Office pods are small, self-contained workspaces that you put inside a bigger office. They give people a quieter, more private place to focus, make calls or meet, without building new rooms.
You'll also hear them called work pods, meeting pods, acoustic pods, privacy pods or office isolation pods. This guide explains the main types, what they're good for, how quiet a "soundproof" pod really is, and what to check before you buy one.
Understanding the Concept of Office Pods
An office pod is a freestanding structure, so it usually needs no building work. Most are made from panels lined with sound-absorbing material, with a glazed front or door, built-in lighting and a fan for ventilation. Many arrive in sections and are put together on site, so they can be moved if your layout changes.
The point of a pod is simple: a quiet, private space in an open-plan office. People use them for focused work, phone and video calls, one-to-ones and small team meetings.
Types of Office Pod
Pods come in four broad types, and the names are used loosely, so check the size and layout of any model you're looking at.
- Phone booths are for one person, usually standing or perched, for calls and video meetings.
- Work pods are for one person sitting at a small desk, for focused work.
- Meeting pods are enclosed rooms for small groups, usually sold by how many people they seat, such as two, four or six.
- Meeting booths are high-backed seats facing each other across a table, sometimes with a roof. They cut down noise and feel private, but they aren't fully enclosed.
The choice comes down to how private you need it to be. If confidential conversations are the point, choose an enclosed pod. If you mainly want a calmer spot for informal meetings, a booth may be enough. Our post on meeting booths vs conference rooms compares the options in more detail.
Pod, Booth or Meeting Room?
A pod isn't always the answer. A proper meeting room still suits bigger groups, long workshops and meetings that need a lot of wall space or kit. A pod suits short, frequent calls and small meetings, where walking to a meeting room down the corridor feels like too much effort.
Don't assume a built room is quieter, either. Speech can leak through the doors, partitions and ceiling voids of an ordinary meeting room too. Whichever you choose, ask how well it has been tested, not just what it's made of.
How Many Office Pods Do You Need?
A common starting point is about one single-person pod for every 10 people in the office on a busy day, plus a small meeting pod for roughly every 20. Treat that as a rule of thumb, not a target.
Then adjust it to how your team works:
- Calls: count how many people are on calls or video meetings at the same time at your busiest hour.
- Rooms: take account of the meeting rooms you already have, and how often they're full.
- Group size: match the pod sizes to the meetings you actually hold. Most are two to four people.
- Location: put pods near the teams that need them most, such as sales or HR.
Start with fewer, then watch how they're used for a couple of months. Queues mean you need more. Empty pods mean you have enough, or they're in the wrong place.
Benefits of Office Pods: Privacy, Focus and Flexibility
The main benefit of an office pod is fewer distractions. Inside, people can get on with their work away from nearby conversations, ringing phones and general office noise.
Somewhere to Concentrate
Open-plan offices are good for working together but hard for work that needs quiet. A work pod gives people somewhere to go when they need to concentrate, without booking a meeting room or working from home.
Privacy for Calls and Confidential Conversations
A pod gives quieter surroundings. Whether it also gives visual privacy depends on the design, as a clear glazed front can leave people and screens in view. Privacy matters wherever conversations are confidential, such as HR, legal or financial discussions. An enclosed pod keeps most of what's said inside, though none is completely soundproof (more on that below).
If people need visual privacy too, look for frosted or patterned glazing, a manifestation band across the glass, or a pod that faces away from busy walkways. Position any screen so it can't be read from outside.
Clearer Video Calls
Video calls are easier inside a pod. Sound-absorbing panels cut the echo of a bare room, and you're not competing with the noise around you, so the people on the other end can hear you more clearly.
Meeting Space Without Building Work
Meeting pods add small meeting rooms to an open-plan floor without new partition walls. Because they're freestanding, you can move them as your team and your layout change.
A Quiet Place to Step Away
Pods also give people somewhere quiet to step away from a busy open-plan floor for a few minutes. That's one small part of looking after wellbeing in the workplace.
Soundproof Meeting Pods: How Quiet Is Quiet?
No office pod is completely soundproof. A well-made one reduces speech noise enough that people outside can't easily follow a conversation, but raised voices and low sounds can still get through. "Soundproof" in a product name means well insulated, not silent.
To compare soundproof pods for offices, ask for the speech level reduction figure in decibels (dB), measured to the international standard ISO 23351-1. The higher the number, the less of your conversation is heard outside. Be wary of figures quoted without a standard, and of STC ratings, an American measure designed for walls and partitions rather than pods.
ISO 23351-1 also sorts pods into classes by that figure:
- Class A+: more than 33 dB.
- Class A: more than 30 dB, up to 33 dB.
- Class B: more than 25 dB, up to 30 dB.
- Lower classes: 25 dB or less. These reduce speech less, so judge privacy in the place the pod will go.
Choose the class by how private conversations need to be and what's around the pod. Next to busy desks, you'll want a higher class. The same goes for a very quiet office, where there's little background noise to cover a voice.
The figure comes from a laboratory test of the whole pod. How private a real conversation feels also depends on how loudly people talk, how close others sit and how much background noise there is. Ask which model and configuration was tested. If confidentiality matters, try the pod before you buy, or ask for a demonstration.
Some pods are also sold as "noise-cancelling". Most work by blocking and absorbing sound rather than cancelling it electronically, so check what the seller means.
What to Check Before You Buy an Office Pod
A pod is a big purchase that stays in place for years, so it pays to check a few things first.
