetic, or needing to expand the actual square footage of your office space.

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Office phone booths & office pods can be valuable additions to your work space. They create an area where employees can focus on intense tasks, take private phone calls and decompress.

Each model is a worthwhile investment when factoring in the improvement it makes to your staff's overall productivity & health. 

You may not know enough about these relatively new products to make a purchasing decision.

What kind of privacy booth should you buy and how will you know if it's durable, eco-friendly and safe? More importantly, what's the pricing like?

There’s no need to spend hours on research - we’ve got all of the details right here.

First - The Benefits of Office Phone Booths & Office Pods

Let’s start with a quick overview of why you should be investing in these soundproof booths for your office quiet space.

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If you manage or own a business that uses an open office layout, you may be wondering "What's the best furniture for our work environment?" 

Perhaps you’ve recently relocated the office or want a bit of an upgrade.

Here are some tips to help you find the best furniture for open offices, both for collaborative functions and for privacy and noise reduction.

Office Furniture for Employee Collaboration

The main reason most businesses use open office formats is that they hope it will improve employee collaboration and make work easier. In some instances, this works, but there are downsides.

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When it comes to snagging conference room space for your next big meeting, it can be a huge hassle competing with your coworkers. 

Some offices are just not equipped to handle the demand. Often times these spaces are in use exactly when you need them most. 

When your office’s cafeteria or common areas aren’t an option for a meeting, that’s where the four-person office phone booths from Zenbooth come in.

Our state-of-the-art office pods make it possible to always have the quiet, private meeting space that you need in addition to other conference areas in your office.

Want to learn more about what makes the four-person office phone booths, or as we like to call them, “Executive Rooms,” so unique?

Read on!

1. They Effectively Block Noise

The chatter of people in the next room, the buzz of employees milling around the coffee pot — sometimes, excess noise is too much of a problem when you're trying to have a meeting.

With Zenbooth, you won’t have to worry. Our 3.5-inch thick insulated walls ensure that no sound escapes and no sound enters. You’ll love working in this virtually soundproof workplace.

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Do you work in an open office environment? If so, you probably know how difficult it can be to get work done in the wake up excessive noise. 

Sadly, noise isn’t just a nuisance; it’s a cause of increased employee sick time, stress, and lost work hours. But there is a solution: office phone booths. Below we describe the real detriments of open office layouts and how office phone booths like Zenbooth can be the remedy your offices'  auditory issues.

Sources of Noise in Open Offices

While there are many negatives associated with the once trendy open office workspace, like lack of privacy, visual distractions, and olfactory intrusions, nothing is more disturbing to workers than noise. In many open offices, people don’t even realize how distracting noise is because they have been living with it for so long.

There are multiple sources of noise in any open office environment. Of course, a natural cause of noise is people talking, whether it’s about work-related matters or personal topics. Overheard work conversation is irritating enough, but sharing weekend exploits, joking, and laughing take talk noise to a new level of aggravation for workers who need quiet to do their jobs.

Other sources of noise in the workplace include:

• Ringing telephones and noise from office equipment, like copiers and printers
• Typing and computer sounds
• Video, radio, and music
• Doors closing and elevators pinging
• Cooking and coffee making sounds
• Cubicle noise, like shutting file cabinets and rolling office chairs

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If your company has an open office, it's hard to imagine a way to combat the downsides without moving. From excessive noise to distracting coworkers, open offices hinder productivity and employee happiness. 

Fortunately, there are office phone booths like Zenbooth, a reasonably priced solution that provides a distraction-free environment for workers. Let’s look at five ways an office phone booth can lower stress in your workplace.

Screening Out Noise & Loud Coworkers

Noise is one of the biggest problems in open office work environments. Workplace noise can come from any number of sources, and in an open workplace, employees may be exposed to all of them:

• Telephone calls and interpersonal conversations
• Ringing phones and sounds from large office equipment
• Elevator and door noises
• Foot traffic
• Workstation sounds: chairs rolling, file cabinets opening and closing, etc.
• Coffee area and kitchen noises
• Employee music at their desk
• Even loud chewing and slurping

Zenbooth, a premium office phone booth, screens out noise up to 40 decibels so workers can concentrate. Loss of concentration at work is a huge source of stress to employees, and workers in open office environments take 62 percent more sick days than those in conventional work layouts.

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If you work in or manage an open office, you may have already discovered the many pitfalls of these environments.

Open offices aren’t as beneficial as intended but there are phone booth furniture solutions available for companies not looking to move or reconstruct their entire floor. 

Keep the Open Office Benefits, Lose the Downsides

Open offices were originally created to make it easier for employees to work as a team and to collaborate on projects. However, many businesses don’t require this level of openness but use open office layouts nonetheless. 

While 70 percent of offices in the US have zero or low partitions, only 10 percent of workers believe “ease of interaction” is a problem for them.

Instead, open offices cause more problems than they solve. The downfalls of open office designs include:

• Noise created by coworkers, equipment, music, and ambient elements
• Visual distractions, like people constantly walking by
• Lack of privacy
• Decreased professional image to clients and visitors
• Increased feelings of employees being hovered over or supervised all the time

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Does your office have a productivity problem? It just might if you have an open office layout. Research has shown that open office environments are not all they’re cracked up to be, but utilizing a private workspace alternative can alleviate issues that come with too much open space.

How Privacy Benefits Workers

Open offices were in vogue a few decades ago. Initially, advocates of this type of layout thought the absence of doors and walls would make for better communication and increased teamwork. Sadly, these open office enthusiasts were incorrect in their assumptions.

Open offices have been proven to be detrimental to productivity. One of the greatest problems with having no walls in a workplace is having no sound barriers. Noise is far more distracting to workers than was originally imagined, and more than half of employees surveyed in recent studies said they needed more quiet at work.

Furthermore, noise distractions in open offices aren’t just limited to the time someone is talking or playing music. Once taken away from their work by noise, people can require up to 23 minutes to restore their concentration, according to research at Berlin’s Humboldt University.

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Office phone booths have emerged as a win-win solution to the problems associated with open office working environments. With phone booths, there's no more forced work distractions & no more frustration on the part of employees because they lack privacy.

They also provide employers an efficient, cost-effective way to create healthy, productive workplaces. Adding one to the office means companies won't have to invest in expensive renovations to provide workers with an alternative to the stressful open office concept. 

Thanks to the immense benefits, the variety of uses, and thoughtful features, Zenbooths have become a modern staple for organizations across the board, from growing businesses to major companies like Bosche and Capital One. 

Here are 17 key reasons why an office phone booth or office pod can enhance the way you and your team get stuff done.

Office Phone Booths Improve Employee's Mental Health

Working in an open environment for 8 hours every day can lead to increased stress and anxiety. It comes from the constnat exposure to noise and visual distractions. This condition isn’t just an issue for introverts, who aren’t interested in the high number of social interactions that an open office inspires.

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