Office Noise
US businesses lose $600 billion a year to distractions.
If you knew there was a problem that cost US businesses $600 billion a year, would you be concerned? What if you knew that problem could be resolved? How likely would you be to find and implement that solution? I imagine most managers wouldn’t rest until they knew what the problem was and how to fix it.
Problem: Office Distractions
Solution: Better Focus through white noise machines
Office distractions might not seem as sinister as they really are. Can water cooler gossip, loud sales guys, and slamming doors really cost us $600 billion? Yes. When you add up all those little and medium-sized noises over the course of a day, you end up seeing that the average employee is distracted more than 2 hours a day. When you multiply 2 hours a day times 5 days a week and get 10 hours and then multiply that by the number of employees you have on staff, you start to see a whole lot more zeros. Loss of time is loss of productivity, and loss of productivity is loss of money. In this economy, nay in any economy, loss of money is never good.
Now, back to the solution. Instead of banning conversation or anything of a decibel level over a pin dropping, you can cover sound. In fact, you have 2 effective sound covering options.
- Office-wide sound masking
- Individual white noise machines
Sound masking is meant to treat large offices, conference rooms, or any larger treated area, such as a block of cubicles. Speakers are mounted within the ceiling tiles themselves and emit low-level white noise so that the barin can tune out distracting noises and stay sharper.
White noise machines do the same thing, but at a desktop level and for individuals (rather than a number of people or offices).
When choosing whether to mask sound with a system or individual machines, it’s wise to consider the amount of space you’re treating. If you only have problem areas in scattered spots, it might be sage to invest in a few machines and place them for a few individuals. However, if you need more than a few machines, it would probably be wiser to invest in an office-wide system.