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I’ll take 2 more, please

September 25, 2009 By

Would you like 2 more productive hours in your work day? 

Most people would jump at the idea of getting 2 more hours of productivity a day.  But, what if you could get 2 more hours for each of your employees?  That could add up pretty quickly, don’t you think?  It’s a sad fact that the average employee loses several hours of her day as a result of distractions, many of which are completely avoidable with a simple sound masking system. 

Sound masking restores productivity

Similar to the idea of providing a noisy area with white noise, a sound masking system pleasantly restores a peaceful work environment for your workers.  With our Speech Privacy Systems, treated areas don’t suffer the drone of the hustle and bustle of today’s open offices.  Your employees can actually concentrate on their work instead of the dinging of the elevator or the take-out order of the guy 3 cubicles down. 

That means more productivity from each employee.  Who could say no to potentially hundreds more hours of output every day?

 

Malachowski, Dan.  Wasting Time at Work Costing Companies Billions.  Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://www.davidsonstaffing.com/articles/salary/wasted-time/.

 

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Mum’s the word

September 21, 2009 By

Mum’s the word

If only that were true. Then your employees would regain the 2 hours they lose every day to mindless distractions. As it is, open office environments present a host of noisy distractions that even the most zealous worker would find impossible to ignore. Could you tune out Nancy’s proposal story, Bob striking out again, or the rumor that someone brought cookies? Now add in beeping computers, the AC switching on and off, toilets flushing, papers rustling, and doors slamming, and you get a good picture of what your employees face every day they step into the office.

So, what can you do about it?

One website devoted to distractions suggests that you simply have to accept the fact that interruptions such as these are a part of the day. We do not agree. While some interruptions are inevitable, many of the distractions that today’s workers complain about are completely fixable with sound masking. Similar to the concept of white noise, sound masking cancels out unwanted noise, but without the unpleasant sound of static. Help your employees and your bottom line by looking into a simple solution.

Malachowski, Dan. Wasting Time at Work Costing Companies Billions. Retrieved August 10, 2009, from http://www.davidsonstaffing.com/articles/salary/wasted-time/.

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Are your employees slaves to sound?

September 17, 2009 By

Slave to sound

It makes sense to cut costs where you can, especially in this declining economy.  That’s why you have a very efficient cubicle office.  The downside is that without doors, each of your employees is a slave to every word and sound that is emitted in that office…whether they want to be or not.  In fact, more than 70% of surveyed workers said that they could be more productive at work if there were fewer distractions. 

Sound masking

A Cornell study found that, “as sound levels increase, the complexity of the task one can complete generally decreases.”  This means that as the office comes to life, your employees’ ability to concentrate dies. Fortunately, the article didn’t stop there: “the most prevalent way of dealing with excessive noise is through the introduction of an artificial masking noise.”  Like white noise, sound masking cancels out the typical, yet highly distracting sounds found in every American work place, without the aggravating buzz. 

While you can’t make your employees play the quiet game, you can control the role that auditory distractions play in your office.  Contact us to see if a Speech Privacy System is the right fit for your distracted employees.

 

Mardex, J. (2004).  Auditory, visual, and physical distractions in the work place.  Retrieved August 14, 2009, from  http://www.scribd.com/doc/13038258/Auditory-visual-and-physical-distractions-in-the-workplace

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Do actions really speak louder than words?

September 14, 2009 By

Actions can speak louder than words

Did you know that the average worker fritters away more than 2 hours of his or her 8-hour work day? That’s because the average office noise speaks so loudly that your employees can’t take action because they are so incredibly distracted by what’s going on around them.  Whether it’s their own cell phones buzzing or the guy in the cubicle next door making his weekend plans, today’s work force can’t seem to keep their minds on work.

Sound masking

A simple solution for noisy distractions is sound masking, which buries the off-putting clamor that inevitably accompanies open offices. Rather than just providing noise, a Speech Privacy System takes advantage of direct-field technology to provide uniform sound masking to your work space. It is precise and no-maintenance. Once installed, there is no need to budget for tuning or other maintenance. 

By investing in a Speech Privacy System, your company can provide the ideal work environment, one that enables your employees to concentrate on their work rather than limitless distractions.

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On top of business, not in everyone’s business

September 10, 2009 By
An ideal solution

With today’s economy, more and more office managers are looking for ways to boost their business. While we can’t drop sales in your lap, we can offer a solution that keeps your employees on top of your business instead of in everyone else’s business.

Sound masking is an ideal solution in any new or existing building- its sole purpose is to prevent distractions from sidetracking your employees. So, how does it work?   

Getting a little direction

With Speech Privacy Systems, your facility will get the most uniform sound-masking available with maximum result and minimum hassle. That’s because our direct field technology used in the VoiceArrest System is installed directly in the acoustic ceiling, rather than above the ceiling. This placement allows your facility to have the advantage of being pre-tuned to the most effective spectrum. This is possible since the sound is emitted directly into the treated space without interference. 

Another advantage is that you will not have to adjust the frequencies or make allowances for structural variations. Our technology allows you to set the volume to 48 dB for maximum speech privacy, confident that the precision of uniformity will afford your employees a comfortable and pleasant work space with far fewer distractions.  

What’s the bottom line?

The VoiceArrest System consistently delivers virtually perfect spatial and spectral uniformity. And, unlike many investments, there are no long-term maintenance costs to budget for. The frequency balance is stable, and even moving the furnishings won’t affect the quality of privacy you receive. So, as you can see, choosing a Speech Privacy System such as the VoiceArrest System is truly an ideal solution for arresting everyday distractions.

Filed Under: Blog

Distracted at Work

September 7, 2009 By

A little goes a long way

Whether good or bad, it’s often true that a little goes a long way. This is especially true of sound. Whether it’s a co-worker’s squeaky chair or the slam of office doors, today’s employees are complaining that increasing noisy distractions chip into their productivity, thus affecting their ability to turn out good work. A simple solution is sound masking.

What is your goal? 

Sound-masking cancels sound so that your employees can concentrate on their work and not on someone or something else.   As you choose a sound-masking system for your office space, your goal is to maximize your employees’ ability to work by camouflaging typical, but noisy distractions. With this in mind, you want a system that provides consistent, appropriate levels of sound that enable the workers in the building to ignore what could keep them from working efficiently.

How does it work?

Speech Privacy Systems provides a direct field sound masking system for any new or existing building.  Our direct field system is designed to raise the background sound level of a treated area in order to make speech less intelligible.  The more uniformly the sound is delivered to your facility, the more effective the system.  Unlike other options, our system is mounted in the acoustic ceiling itself, thus delivering the most uniform sound masking available to date.

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Do you work at Dundler Mifflin?

September 3, 2009 By

Time flies when you’re wasting it

Have you ever watched “The Office”? Between pranks, personal calls, and inter-office dysfunctional dating, not a whole lot actually gets done. In a given work day, yes, a sale or two are made, but almost in spite of the workers and the distractions they both cause and fall victim to. It’s every worker’s dream and every manager’s nightmare. 

Reclaiming time

Even in a booming economy, loss of focus and attentiveness is never okay. Given our current economic crisis, hard work has never been more essential. So, how can you reclaim that invaluable time? 

You can’t control the stock market, but you can control how many distractions you allow your employees to face in a given day. Phone calls have to be made and machines have to run, but not every worker has to stop working to listen to it. By installing sound masking technology, you minimize the constant disturbances every office has so that your office doesn’t resemble “The Office.”

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