How To Make Your Office More Private

The modern office trend of today is open plan. Pulling down the walls and barriers that separate departments and people and having people work together in a collaborative space is the norm for most businesses today. It’s all about collaboration and interaction, improving team dynamics and effective working environments – and yes, a lot of people do believe this hype. However, it doesn’t work for every business, and it doesn’t work for every business situation.

There is nothing wrong with having a more private area of your office and whether you do this with a small office cube and make it quieter with acoustic insulation, or you have an entirely different breakroom to one side of your main open plan office, you can make your space private if you need it to be. People still require quiet spaces away from distractions or disruptions, especially those people who need to concentrate. Some introverted individuals prefer to have a closed office so that they can concentrate on being in the quiet, and others need to be able to focus or have meetings. You need private spaces in your office, and we have some suggestions for making your office more private, too.

• Ask your staff what they need. One of the best ways to go ahead and create a private space in your office is to ask your staff what they will need from you to do that. Some may like the open plan idea, and are quite happy to collaborate and they can even work without the distractions of others around them, but if you know that your workers need to be alone while they work, you’ll be able to set them up for success. It will also help you to decide how many offices need to be private and whether you can keep an open space and a private space in the same place.
• Don’t assign private rooms. Touching on the point we just made, consider having an enclosed room on the side of your main office. These private spaces can be small and a place for people to be able to have a quiet meeting that they need when they need it. You can use glass doors to go along with the acoustically insulated walls, and this way you can create privacy but maintain visibility, so that there is still that feeling of open plan.
• Define spaces with furniture. If you want to create private spaces but don’t want to literally put up walls, you can use furniture. Bookcases, for example, are perfect as room dividers. This can help people to feel the space is private but it still maintains an open feeling.
• Ensure your staff know how to signal that I need some quiet. With the use of headphones, and even signs around the desk, you can encourage your staff to signal when they need some privacy. You can also create a shared calendar schedule so that you can all input when you would like to use the private offices at the side of the main office.