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Tips for Working in Your Office

Having the respect of your fellow co-workers and colleagues at work is like social currency. There is no doubt that it is of immense value and can make or break potential career opportunities and relationships. You have the power to brighten everyone’s day, foster long-lasting friendships, and improve the office vibe if you are a beacon of light in a dark work environment.

It’s not always easy to show up to work and be the best you can be each and every day. We’re all human, and we all have hardships, nuances, and things in our personal lives that spill over into our work lives. You will have the foundation and tools you need to become everyone’s favorite employee with these helpful tips and considerations.

Practice Patience and Awareness

Shared spaces, usually cramped ones, aren’t always enjoyable. Shared close quarters can be taxing for many due to the diversity of personality types, energy levels, and stress levels. Several successful co-working teams have found that practicing patience and compassion are the most effective tools to use when faced with unsavory working environments. There are some coworkers who talk a lot and distract others from their work. Using patience and a calm, thoughtful tone, politely remind them that you have deadlines to meet and that you are easily distracted. You take the blame and pressure off the chatty employee by simply reminding them that everyone is distracted at work to varying degrees.

Your job may require you to speak on the phone frequently. See what you can do to lessen the burden on your co-workers by practicing awareness. Consider suggesting to your boss, or to management, that glass wall partitions be installed throughout the office so that phones can be taken in during loud conversations. Essentially, these office wall partitions are room dividers with doors that reduce noise and create a spatial barrier so the person engaged in the call is less distracting. Partitions help to provide visual privacy and curtail foot traffic.

There Is No Replacement For Kindness

Kindness goes a long way, no matter how small. Why not be that person who spreads and shares kindness in your life? A simple gesture like smiling at your co-workers throughout the day, and asking how they’re doing can make a big difference. Taking time to check in on people around you, remembering their personal details about their lives. Maybe sharing food or drinks every now and then, you can start a shift toward a more collaborative environment within the office that inspires others to do the same.

Being Helpful and Pragmatic

Take initiative and talk with your boss about what the office needs, or bring it in yourself if resources allow. There may be a similar feeling of separateness or lack of energy and inspiration among everyone. Start by noticing all the ways you could improve the workplace, and then move forward from there.

There is a lack of natural light in many workplaces during the workday. Many employees can suffer from depression, anxiety, and loneliness due to obstructed visibility and wall cubicles. If you wish to increase visibility throughout the floor plan, consider installing glass office dividers and sliding door room dividers that allow light to pass through. As a result, team morale will be raised and a sense of connectedness will be created.

There are many little ways in which you can make everyone’s day better, including your own. Don’t be afraid to start small with thoughtfulness, consideration, and small gestures. You might be surprised at the results of speaking up about your colleagues’ working conditions and quality of life. Management is often unaware of issues within a system, or employee discontent, until it’s brought to their attention. Space Plus, A Division of the Sliding Door Company can help you craft a desirable workspace. We can help you start the transformation today.

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How To Be Everyone’s Favorite Co-worker

It may sound silly, but being well-liked at work by your fellow co-workers and colleagues is like social currency. It holds immense value and can make or break potential career opportunities and relationships alike. Being a beacon of light in an otherwise dim work environment will brighten everyone’s day, foster long-lasting friendships, and boost the overall office morale. It’s not always easy showing up to work and being the very best person you can be, day in and day out regardless of your current circumstances. Of course, we’re all human and we all have hardships, nuances, and things in our personal lives that spill over into our work life, and our energetic exchanges. Yet with these helpful tips and considerations, you’ll have the foundation and tools to employ each day to become everyone’s favorite employee.

office partitions by space plus

Practice Patience and Awareness

Existing in shared spaces, typically cramped ones, is not always fun. With so many different and unique personality types, energies, and stress levels, sharing close quarters can be taxing on many. What many successful co-working teams have found, is that practicing patience and compassion are the most effective tools in which to utilize when confronted with unsavory working environments. Some co-workers tend to talk a lot and distract others from their work. Using patience and a calm, thoughtful tone, politely remind them that you have deadlines and quotas to meet and that you get easily distracted by any conversation. This takes the blame and pressure off the chatty employee and simply reminds them that everyone experiences different levels of distraction while at work. Perhaps you find yourself on the phone often for your position. Practice awareness and see what your options are in lessening the burden on your surrounding co-workers. Because loud phone conversations are a distraction for many employees, consider talking to management, or your boss and suggest the installation of glass wall partitions throughout the office for calls to be taken in. These office wall partitions are essentially a room divider with door that reduces noise and creates a spatial barrier so the person engaged in the call is less of a distraction to others. These partitions help to provide visual privacy and curtail foot traffic.

