In 2004, Justin Mardex, who at the time was a Masters student at Cornell University in the department of Design and Environmental Analysis, wrote a paper about “Auditory, Visual, and Physical Distractions in the Workplace” and has graciously published it online. (What a guy.) In this paper, he quotes some eye opening statistics and I would like to highlight a couple of them. We are focusing on auditory distractions, but the entire paper is worth a read should you have spare time this afternoon.
‘Ability to do distraction free solo work’
The first startling statistic he quotes is from a study done in 2002. “In a survey of 13000 office employees, the workplace attribute found to be most effective was the ‘ability to do distraction free solo work‘ followed by ‘support for impromptu interactions (both in one’s workspace and elsewhere.)” These employees just want a place where they can think and work by themselves, unless they need help or need to bounce some ideas off of someone else.
Improved Productivity
Mardex also quotes some findings by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). This group did a national survey and found that “more than 70 percent of respondents indicated that their productivity would improve if their workspace was less noisy. A similar ASID survey of corporate executives indicated that only 19 percent were conscious of any sort of noise problem.” In other words, the workers say they would just like a quiet place to work ,and their management is unaware of the problem.
You are aware of a problem if you are reading this site. Your workers would like a quiet place to work, but still have the (much needed) freedom to share ideas and provide important feedback on work that is being done. They also feel that if they are given a quiet place to work, their productivity will go up. We think the best way to facilitate this is sound masking. It is loud enough to drown out conversational distractions, but unlike headphones or strict rules about noise, still allows for discussions. According to these studies, your workers will thank you for it.
Next Monday, we will highlight some other points that Mr. Mardex made in his very helpful paper. See you then!