Acoustical Solutions, Inc.

Written By: Bill Keene

Collaborative workspaces for today. A collaborative environment encourages teamwork, sharing ideas, and working together to achieve a common goal. 

There are significant benefits in utilizing a collaborative work environment. It encourages team work, sharing ideas and skills, learning from each other, quicker response time to common problems or quicker development of new concepts and products. Collaboration is a benefit to each of the team members, and to the company. It gives a sense of purpose and company team spirit. The end result is it increases the quality of the products or services offered by the company.  It allows an entire team to share in the successes that are produced in this type of environment. 

HOWEVER:

There are a few obstacles that have to be overcome to have a successful collaborative workspace.  Due to the different personalities and needs of the team members, I have included some potential problems and how to overcome them.

Visual Privacy: The need to manage distractions, keep coworkers from seeing sensitive information, pressing need for privacy, feel over exposed:  Desktop dividers

Office Noise: The need to reduce ambient background noise to a moderate level to increase productivity. Acoustical baffles, acoustical panels, and carpet tiles with high NRC value

Quiet areas:  Ability to work on a task that requires focus Fabric Acoustical Panels                                  

Increased Productivity on an Individual Level: Individually designed music to increase short-term concentration.

Privacy: Provide needed privacy in an open office environment: Privacy Booths

Speech Privacy: Eliminate transfer of noise between conference rooms/ reduce unwanted conversational noise in open office environments and provide speech privacy: Sound Masking

Conclusion:

There are advantages and disadvantages to utilizing a collaborative workplace. The success is dependent on recognizing the potential problems and addressing them proactively to ensure the achievement and benefits of a successful collaborative work environment. Please give us a call or visit our website for further assistance on any of these acoustical solutions. www.acousticalsolution.com