Open plan offices promised freedom, collaboration & a new era of workplace innovation. What they delivered instead? Noise. Distraction. That creeping feeling that everyone can hear you arguing with your broadband provider on the phone. Privacy booths, phone booths, work pods, whatever you want to call them, they’ve become the quiet rebellion against the chaos of modern workspace design. And honestly, it’s about time.
These standalone enclosures aren’t just trendy additions to make your office look like a tech startup. They’re solving real problems that have been festering since someone decided walls were “so 1990s”. I’ve watched companies throw money at wellness programmes & standing desks whilst ignoring the obvious fact that people can’t concentrate when Karen from accounts is discussing her cat’s dental issues three metres away.
So here are six genuine benefits that privacy booths bring to workspaces. Not the marketing fluff, but the actual reasons they’re worth considering.
Noise Control That Actually Works
The single biggest complaint about open offices? The noise. It’s relentless. Phone conversations, keyboard clicking, that one person who insists on having their lunch at their desk with the crunchiest possible crisps. Privacy booths & phone pods create acoustic isolation that’s remarkably effective.
Most decent privacy booths feature sound absorbing materials that can reduce external noise to around 30 decibels or less. That’s the difference between trying to focus in a busy restaurant & sitting in a library. The soundproofing works both ways too, which means you’re not broadcasting your confidential client call to the entire floor.
I think what surprises people most is how IMMEDIATE the difference feels. You step inside one of these pods & it’s like someone turned down the volume knob on the whole office. Your shoulders drop. Your jaw unclenches. You can suddenly hear yourself think.
Some companies have tried those half measures, you know, the acoustic panels on walls or the sad little fabric screens between desks. They help a bit. But they’re like using an umbrella in a hurricane compared to what a proper enclosed booth provides.
Private Space for Confidential Conversations
Here’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. Privacy isn’t just a nice to have, it’s legally necessary for certain conversations. HR discussions, medical appointments, salary negotiations, client confidentiality issues. Where exactly are people supposed to have these conversations in an open office?
Meeting rooms get booked solid weeks in advance. The stairwell isn’t exactly professional. Going outside means weather, traffic noise & looking suspicious to everyone who sees you sneaking out for the third “private call” that week.
Privacy pods solve this elegantly. They’re bookable (usually through an app), they’re always available because there are multiple units, & they provide genuine confidentiality. Nobody’s pressing their ear against a pod to eavesdrop, unlike those thin meeting room walls we all pretend are soundproof.
The psychology matters too. When someone needs to make a difficult personal call or have a sensitive work discussion, having a dedicated private space shows respect. It says “we understand you’re a human with complicated needs, not just a productivity unit”.
Focus Zones for Deep Work
Cal Newport wrote about ‘deep work’ & suddenly everyone was nodding along, recognising that thing they couldn’t do anymore but couldn’t quite explain why. Turns out constant interruptions & ambient noise absolutely destroy your ability to concentrate on complex tasks.
Privacy booths create what I’d call focus sanctuaries. Small, enclosed spaces where you can tackle that report, finish that code, or actually read through a contract without rereading the same paragraph seventeen times because someone just laughed loudly at a YouTube video.
The cognitive science backs this up. Context switching, that thing your brain does every time you get distracted, can cost up to 23 minutes of productive time per interruption. In an open office, you might be getting interrupted every 11 minutes on average. Do the maths. It’s shocking.
What’s interesting is how people use these spaces. Some book them for 90 minute blocks of concentrated work. Others pop in for 20 minutes when they need to finish something urgent. The flexibility is part of the appeal.
Video Calls Without the Awkwardness
Remote work normalised video calls, but it also created a bizarre situation in hybrid offices. You’ve got half the team on a video call whilst sitting in an open plan space, trying to look professional whilst colleagues wander past pulling faces or the fire alarm test happens in the background.
Phone booths & video call pods have become essential infrastructure for hybrid work. They typically come equipped with decent lighting, power outlets for laptops, a shelf or desk surface & sometimes even a screen mount. Everything you need to look competent on camera without broadcasting your meeting to everyone.
The alternative? I’ve seen people take video calls from their cars in the parking lot. From bathroom stalls (yes, really). From storage cupboards surrounded by staplers & ancient printer paper. It’s undignified & it’s completely avoidable.
Perhaps the underrated benefit here is that video call pods protect everyone else from the annoyance of overhearing one sided conversations all day. Because nothing destroys concentration quite like listening to someone say “can you hear me?” forty times in a row.
