Recognizing the Need
Do you need a phone booth office space? Here are some warning signs that you might:
Employee Morale is Down
If you’ve recently moved to an open-office style, you might have seen a huge uptick in employee morale for a while. Chances are, that’s now starting to tank. There’s a reason for this. A study from the University of Sydney done in 2013 found that the biggest single drain on morale in the workplace is a lack of sound privacy. The study looked at 16 different employee frustrations and ranked them. Close to 60% of respondents were most frustrated with no sound privacy!
The other 15 frustrations included things like comfort of office furnishings and air quality, but the next two biggest frustrations after sound privacy were noise levels and visual privacy. All of these things can be effectively addressed by providing a phone booth office space in your workplace.
Employee Stress Is Up
Humans evolved to pay close attention to the noises around them: that’s how we survived in the wild world! It’s quite difficult for us to filter out all the chattering, banging, tapping, clanging, ringing, and dinging that our office spaces are filled with all the time.
Even when your employees aren’t aware of the noise, it’s still affecting them. Their subconscious is hearing it and making their stress levels slowly rise throughout the day. If you don’t build a phone booth or provide some kind of soundproof booth, you’re going to see escalating stress rates that could manifest in poor performance, increased sick time, and even arguments.
Everyone Is Sick All the Time
Increased mental and emotional stress causes a physical reaction, and over time this wreaks havoc with the immune system. This, in turn, means everyone is more susceptible to illness and you start passing the office cold around like dip at a party. Providing a soundproof office booth is a great way of protecting your employees from this kind of outcome.
Your Work Calls Are Suffering
Are your employees struggling to hear clients and customers on the phone? Are clients complaining because they can’t get good service when they call directly? It might be down to the sound levels in your office. A phone booth office space could be the way to fix this problem. Give your employees a place to conduct those important calls in peace, especially if they have clients calling from out of the country or with limited English.
How To Make the Most of Your Phone Booth Office Space
Once you have your soundproof phone booth for office, what do you do to get the most out of it?
- Keep quiet spaces quiet. Like the quiet cars on the subway, you need to have dedicated spaces where you can be sure of getting some quiet space. Make sure everyone knows where the quiet rooms are and what they’re for. Vigorously enforce the quiet policy.
- Complement the quiet spot with a loud one. Just as they need a place where things are quiet, people also need a place where they can let down their hair for a moment and not worry about disturbing a colleague. There should be a designated place where people can have discussions and even debates, or where an important meeting can take place with full and vigorous input. If you don’t have the space to provide this, then designate a certain time when the main area can be used in this way. Those in need of privacy can head to the phone booth office space.
- Add background noise to our existing space.To keep the main office area from becoming too overwhelmed with noise, consider some white noise. While it is noise, if it covers the sound of key clicks and quiet phone calls, it will actually make things seem quieter.
- Implement a signal system.Find a way for people to communicate when they’re “open for business” and when they need quiet and peace for a while. This could be by use of a sign, a particular color mug on top of the desk, or even using headphones.
Your workplace need some peace and quiet. Make sure everyone is functioning at their best with the right kind of soundproof office space.
