The concept behind phone booths is relatively simple. By using phone booths, employees can finally make phone calls and hold meetings peacefully. The noise of which, that normally disturbs other colleagues, is now simply absorbed by the phone booths. This way, work at the office is done in peace and quiet and thus with greater concentration. In the phone booth, calls are made in a quiet and sound-proof environment, preventing confidential information of spreading through the entire office.  

But how is productivity increased?

The main problem with open-plan offices is that employees are distracted incredibly often. This happens because of telephone calls, meetings, video conferences or even simple conversations among other colleagues. These distractions in the OpenSpace area greatly reduce  employees' ability to concentrate properly.  

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Studies by the University of California provide impressive proof for this. After a distraction, it takes up to 20 minutes before you can fully concentrate on your work again. (1) It is already enough to listen to a simple conversation of a neighbour to get distracted. After the distraction the brain works with a lower capacity.

Therefore 20% of the total working time is lost. That is about 1.5 hours per day. (2) So you can see what a huge loss of working time is caused by distractions

But it gets worse.

Paradoxically, the employees themselves are the biggest source of these distractions. (3)*

Dr. Meis, a Swiss medical doctor, explains: (4)

"Mechanical noises, such as the ringing of a phones or the clattering of a keyboard, can be blocked by brain. But not the communication between two people, i.e. speech. A colleague's phone call or a conversation between two people automatically reduces the concentration of those listening in, by up to ten percent. Attention and performance therefore decrease involuntarily without the person concerned being able to do anything about it."*

The phone booths and office pods of QuietOffice create peace and quiet at the office. Employees simply go into phone booths or meeting pods for meetings and telephone calls. This effectively shifts the biggest source of distraction, namely verbal communication, to a place where nobody can get disturbed. By reducing distractions, the ability to concentrate and productivity finally increases. Experts assume that  productivity is increased by some 15 to 28 percent. (5)

How can costs be reduced too?

By increasing productivity, employees now reach their set goal in less time while making fewer mistakes. Thus, new projects can be started sooner. That means you save working time. Which in turn saves money money.

We will illustrate this effect with an example calculation. We use very conservative figures for our calculation. 

We image a department with ten employees in an open-plan office. The ten employees earn on average €2,500 (net). The installation of QuietOffice phone booths consistently reduces the sources of distraction and creates peace and quiet at the office. The employees now work 5% more productively.

There is an average of 18.1 working days per month (holidays and other work-free days already deducted). (6)  

Now we calculate the savings in working time with a faster working method.

Calculated time savings:

18.1 days * 5% increase in productivity = 9.05 days saved working time per month

9.05 days saved working time * 10 employees = 9.05 days total saved working time per month

9.05 days * 12 months = 108.6 days of saved working time per year.

The working time per employee in one year is 217.2 days.

108.6 days / 217.2 days = 0.5 years working time savings

This results in roughly saving as much working time as is equivalent to one additional employee. The team of 10 employees thus achieves as much through the increase in productivity as would otherwise be the case with 10.5 employees.

Calculation of labour cost savings:

2.500€ monthly salary * 6 months = 15.000€ wage costs.

15.000€ (net) wage costs are saved. 

Conclusion

The productivity of employees can be increased by purchasing and using phone booths. And this results in big cost savings, because now better results are achieved in less time. With the calculation it becomes clear that the acquisition of office pods is profitable even for small offices. With only 10 employees an annual cost saving of 15.000€ was achieved.

Now the only question is: Does a QuietOffice phone booth cost more than 15.000€? No, definitely not! Request an offer now to recieve more concrete figures.  

Consider the potential extra costs:

The question is not how much it costs you to buy a phone booth.

The real question is how much it costs you not to buy a phone booth. 

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