Flexible Space Usage & Office Efficiency
Here’s where the business case gets compelling. Privacy pods are modular & relocatable. Unlike building actual offices with walls (remember those?), you can move these units around, add more as you grow, or even remove them if needs change. The initial investment might seem steep, maybe £4,000 to £8,000 per unit depending on specification, but compare that to construction costs & the flexibility advantage becomes clear.
Most workplace pods don’t require construction permits or major electrical work. They plug into standard outlets. They can be installed over a weekend. There’s no demolition when you need to reconfigure your office layout next quarter because management has decided hot desking is OUT and activity based working is IN. (They’re the same thing with different branding, but that’s a different rant.)
The space efficiency matters too. A typical privacy booth occupies maybe 1 to 1.5 square metres. That’s less floor space than a permanent small meeting room, but it serves multiple people throughout the day through a booking system. The utilisation rate can be significantly higher than traditional enclosed spaces that sit empty because someone “might need it later”.
Companies implementing hot desking or desk sharing strategies find that privacy booths become crucial supporting infrastructure. If you’re asking people to give up assigned desks, you’d better provide alternative spaces where they can accomodate different work modes. Otherwise you’re just creating resentment & a scramble for the “good spots” every morning.
Supporting Neurodiverse & Sensory Needs
This benefit doesn’t always make the sales brochures, but it’s increasingly important. Neurodiverse employees, people with sensory processing differences, anxiety conditions or autism spectrum traits often find open offices genuinely overwhelming. Not “a bit annoying” but actually distressing in ways that impact their ability to function.
Privacy booths provide respite spaces. Somewhere to decompress when the sensory input gets too much. A place to work without the flickering fluorescent lights, the competing conversations & the unpredictable environment that characterises most open offices.
I’ve spoken with facilities managers who’ve seen dramatic improvements in employee wellbeing & retention after installing privacy pods, particularly among staff who’d been struggling but felt unable to articulate why the office environment wasn’t working for them.
This isn’t about “special treatment” either. It’s about recognising that brains work differently & that workspace design should acommodate human variation, not force everyone into a one size fits all environment that actually fits very few people comfortably.
The booths become part of a more inclusive workplace strategy. Just as wheelchair ramps help everyone with wheeled luggage, not just wheelchair users, privacy pods benefit anyone who occasionally needs quiet, focus or a moment away from the social demands of open plan working.
Mental Health & Wellbeing Improvements
Open offices can be exhausting on a psychological level. The constant “on stage” feeling. The pressure to look busy. The inability to ever fully relax because you’re always visible, always potentially being observed or interrupted.
Having access to private spaces reduces this chronic low level stress. It’s not dramatic, but it accumulates. The difference between finishing the day depleted versus just normally tired. Between Sunday night dread about the chaos of Monday versus feeling reasonably OK about going in.
Some organisations are explicitly positioning privacy booths as wellbeing resources. A place to take a mental health moment. To do a quick meditation or breathing exercise. To cry after a difficult phone call without an audience (because sometimes work is hard & pretending otherwise is absurd).
Research on workplace stress consistently shows that lack of control & privacy are significant factors. When you can’t control your acoustic environment or visual privacy, your stress hormones stay elevated. You’re constantly in mild fight or flight mode. That’s not sustainable & it shows up in sick days, burnout rates & turnover statistics.
The Bottom Line
Privacy booths aren’t a magic solution to every workplace problem. They won’t fix poor management, inadequate pay or toxic culture. What they will do is address some very specific, very common issues that make modern offices less functional than they should be.
The ROI comes from multiple angles. Improved focus means better quality work in less time. Reduced stress means fewer sick days. Better accomodation of different working styles means you can actually retain talented people who might otherwise leave for fully remote positions.
Are they perfect? No. Some are poorly ventilated. Some are too small for comfort. Some companies buy them, stick them in a corner & wonder why nobody uses them (hint, placement matters enormously). But when implemented thoughtfully, as part of a broader strategy to create workspace that actually supports how people work, they make a tangible difference.
If you’re still running a pure open plan office & wondering why people seem miserable, distracted & perpetually hunting for “somewhere quiet to work”, perhaps it’s time to reconsider those walls you demolished. Or at least install some modern equivalents that give people the option of privacy when they need it. Which, it turns out, is rather more often than anyone predicted.
Related: Designing an Office Space for Hybrid Work: The Best of Both Worlds
The post Six Benefits of Privacy Booths for Modern Workspaces appeared first on The Next Hint.