So I Spent Last Weekend Reading Steelcase's “Privacy Design Guide”...

And it clarified something I've been seeing in every brief that crosses my desk lately.

You know how clients keep asking for "flexible spaces" and "collaboration areas", but then their employees are booking every available private room weeks in advance? Or how you deliver a beautiful open-plan design and six months later they're asking you to add more enclosed spaces?
Yeah. That disconnect isn't going away. Not amenities. Not aesthetics (though we know those matter). Privacy. And the problem is accelerating post-pandemic.
Steelcase's research reveals that 50% of employees are now taking video calls from their desks, not by choice, but because there's nowhere else available.
The huddle rooms you specified? Booked solid. The phone booths? Not enough of them, and probably in the wrong locations.
What we're seeing is a fundamental mismatch between how we've been designing offices and how people actually need to work.
Privacy isn't a single design variable. Steelcase breaks it into four distinct factors, and this framework is genuinely useful for specification:

1. Acoustical Privacy - Speech privacy in both directions: freedom from noise and freedom to make noise
2. Visual Privacy - Control over sight lines, both as observer and observed
3. Territorial Privacy - Personalisation and control over one's immediate environment
4. Informational Privacy - Protection of confidential work from visual or digital exposure

Here's what matters for your projects: Different work modes require different combinations of these factors. A video call needs high acoustical and informational privacy. Deep focus work needs acoustical and visual. A confidential client meeting needs all four.
When we specify single-solution spaces, we're essentially forcing people to compromise on at least two of these factors at any given time.
What Steelcase's research confirms is something I suspect you're experiencing too: workspace variety is now a non-negotiable.
Employees with access to diverse workspace types, both assigned and unassigned, report significantly higher satisfaction than those limited to a single setting. This isn't about square footage or budget. It's about the intentional diversity of space types within reach.

The implication for you as designers and specifiers? We need to deliver granular zoning within existing footprints, creating micro-environments that support different privacy needs without requiring full-height walls or major construction.
This is where the Steelcase framework aligns directly with what we can deliver at YoYo WORKS, and what you can specify with confidence.

Baseline Privacy at the Workstation Level
For open-plan environments where you're working within budget and footprint constraints, Flytta height-adjustable desks with integrated acoustic screens offer a practical first layer of privacy. You're delivering territorial privacy through height adjustability (personal control), visual privacy through the screen element, and partial acoustical privacy through sound-absorbing materials. It's not a full enclosure, but it's a significant improvement without architectural intervention.

Specify these in Back-2-Back configurations, and you create natural micro-zones within the open plan, distinct territories with improved sight line control. It's privacy through intelligent layout planning rather than hard partitioning. Distributed Acoustical Enclosures
Here's the specification challenge we keep seeing: clients want "a few phone booths", but the reality is they need distributed acoustical privacy throughout the floor plate, not just two booths by reception.
KALM Phone & Work Booths are single-occupancy enclosures optimised for video calls and focused phone work. What makes them specifiable for distributed deployment:

• Small footprint (doesn't require major space planning changes)
• Integrated power and ventilation (no mechanical infrastructure required)
• Acoustically sound for speech privacy
• Available quickly for fast-track projects

Steelcase emphasises proximity as critical; if the private space is too far away, adoption fails. These units let you deploy privacy infrastructure where people actually work, not just where you have leftover space.

Scalable Meeting Privacy
One insight from the Steelcase research that directly impacts your space planning: proximity of private meeting spaces is as important as quantity. A single large meeting room three floors away performs worse than smaller distributed options on each floor. This is where Mobile Meeting Pods and KALM Meeting Pods (2-seater and 4-seater configurations) become strategically valuable:

• They provide full four-factor privacy (acoustical, visual, territorial, informational)
• Modular deployment means you can add capacity without construction
• Mobility allows you to respond to changing density patterns post-occupancy
• Hybrid-ready with integrated power and ventilation for video conferencing

For tenant improvement projects with aggressive timelines or occupied floor phasing, these are genuinely useful tools. You can deliver functional privacy infrastructure while construction continues elsewhere.

Flexible Spatial Zoning Without Architectural Commitment
Here's where Steelcase's emphasis on zoning really resonates: they advocate for creating distinct acoustical neighbourhoods, quiet focus areas separated from collaborative zones.
Traditionally, this requires full-height demising walls and substantial mechanical coordination. YoYo Walls offer an alternative specification strategy: Acoustic & Collaboration Walls are freestanding, relocatable partitions with genuine acoustical performance.

What this means for your projects:

• Create spatial hierarchy and zoning without building permits or landlord approvals
• Reconfigure as organisational needs evolve (critical for speculative builds)
• UK-manufactured with circular economy principles

For hybrid work environments, the YoYo Media Wall variant integrates mounting hardware and power distribution for video collaboration zones, essentially pre-engineered video privacy infrastructure.
This is particularly valuable for projects where you need to deliver privacy zones within leased space or where future flexibility is a stated requirement.
FlexiFormat system with full RAL colour specification
This means you're not limited to manufacturer standard finishes. You can:

• Match corporate brand standards precisely (not "close enough")
• Coordinate with architectural finishes for visual cohesion
• Differentiate zones through colour coding (quiet zones vs. collaboration areas)
• Specify black, white, or silver for fast-track lead times, or any RAL code for custom applications

Sustainability as a Specification Requirement
One aspect of the Steelcase research that aligns with what we're seeing in RFPs: adaptability and longevity are increasingly weighted criteria, not just nice-to-haves. Flytta Refurbish program is the first manufacturer take-back scheme in the sit-stand category. The value proposition for your projects:

• Return used Flytta frames for refurbishment (new finish, new motors, full warranty)
• Up to 80% reduction in embodied carbon versus new procurement
• Budget-friendly capacity expansion without compromising on quality or warranty

YoYo WORKS products carry WEEE certification, FSC certification where applicable, and are engineered for disassembly and reconfiguration. When clients ask about "future-proofing," this is a tangible answer: furniture systems designed to be redeployed rather than replaced.
For projects with ESG reporting requirements or sustainability targets, these are certifiable, measurable impacts you can include in your specification narratives. If you’re currently working on a workplace project, whether in early design development or finalising construction documents, here’s what the Steelcase research validates:

1. Privacy is now a primary performance metric, not a secondary amenity consideration
2. Workspace diversity outperforms workspace quantity, variety of settings beats sheer area
3. Proximity and distribution trump centralisation; disperse privacy infrastructure throughout the floor plate
4. Furniture systems can deliver architectural outcomes, without construction timelines or landlord approvals
5. Adaptability is a specification requirement, design for reconfiguration from day one

The YoYo WORKS product line addresses these requirements through modular, relocatable, and refinishable systems: height-adjustable desks with acoustical screening, freestanding phone booths and meeting pods for distributed enclosure, acoustic walls for flexible zoning, and full RAL customisation for design integration.
Is it the complete answer to workplace privacy? Of course not. But it's a legitimate specification strategy for delivering privacy infrastructure within realistic budgets, timelines, and spatial constraints.

The Bottom Line
Privacy in the workplace isn't a user problem or a behavioural problem. It's a design problem, and one we have the tools to solve.
The Steelcase guide provides the research framework. Products like ours provide the implementation toolkit. The question is whether we're designing for the workplace we think people need, or the one the data says they actually require.

The full Steelcase Privacy Design Guide is worth your time—genuine research with practical applications. And if you're working on a project where flexible privacy solutions might be relevant, I'm always happy to discuss specification details or project-specific applications.

What are you seeing in your projects? Are clients asking for more privacy infrastructure? How are you solving for it within existing constraints? Would be interested to hear how you're approaching this.