There Is No Replacement For Kindness

No matter how large or small, acts of kindness go a long way. Everyone could use some more kindness in their lives, so why not be that person to spread and share it? Little gestures like smiling at your co-workers throughout the day, asking how they’re doing. Remembering personal details about their lives, their families, taking the time to check in with those around you. Bringing in food to share, or beverages every now and then could start a shift towards sharing and community within the office, that inspires others to do the same.

office partition in a corner of a room

Being Helpful and Pragmatic

If you notice a need for something within the office, take initiative and talk with your boss about it, or bring it in yourself if resources allow. Perhaps everyone is sharing a similar feeling of separateness, or lack of energy and inspiration during the day. Notice all of the ways in which the office environment could be improved, and then go from there. A lot of people suffer from a lack of natural light during their workday. Obstructed visibility and wall cubicles can cause serious depression, anxiety, and loneliness in many employees. Perhaps talk with your building about installing light-allowing glass office dividers and sliding door room dividers to increase visibility throughout the floor plan. These will create an increased feeling of connectedness, and raise team morale.

There are all just little ways in which you can help improve everyone’s day, including your own. Start with small gestures, considerations, and thoughtfulness. Speaking up about office conditions and the life quality of your fellow employees could yield surprising results. Many times, management is just vastly unaware of issues within the system, or employee discontent until it’s brought to them. Make the move towards crafting a desirable workspace, and visit Space Plus, A Division of the Sliding Door Company for ideas and inspiration. Get a quote from one of our professionals to begin the transformation today.

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Optimizing Productivity in the Workplace

As the dedicated owner of a flourishing company, there are many factors to be taken into consideration when laying the necessary framework for a promising business. Some of these components are more obvious, such as meeting efficiency, ensuring all of your employees are well informed and able to make decisions, and of course- a fair amount of cohesion amongst all of your team members.

One thing that typically goes unnoticed and undervalued, is the physical environment in which you and your employees exist in each and every day. Spending countless hours indoors in the classic work environment of an office space can be taxing on just about everyone. It can strain the individual and consequently – the overall morale of a business. Or on the contrary, it can be exciting, productive and a joy to exist in. How can you set your company apart from others ensuring that your workers are happy, healthy, stimulated and able to provide the best possible work for a flourishing business? The first step is to take a look around at what already exists. Below, we have outlined a few questions to ask yourself when assessing your provided work environment and the necessary solutions.

glass wall

Does the existing office offer your employees the ability to work together while maintaining crucial productivity? 

Do you and your employees exist in a vast open space with communal desks and no partitions? Or do you work in tight quarters secluded to individual spaces? Neither of these options is the right or wrong answer- yet both of these offer equal opportunity to either provide or detract from your business. Your employees’ engagement in their workday depends largely on how the building is laid out. If it is an open space, is it one that offers cohesion, shared thought and teamwork amongst your employees? Or does it restrict conversation and sever creative free-flow. 

The free-flowing exchange of ideas can be one of your company’s greatest assets. Allowing and encouraging employees to easily communicate and brainstorm with fellow team members is a key component in innovation and creation. Work environments that do not offer a fluid surrounding suffer a great loss of unity and integration of objectives. Of course, space and solitude in any working environment are necessary and integral to successful production and typical workflow. One promising way to achieve both individual spaces yet offer integration amongst your employees is to install easily adjustable wall partitions and glass office dividers- offering options. This way, your employees can swiftly enter and exit work areas with the semblance of separation when needed. This innovation also offers an inviting feel to any office environment, boosting morale and allowing for teamwork.  This is a sure way to provide much needed and appreciated cohesion in the workspace.

sliding door

Is there ample light throughout the workspace? Or is it a windowless environment? 

Oftentimes we don’t necessarily have the choice or comfort of abundant light in the office. If you find yourself enduring a windowless or sparsely lit existence, we have a few helpful solutions to consider. One answer to this problem is to effectively open up partitioned office spaces to allow for necessary light to pass through when windows are not abundant. Space Plus, A Division of The Sliding Door Company, proudly provides a myriad of glass wall partitions to choose from that are designed intentionally with the workplace in mind. Ranging from glass wall partitions, sliding door room dividers and glass Wall Cubicles, Space Plus offers it all. Rather than obstructing views and hindering light with solid cubicle partitions, opt for more of a free-flowing approach allowing for beautiful light to pass through. The last thing you want as an employer is for your workers to suffer and tire from an arid environment. There is little to no inspiration there, and that diminished capacity translates into the quality of your worker’s content and productivity. 

