Do your employees ever complain about difficulties concentrating in the open-spaces around your office? Integrating various visual privacy solutions can help solve this issue, achieving a more productive workplace. Solutions which also include furniture and accessories thus merging functionality with aesthetics.
Open space layouts are statistically the least favored office design solution according to their workers. It’s easy to find articles around the world showcasing employees’ distaste for them, often highlighting a lack of visual privacy as the primary cause for stress and lower productivity.
However, in all actuality, open-space offices aren’t meant to be unpleasant work environments, rather they have the aim of igniting collaborations between freelancers and startups, meaning to increasing the flow of ideas between one another and produce meaningful interactions.
Taking this into consideration, open space layouts can become very effective if designed properly.
Control over external stimuli
When designing an open-space office it’s necessary to consider the visual and acoustic privacy of its workers, guaranteeing a harmonious balance between both private and shared spaces. Open spaces should be designed in such a way to encourage collaboration and stimulate teamwork, while still offering private spaces for those who need or prefer it.
According to a Quartz’s study, employees are more comfortable when they have the ability to organize their work place. Having control over various options and privacy solutions give workers the opportunity to control their personal environments, while visual isolation guarantees the protection of sensitive data.
Visual isolation and environmental privacy
A key concern for all workers is the possibility of others learning compromising personal or professional information about them if their computer screen is openly visible. In addition to this concern, everything that occurs around the work-station can become somewhat distracting: all movements detected by your eyes can be disturbing, as well as loud or obnoxious sounds, all which contribute to a lack of concentration.
Everyone makes decisions, both private and professional, about the information they are happy to share with others and things which they prefer to remain confidential. This concept is essential to consider when designing an office that considers environmental privacy.
Thanks to visual privacy solutions, workers are able to choose if and when to make their activities visible to others around. Private solutions should be available at workstations around the entire office, however without negatively impacting routine activities or positive interactions between individuals that can spark creative ideas through the sharing of ideas.
Furniture to improve visual privacy around the office
There are many options for office design and décor which can guarantee visual privacy and control over workers personal environments. This doesn’t solely refer to the dividing screens between shared work-stations, but also to the solid and transparent walls that form private offices, meeting rooms and phone booths, as well as anywhere employees isolate themselves or meet with others in order to talk about sensitive information. Here there is a list of eight solutions that guarantee visual privacy around the office:
1. Visual privacy around the office: Cupboards
Though not originally designed as a dividing element, cupboards can become effective, practical separators. Their means of organization make them an ideal solution for improving order and cleanliness around the work stations, while their structure make them useful partitioning elements for the office, or simply for use as extra table space for benches.
2. Visual privacy around the office: Dividing Screens
Primarily used between shared desks, dividing screens can become a characteristic element in a space. Available in various heights, they can be installed in a frontal or lateral position and made with different materials such as: glass, melamine or fabric. Furthermore, the ability to customize these elements can make them characteristic element in any given space, alternatively they can also have the same finishing as the table tops they are used with.
3. Visual privacy around the office: Solid Walls
Solid walls allow for complete visual privacy and can be designed using melamine panels completed with customized materials and varying heights.
4. Visual privacy around the office: Frosted Glass
Frosted glass allows for partitions that blur visuals while still allowing natural light to shine through to interior work surfaces, all thanks to its semi-translucent finish that abstracts light from around the office.
5.Visual privacy around the office: Matte Glass Films
Matte glass films are a sleek solution that can be applied onto various glass surfaces. They can be designed to stretch the entire length of the partition or only partially cover it. Additionally, customers can choose between customized graphics or a silk-screened effect depending on the level of visual privacy requested. Similarly to frosted glass, the transparency of the film allows the penetration of natural light to circulate back and forth, while personalization becomes a unique attribute due to the possibility of creating textures or patterns based on drawings.
6. Visual privacy around the office: Smart Glass Films
With today’s technology smart glass films are a fascinating addition to any office, making it possible to turn a transparent wall instantly opaque by the touch of a button. This solution is ideal for meeting spaces inside open areas, phone booths and small private offices.
7. Visual privacy around the office: Curtains
Fabric can be a simple yet elegant method of shielding people’s views, thanks to their light weight and ease of installation. They can also help with lowering sound pollution around the office as they are quite sound-absorbent. Curtains can be installed normally around the office or integrated into partitions between glass panes in double glass partitioning walls, controlled either by remote or switch.
8. Visual privacy around the office: Movable walls
Movable walls allow for temporary separation, thus creating flexible spaces around the office adding privacy only when needed. Available as a foldable solid, glass, or graphic partitioning system.
Do you want to improve visual privacy in your office? Contact our team of experts here