Office layout discussion (partitions, "open office", cubicles)

[Cape47]

So I'm going to be starting at a call center that has some desks with "half" partitions and others with what appear to be regular partitions. I hadn't thought about the sound issue before since I'm coming from a clinically forward position after 20 plus years.

I suspect that a lot of nurses who are considering going into telephone triage may not think about this much since there are no "dividers" in, say, an E.R. or I.C.U. I've read a few horror story type articles about open office layouts (offices with no partitions at all) and can't imaging how this could be a good thing for any call center.

This applies only to a non-remote center. What are your experiences with partitions vs open office? For those who are currently working or have previously worked in a regular call center.

What's it like working with half partitions? Or full ones? From what I understand the three primary office layouts are

(A) Fully partitioned workstations

(B) "Low walled" or half partitioned cubicles and

© Open workspaces (where you can see and hear what everybody else is doing)

For reference

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/google-got-it-wrong-the-open-office-trend-is-destroying-the-workplace/

Forbes Welcome

[KittyLuv]

Well, I work for a hospital in an access center (not at the hospital but in a "clandestine location" a few miles away.) I work in a cubicle with three "walls" that go up to about 4 feet. My desk is L shaped so the cubicle is as deep as it is wide which is .....5 feet by 5 feet? You cant see over them when sitting but if you stand up you can. I think too that the cubies have some sound dampening quality as the walls are thick and fabric covered. I'm in a fairly large room working afternoon shift (2pm to midnight) which is by far the busy shift with the bulk of calls coming in.

There are generally 5 or 6 nurses on each afternoon shift and a few more schedulers/access specialists than nurses. The schedulers have smaller cubies that are half depth and their desks are single, not L shaped. They are on the phones almost constantly. We use headsets with either one ear or two depending on how you like it. We are in "pods" of 6 nursing desks (at which there are generally from 1 to 4 nurses on afternoon shift) alternating with 6 scheduler desks....(again which are rarely all 6 full) then nurses again, then schedulers again, etc. The room is big enough to house more people than are here on any given shift as the nurses all have our own designated desks. The schedulers do have to share some but generally with the same people. Generally speaking, the managers try to space us out a bit so that everyone with desks in a certain area are not all here on that day together.

The volume level when people are on calls rarely will actually interfere with your own call but if its slow and people are standing around chatting there can be a little shushing needed sometimes. For the most part, people realize not to be loud but we do have a few bossy types who dont care and will be loud no matter what. However....all of our calls are recorded so when the QA is done, if there are recognizable voices in the background, those people will definitely have a meeting with the manager. You can generally hear one side of the conversations with nurse or schedulers when you are not on a call but we all take confidentiality seriously outside of the call center so while people may be able to overhear inside, we are all sworn to confidentiality and dont talk about patients outside. I dont think the microphones with the headsets pick up a whole lot of sound that isnt right near the mouth so that may make some difference on the receiving end of the conversation too.

Hopefully that helps :) I feel like I was rambling, lol. Been a long day.