Office Noise | Office Sound Masking

2 Distraction Aids: Time Blocking & White Noise Machines

September 14, 2010 By Emily

The cost of distractions

As a manager, you know that distractions have a cost. Usually it’s loss of focus/productivity, and therefore money. A distracted worker is a disengaged worker. Disengaged workers lose their sense of ownership in a project or task and also make more mistakes. They usually suffer more stress and even miss work more frequently. Sadly, disengaged workers also turn over faster, and training their replacements is costly. Add it all up and it’s a rather large price tag: $600 billion. That’s right, distractions cost businesses hundreds of billion of dollars every year.

2 Tips for Avoiding Distraction at Work

To regain your workers’ attention and focus, it’s smart to enable them to have distraction-free solo work. For many, time blocking allows for this.

Time Block. The basic idea is to cut away from all the turmoil in your office and devote a specific block of time to working on a project. You set a start and stop time and during that period you focus on your work. This means you shut down any unnecessary electronics and anything that rings. You can do it, I promise. With fewer (or no) distractions, you should be able to make some progress.

However, not all offices offer conference rooms for regular work, nor do they have enough rooms to house every distracted worker. Another effective time-saver and productivity-booster is the use of a white noise machine.

White noise machines. By using white noise, you cover office distractions. With a simple desktop generator, you can block out office noise and get to work because your mind is more focused. You can hold a thought long enough to process it, and you aren’t drawn into unnecessary chatter.

Half the battle of reclaiming lost time at work is having a game plan. By time blocking and covering noise, you allow your workers’ brains much needed-time to process and recalibrate.

Filed Under: Business, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, time blocking, white noise machines

The economy stinks…get over it.

December 17, 2009 By Bruce

If your business is struggling, you’re not alone. Many companies are laying off up to a third of their employees. So, yeah, the economy stinks, but it doesn’t have to kill your business. So, whether you have a huge or tiny work force, you need to be efficient because it’s the efficient companies that thrive. Here is one way to look at being efficient as it interplays with being effective:

"Efficient" is defined as working without waste or using a minimum of time, effort and expense. But, the definition is silent about the goals of the operation. A person can be very efficient at what they are doing but still not get to where they want to be because they aren’t doing the right things. That’s where "effective" comes in. "Effective" means "having the desired result". Once the desired overall result is defined, the tasks leading to the result can be isolated and these tasks can then be completed efficiently….

So, while your business’s specific goals will determine how to be effective, being efficient is a little more universal. In fact, the average worker wastes 2 or more hours a day because he is distracted by conversations, ringing and/or buzzing phones, and who knows what else…A loss of 2 hours per employee is not exactly efficient. One option might be sound masking. Most people can’t work in ceaseless clamor, but at the same time, they can’t be productive in silence either. Sound masking is like white noise in that it provides a low-level "hum" that can help workers to tune out irritating distractions that keep them from being productive. Many companies and small businesses have found that plugging the leak of conversational distractions is more than worth the initial investment.

Filed Under: Blog, Business, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: conversational distractions, effective, efficiency, layoffs, Sound Masking, white noise

Budget Cuts

December 15, 2009 By Bruce

If you’re like many managers, you’ve had to cut your staff this year. It’s easy to assume that you can’t maintain, much less increase, productivity with the staff you have left after lay offs. So, if time is money, then you need more time. Sound impossible? What if you could reclaim hours of lost time?

The average employee is distracted more than 2 hours every day
That same employee is interrupted more than 70 times per day
80% of surveyed employees said that these distractions limited their ability to focus

It’s no wonder that being distracted that often curbs productivity. What is shocking is that only 20% of managers were aware of the reported distractions and their effects.

How can you increase your productivity?

If your employees are distracted hours on end, then might be time to consider un-distracting them. You probably can’t ban cell phones or loud shoes, but you can reduce the effect these annoying distractions have on your workers. One option is sound masking. It’s like "white noise" in that it adds low-level background sound to reduce the intelligibility of surrounding noises. The result is that most workers are able to tune out distractions and focus on work.

