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Continuing the Auditory Distractions Discussion

April 5, 2010 By

Last Monday we looked at a couple points that Justin Mardex made in a paper he wrote entitled Auditory, visual, and physical distractions in the workplace. Today we are going to continue to look at some more of what Mr. Mardex found in his research about auditory distractions.

Sound masking helps your workers to not even hear their coworkers conversations so they can continue to work in peace.

Mardex looked first at at noise level and how that affects a worker. The study he mentioned, which was done by Keillberg and Landstrom, was about the “relationship between noise, distraction, and annoyance.”  They found that there was a correlation between high levels of noise and annoyance, but not distraction. However, predictability was highly correlated with distraction (i.e. the less predictable the noise, the more distracted you are by it.)

Which leads into the next subject, noise variability. Mardex quotes another study which found that “habituating to consistent noise is easier than to variable noise: consequently constant noise is less annoying overall than variable noise. Therefore a sound with consistent qualities…would be much easier to acclimate to than to noise which that was in some way dynamic.”

In another section of his paper, Mardex looks at the differences between speech and other types of noise. He found that there are colleagues, computers, and other types of office equipment are listed as three of the most problematic office noise disturbances. With colleagues, the problem was with conversations, namely the “information content of their speech.”  They also found that “speech intelligibility is at the center of how disturbing a speech related noise is.” In other words, if you can’t understand what is being said, you are not as distracted by it.  With office equipment, the variability of the noise was the problem. For example, the loudness of the paper shredder or the copy machine.

Sound masking could be of benefit in all of the instances mentioned above. Not only is it a constant noise with no variability, it is not loud enough to be annoying, while maintaining a gentle hum loud enough to cover up conversations and other office noise.  The result is an overall reduction in the amount of distractions a worker is subjected to. As we saw last Friday, most workers just want a quiet place to work. Sound masking can go a long way toward creating an environment where people can focus on their work.

How do you think sound masking could help in your office?

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Let Them Work In Peace

March 29, 2010 By

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!

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Being Proactive

March 15, 2010 By

In today’s difficult economy it is important that you take a proactive approach to your company’s profit margin. Not only are there fewer dollars to go around these days, but it is increasingly competitive to obtain those dollars. You have to continually be proactive and think of new ways to shrink your bottom line and to make a profit.

This is definitely NOT what you want to see in your office!

One way is to better utilize the resources you already have—your workers. The average American worker is distracted more than 2 hours a day, with conversational distraction ranking right after internet usage. That is 2 wasted hours that you are paying for that you are not getting anything in return. Instead of starting an office task force to nag your workers into what they are supposed to be doing, why not take a proactive, but less invasive approach–sound masking.

By masking the source of the distractions, you enable your workers to be more productive without adding unnecessary stress to their work environment. Studies have shown that sound masking increased a worker’s ability to focus on tasks by up to 48% and eliminated distractions (especially conversational distractions) by up to 51%.  With even minor adjustments in the office sound environment a substantial increase in performance and productivity can be seen. 

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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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