Do call center cubes really promote productivity?
Call center cubes or cubicles became famous by the cartoon Dilbert. For those who have worked in a call center surrounded by cubes find the cartoon amusing to see how truly realistic the cartoon is at times.
When you enter most call centers you first notice what seem to be endless rows of cubes. No mater where you look there they are. The typical call center cube is not very large and does not promote the feeling of privacy.
When you sit in one of the cubes you hear the people in the cubes around you talking, the sounds of their phones, the computers working overtime as they take call after call. If someone brings food into their cube it is guaranteed that everyone in the near vicinity will be able to tell you exactly what the person had to eat, by the smell alone.
You hear the sounds of people as they walk between the call center cubes; you hear the conversations held if a group stops in the small hallways. Some companies have tried to combat the noise levels by adding what are called White Noise Generators, which muffles the sounds of everyday work noise around you. The problem is when they stop working; once more you can hear every bit of sound around you.
It was thought that this open office design would promote communication and enhance teamwork between the employees. However this is simply not true. There has been numerous studies, research and surveys done with call center employees which show that in fact, the opposite it true. Communication and teamwork between the employees is actually constrained by the call center cubes. The lack of privacy and the high level of noise make it difficult to concentrate on the job of the call center employee and without the comfort of 4 walls and a door; it is easier to become distracted.
There are alternatives to this problem however. One of them is a new floor to ceiling wall that can be moved at will. The floor to ceiling walls help damper the noise, it gives the representative the privacy that they desire, and because there is privacy, it actually promotes teamwork because the employee will get up and come out of their office and moves out to speak with others and there is more productive meetings that come from all of this.