Is the general atmosphere instrumental to production and enthusiasm for your team members? 

A great way to gain and retain successful employees is to provide a healthy space to create. To learn, grow, develop and produce. When employees are uncomfortable, strained and lack enthusiasm about their environment, it can me expectantly difficult to anticipate excellence from your team.

A few ways to ensure a positive working container is to take the small details into consideration. Can the office act as an extension of their home? In the sense that it offers comfort, sustained energy and contentment. Consider things like lighting, art on the walls, and stylish features that are overlooked every day. Smooth sliding glass doors offer the feel that you exist in a smart and modern working arena. Hanging doors that slide, such as Space Plus’s hanging glass barn doors provide a stylish and thought-provoking flourish to a normally ‘safe’ office space. Not only are the hanging glass doors a joy to slide open and close, but they signal that care and intention were thoughtfully consideration in respects to their working environment. Offered in addition to the doors themselves are a plethora of accessories and options to individually customize your products. From a variety of glass opacities to framing options and panel configurations, your unique choice is implied in our business model.

By adding thoughtful touches and well-considered features to your office environment, you set yourself and your employees up for successful work experience. After all, you want your workers to be inspired, productive and sustained at the beginning and end of each day.

To get started on your exciting office improvements, check out our products gallery for inspiration and product images. Schedule a call with one of our knowledgeable professionals to get a quote and other information on our many available solutions. Simply find a showroom near you and get that much closer to optimizing your offices for success!

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HIPAA, Patient Privacy, and the Advantages of New Solutions

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provides security and data privacy provisions for safeguarding medical information. For the most part, our healthcare providers and entities covered under the Act have taken great strides to ensure patient privacy.

Numerous patient-related websites have established two-factor authentication procedures to help protect against unauthorized access and identity theft. In-patient check-in, emergency rooms, and even pharmacies around the country have enacted buffer zones with “Wait here until called” signs a few feet back from the counter in order to facilitate patient confidentiality.

But how confidential is it really?

The mass majority of these locations don’t have any sort of Glass Partitions or even basic room dividers. Just a rope.

Without even meaning to, it’s quite easy to overhear customer details while sitting in the waiting room of the local hospital. While it might not be extraordinarily useful to learn someone’s name and that they’re seeing the doctor for a coughbut hearing that someone has a critical illness or injury because there aren’t any glass walls could definitely be used against the patient.

What useful pieces of data are ER visitors and pharmacy patients always asked to verify? That’s right, DOB and home address.

Sliding Door

Protecting Patient Privacy

As data encryption and protection methods evolve to better thwart breaches and identity theft, so too must the actual face-to-face interactions. This is a critical area where criminals can snag a plethora of useful data simply by taking advantage of the lack of partitions, glass walls, or other privacy enablers and just “innocently” eavesdropping.

Numerous hospitals around the world are not only exposing patient data at check-in, but those with open floor plans that simply have beds separated by hanging curtains instead of glass wall partitions are also inadvertently sharing intimate details with every patient and staff member within earshot.

It’s time to update!

Privacy is a Priority

Glass partitions and privacy walls from SpacePlus, The commercial spaces division of The Sliding Door Company,come in a variety of styles andopacities and are completely customizable. This flexibility gives your healthcare institution the ability to provide better patient privacy without diminishing the aesthetics or compromising collaboration in any way.

Glass wall partitions havesliding, swing or bi-fold doors and you can choose from our proprietary regular, ramped, or recessed tracks in order to customize each to your exact specifications and needs. Additionally, unlike many partition and glass wall options, we have a line of suspended solutions that eliminates the bottom track completely, making it perfect for emergency rooms where equipment and beds are moved around considerably.

Glass walls and glass partitions can help you maintain patient privacy while enhancing the look and feel of your facilities.

Glass walls and glass partitions

Make the Call for Patient Privacy

Because our glass wall partitions allow privacy when needed for consultations and exams yet are easy to move and open in order to maximize space and natural lighting, they are perfect for medical facilities.

Our partition glass walls are made of sturdy aluminum frames that require almost no maintenance and you can choose from tempered or laminated glass. Leverage them as patient room walls, privacy partitions for check-in, billing and patient services offices, or anywhere that the healthcare facility needs to provide patient privacy without sacrificing space, functionality, or lighting.

Our semi-transparent glass partitions allow light to flow from one room to the next, enhancing privacy and functionality. Furthermore, our interior sliding doors provide further benefits to healthcare providers with large openings and smooth-gliding tracks that are completely ADA compliant.

Call (888) 869-1850 and request a free consultation for glass partitions and privacy walls today or visit a showroom near you to witness the solutions in action.