Times are tough. There’s no question about that. The problem is that a struggling economy simply does not allow for less productivity. Your clients still expect your very best- and if you can’t give them your best, they’ll go to someone who can.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, increase productivity, lay offs, Sound Masking, white noise

The disengaged worker

December 11, 2009 By Bruce

Distraction=Disengagement

In one study of 11 surveyed buildings, 80% of workers felt that the noise levels distracted them to the point of not being able to get their work done. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the average worker is distracted more than 2 hours every day, thus making him a disengaged employee. A study by the Towers-Perrin Group found a 52% gap in one-year operating income, when comparing companies with highly engaged employees versus companies with disengaged employees. High engagement companies improved 19.2% while low engagement companies declined 32.7% in operating income over the study period. Furthermore, according to an American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) study, workers in offices with even small acoustic treatments:

Were 48% more focused on their work
51% less distracted, resulting in
10% fewer errors and a
27% decrease in worker stress

While it’s understandable that office distractions drastically reduce a worker’s ability to concentrate and work attentively, it’s your job to find a way around them. By implementing sound masking technology, you have the ability to override those noisy distractions in order to enable each worker to realize his or her potential every hour of every day.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, employee disengagement, Sound Masking, worker stress

Inevitable, but solvable

December 9, 2009 By Bruce

Distractions at work are an all-too-familiar occurrence. In fact, our beloved best friend and infamous distractor, the Internet, provides many helpful tips for dealing with distractions, most of which are based on the fact that distractions are inevitable. One wesbite did suggest that there are 3 options for dealing with distractions:

· Running

· Hiding

· Fighting

While distractions may indeed be an inevitable part of an open office, your employees do not have to accept them as timewasters. Let’s take a look at that thrid option: fighting. The best way to fight distraction is to tune it out with sound masking. With the gentle swoosh like that of an HVAC system, sound masking allows your workers to do just that- work- instead of getting caught up in distractions more than 2 hours every day. The best thing about sound masking is that it covers noise, yet is barely perceptible itself.

If you’d like to improve your bottom line, give sound masking a chance.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, office noise, Sound Masking

Takin’ care of business

December 5, 2009 By Bruce

Do you remember Christmas Vacation where Chevy Chase waits to whole movie for his Christmas bonus? He dreams of what his bonus will bring, like a swimming pool- complete with a gorgeous girl, no less. Sadly, as you surely remember, the Griswolds don’t get a new pool- they get enrolled in a jelly of the month club.

How do improve your bottom line, but with fewer resources than ever?

Unfortunately, that’s what this economy has done this Christmas season- except you don’t even get jelly out of it. You have to maximize the resources you do have: your employees. The heart of your productivity lies with your workers. Whether you have a staff of 1 or 100, each of your workers could be more productive. They say that the average worker is not working due to distractions for more than 2 hours a day, which resulted in an estimated loss of $600 billion last year. That’s a lot of money to lose over an easily-resolved, but obviously all too common problem.

Takin’ care of business

You can reclaim your chunk of the $600 billion with a simple solution: sound masking. Not unlike white noise, sound masking is the addition of low-level background noise to enable your employees to do what they came for- work. You might be surprised how much more focused workers are with fewer distractions, not to mention less stressed.

If more productive and less stressed workers sound good this Christmas season, sound masking might be the best option for your company.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, noisy office, stress at work, white noise

Sustainability

December 3, 2009 By Bruce

Sustainability is the word of the day. Even shows like Top Chef show a concern for sustainability when they ask competing chefs to cook with "sustainable" products- those that are environmentally-friendly, as well as renewable.

In the business world, you might not think sustainability applies to you. You’re not exactly cutting down trees or catching salmon. However, you do have to put forth a product that meets you current and future needs without depleting the resources you already have. For you, sustainability is using what you have without squandering it.

So, what do you have?

Your resources are your employees and their time spent working. And, if you’re like most companies these days, you have already lost quite a few of your workers to a cut-throat economy. That means your second resource- their work time- is even more crucial. Thus, it might be horrifying to discover that Average Worker loses more than 2 hours of work day to distractions, namely conversational ones.