Size and Space
Start with how many people will use it at once, and for what. Then measure the floor space, including room for the door to open, and check the ceiling height. Make sure the parts will fit through your doors, stairs and lift.
Check the inside as well as the outside. Ask for the internal dimensions, and sketch the table and chairs you plan to use, with room to get in and sit down. Confirm the floor is level and suitable with the supplier or installer.
Access for everyone. Check the door width, the height of any step or lip at the entrance, and the space to turn inside, for anyone who uses a wheelchair or walking aid. Some pods are made in accessible versions, and some can be adapted. Under the Equality Act 2010, employers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled staff, so it's worth asking before you order rather than after.
Installation. Most pods arrive in sections and are put together on site, which usually takes from a few hours to a working day depending on the model and how easy it is to get the parts to the right floor. Ask the supplier how long yours will take, whether they assemble it, and what they need from you, such as lift access, parking and a clear route.
Ask how the pod works with your building's fire alarm and sprinklers, and include it in your fire risk assessment.
For an enclosed pod, compare the inside with the outside. Our Extra Large Sound Proof Meeting Pod measures 2697 × 2000 mm inside and 2000 mm high, but takes up 2825 × 2032 mm of floor and stands 2300 mm tall. So check your ceiling height, and leave room above it for sprinklers, lights and air. Its furniture isn't included, so plan the table and seats into that inside space.
Acoustic Performance
Ask for the speech level reduction in dB to ISO 23351-1, as above. Check that the door closes onto acoustic seals and find out what the glass is made of.
It helps to know the two jobs a pod does with sound:
- Blocking stops your voice getting out. That depends on heavy, well-sealed walls, glazing and doors. Thicker, denser layers block more, and layers kept separate from each other (sometimes called decoupling) stop sound travelling straight through.
- Absorbing stops echo inside. Soft linings such as acoustic foam, felt or mineral wool soak up sound, which is why a good pod sounds "dead" rather than boomy. You may see this quoted as a noise reduction coefficient (NRC) or an absorption class.
A pod needs both. Absorbing panels alone won't stop people outside hearing you. Where the linings sit, the shape of the pod and how well the joints and door hardware are made all play a part, so no single material or thickness proves performance on its own. That's why the tested figure matters.
For example, our extra large meeting pod has 15 mm acoustic panels, an aluminium shell and 10 mm toughened glass. Look for solid joints and a door that shuts firmly every time, because a pod that rattles or gaps after a few months won't keep sound in.
Ventilation and Lighting
An enclosed pod needs a fan to bring in fresh air, or it gets stuffy fast. Ask how often the air inside is changed and how loud the fan is. The lighting should be bright enough to read by and to light your face on video calls.
A few more things to ask:
- Airflow rate: how many cubic metres an hour the fan moves. Our extra large pod is rated up to 200 m³ an hour. With about 10.8 m³ of air inside, that's roughly 18 changes an hour at full setting, on paper.
- Vents: where the air comes in and goes out, and that furniture or a wall won't block them.
- Filters: whether the fan has one, and how it's cleaned or replaced.
- Controls: whether people can adjust the light and fan themselves. Our extra large pod has separate light and fan controls and a motion sensor that switches the lights on.
A pod's fan can only draw on the air around it, so the office itself needs good ventilation too. HSE has guidance on ventilation at work. Clear glass lets in daylight but less privacy, so weigh the two.
Power and Technology
Check how many sockets and USB points the pod has and how it connects to the mains. If you'll use it for video meetings, check there's room for a screen and a camera at a sensible height.
Then check:
- Data: whether there's a wired network (Ethernet) port, or good Wi-Fi inside the pod. Our extra large pod has UK three-pin sockets, USB and Ethernet as standard.
- Cables: how cables get from the pod to the floor box or wall, and where they run inside so nobody trips.
- Your kit: that the screen connections and any room camera or speakerphone work with the laptops and video-call software your team already uses.
- Brainstorming: wall space for a whiteboard, or a screen people can share and annotate, if the pod is for team meetings.
- Later upgrades: room and fixing points to add a screen or swap kit without taking the pod apart.
Furniture and Finish
Check what furniture comes with it. A work pod needs a desk and a comfortable chair, and a meeting pod needs a table and seating for everyone. Then choose finishes and colours that suit the rest of your office.
Think about how people will work inside. A work pod can take a height adjustable desk if it's big enough, so people can sit or stand, and a chair that adjusts to each user. In a meeting pod, ask whether the table and seats can be moved around for different formats, within the number of people the pod is built for. Check that everything fits the internal space, not just the floor plan.
What Affects the Cost
Size is only part of it. The tested acoustic class, the glass, the ventilation, power and AV kit, the finishes and how hard the pod is to get into your building all change what you pay. When you compare a pod with building a meeting room, compare like with like: walls, door, lighting, ventilation, power and the disruption of building work, against a pod that can move with you when your layout or lease changes.
The Future of Office Pods: Trends to Watch
Pods are getting smarter and more flexible. Some newer designs include smart controls, adjustable lighting and personal climate settings. Natural materials, plants and plenty of glass for daylight are popular too, to make pods feel less like boxes.
Modular designs are another trend: pods that come in different sizes and layouts, with a choice of interiors, so they can change as your needs do. Whatever the trend, the job stays the same: a quiet, private space in a busy office. To compare sizes and layouts, browse our meeting pods and booths.
