Partitions to protect your employees' confidentiality
Nowadays, many companies in the tertiary sector have organized their workplaces in Open Space. Massively adopted in the middle of the last century, Open Space has continued to spread, creating spaces without walls to facilitate employee supervision and control. If it facilitates movement, communication and collaboration, Open Space also has many negative points: it leads to a loss of confidentiality, attention problems and noise pollution. These 3 elements are generally the main complaints employees have about open spaces. That is why our grandparents’ model has gradually been transformed into a Multi Space model.
Confidentiality in professional office design
In a Multi Space, traditional meeting rooms and individual offices now coexist with areas dedicated to a variety of activities. Whether it is sharing a coffee in a convivial corner, telephoning in complete privacy, having lunch or conducting one-to-one interviews, employees like to be spoilt for choice and be able to use the most appropriate spaces.
Physical separation of workspaces
Today’s top-performing companies offer their employees workspaces designed for a variety of uses, while ensuring confidentiality for those who need it. To do this, they use modern, high-performance layout systems.
Workers who are highly committed and involved in their company also pay close attention to several aspects of their individual workstation, such as size, furniture, lighting, ambient noise and temperature. Valuable employees always seek to work in spaces where they feel good and optimistic about what they can achieve.
Controlling the dissemination of information
While all employees are subject to a general obligation of discretion, it is essential that workplaces enable them to meet the conditions required to fulfill this obligation. The opacification of glazed areas, the orientation of workstation screens and the positioning of display panels and other connected boards must be considered right from the design stage. All the necessary functions must also be implemented to control the distribution of information only to authorized employees within the scope of their duties: manufacturing secrecy, commercial secrecy, medical secrecy, professional secrecy, financial documents, remuneration, HR files, customer information, etc…
Improved acoustics
Concentration problems due to noise, the feeling that colleagues are spying on them, rising stress levels due to lack of privacy – these are all situations that undermine employee commitment and business performance. The soundproofing of offices, meeting rooms and all other collective or individual spaces must be taken into account with the utmost care when planning the layout of commercial offices. In fact, the consequences of poor sound insulation can considerably impair the quality of work, and have a real impact on workers’ health when it is prolonged over long periods.
The different types of privacy partitions
Solid partitions
The solid partition is a solution that offers complete confidentiality in commercial office design projects. Sound insulation performance depends on the materials used in the fillings.
Glass partitions
Glass partitions can be fitted with double-glazing for good sound insulation. Completely transparent, they can be darkened electrically for greater privacy thanks to controlled opacity lenses.
How to choose the right partitions for your business
Assessment of your confidentiality needs
In a work environment where space is shared, it is important to preserve the confidentiality of conversations between colleagues. Partitions are a practical solution for creating private workspaces and protecting confidential informations. However, partitions may not be sufficient to guarantee total confidentiality. Conversations can be heard through certain partitions. It is therefore necessary to set precise specifications for each of the spaces you wish to create.
To assess your needs in terms of confidentiality, the professional in charge of the project will consider the acoustics of the workspace as a whole. Acoustic solutions, such as acoustic panels or wall coverings for example, can help reduce ambient noise and improve the privacy of conversations. Acoustic panels absorb sound, reducing reverberation and echo. They are often used in public spaces such as auditoriums, conference rooms and shared offices.
To summarize, partitions are a practical solution for creating private workspaces. But it’s important to consider the acoustics of the space with the help of a professional to assess your privacy needs. Acoustic panels and wall coverings can be used to reduce background noise and improve sound insulation, providing greater privacy and a more pleasant working environment for employees.
Consideration of aesthetics and functionality
It is essential to consider the aesthetic and functional aspects of every workspace design project. The work environment plays a major role in staff commitment and involvement. Yet employee engagement is a key issue for companies wishing to grow. Disengaged workers cost money, slow down projects, waste resources and undermine the company’s objectives as much as the efforts of their committed colleagues. In fact, generating commitment is one of the main challenges facing companies today.
Studies show that high workspace satisfaction is correlated with high employee engagement. Transforming the physical environment can therefore be an effective tool in a strategy to improve engagement levels.
For this reason, the aesthetic and functional aspects of the project must always be considered with the utmost care.
The Tiaso product selection for you
At TIASO, we pay close attention to the performance of our partitions and their ability to provide a confidential environment. We have a dedicated Research & Development department working hard to constantly improve the privacy performance of our systems. But we are also aware that this quest for performance must never be at the expense of design and employee comfort. This is why all our partitions are enhanced with uses. Our experts are at your disposal to help you meet all your office design challenges.