Sound masking

Rather than throwing your employees’ cell phones out the window (they’re not exactly biodegradable) or banning personal conversations, you might consider sound masking. Similar to white noise, sound masking provides low level background noise to render intruding speech and noises less intelligible. It’s not that your workers need silence (in fact, most complain that silence is even more distracting!), they just need an environment that doesn’t lend itself to unintentional eavesdropping. Let’s be honest- it’s hard to focus on work when the latest gossip is right inside your grasp.

In this economy, every minute counts. Don’t lose another to an easily-resolved problem.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, office noise, sustainability, white noise

Stuffed

November 27, 2009 By Bruce

You’ve eaten your turkey and pumpkin pie and are appropriately stuffed. It’s less than a month until Christmas. The holidays should be a time of thanksgiving, celebration, and joy. Instead you are stressed, looking for ways to improve your bottom line in a tough economy. You have fewer workers but the same- if not higher- expectations for a brighter new year. It’s can feel daunting when you look to the future.

Interestingly, you’re not alone in your stress. Besides the inevitable tension a declining economy ushers in, your employees are distracted and stressed in their distraction. You probably already know that most workers are unfocused at times during the work day. What you might not know is that:

the average worker is distracted more than 2 hours every day
most workers feel stress as a result of that distraction

In fact, disengaged workers:

are 18% less productive
have 27% higher rates of absenteeism
are 20-40% more likely to seek employment elsewhere
make 40% fewer attempts at problem-solving
experience more stress-related injuries as a result of not making ergonomic adjustments

Your company cannot afford loss of productivity, in addition to high rates of turn-over. On the other hand, you can afford an ideal solution. Sound masking is the addition of low-level background sound to reduce the impact of ambient noise. Employees in treated areas feel less stress and are noticably more engaged and therefore more productive. Tough times call for creative measures. Give us a try.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distraction, office noise, productivity, Sound Masking

Back in the black

November 24, 2009 By Bruce

You can hardly drive down a street without seeing a "For Sale" sign posted…by owner no less. Many companies are shutting down and few can find their way out of the red and into the black. The economy has hit us all. Yet, that same economy still expects the same productivity regardless of the inevitable loss of workers.

You probably know that the average employee is unproductive more than 2 hours every day as a result of distractions. Not only are distracted employees unproductive, but their loss of concentration ushers in unnecessary stress and stress-related injuries (such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome). Thus, each unfocused hour adds up to the $700 billion lost last year because of distractions.

How do you get the same reuslts with fewer resources?

The answer is to maximize what you already have by reducing distractions. Endless noisy distractions may seem part and parcel to working in an office. You can’t exactly tell your employees to quit making phone calls or to wear rubber-soled shoes. But you can help your workers not to notice every sound. Similar to white noise, sound masking adds a low-level background noise that covers irritating noise.

In times like these, you just can’t afford not to take action.

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: distractions, office noise, Sound Masking

Free association with noise

November 16, 2009 By Bruce

Connotation

What do you think of when you hear the word noise? Here are a few online definitions of "noise:"

Noise (noun): noiz

sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant sound); "he enjoyed the street noises"; "they heard indistinct noises of people talking …
the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality; sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience; "modern music is just noise to me"
electrical or acoustic activity that can disturb communication
a loud outcry of protest or complaint; "the announcement of the election recount caused a lot of noise"; "whatever it was he didn’t like it and he was going to let them know by making as loud a noise as he could"
incomprehensibility resulting from irrelevant information or meaningless facts or remarks; "all the noise in his speech concealed the fact that he didn’t have anything to say"
make noise: emit a noise
randomness: the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan
any unwanted sound and in both analog and digital electronics, noise is an unwanted random addition to a wanted signal.

It’s interesting that noise actually is a neutral term- it really is just a sound of any kind. Yet, the first connotation most people have when they think of noise is that of being irritated or distracted by it. That’sbecause most people associate noise with not being able to relax or concentrate. So, whether it’s trying to fall asleep or attempting to be productive at work, noise is not a friendly interruption. In fact, the average worker finds herself distracted more than 2 hours a day. In a tough economy 2 hours day per worker is not a welcome sacrifice for any business.