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?

‘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!

Distractions may not seem like a big problem.  Maybe your employees shoot off a few unnecessary texts or answer a couple personal calls.  Everybody does, right?  That’s the problem.  Everybody does, which means that the average worker loses more than two hours every day to distractions.  In fact, the work place, and open offices in general, have become so distracting that more than 70% of surveyed workers said that their productivity would be increased if their work place were less noisy.

How do you conduct business with less sound? 

While you can try to ban personal calls, you can’t keep people from making business calls, closing doors and flushing toilets.  That’s the cost of doing business.  But you can minimize the distraction level with sound masking.  Sound masking functions like white noise, cancelling out unwanted and distracting noise.  Unlike white noise, however, sound masking can be distributed uniformly and at the lowest volume necessary for maximum productivity.  That way, you’re not trading one problem for another. 

Contact us for more information on how to keep your employees focused on what really counts: work.

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

Mardex, Justin. (2004) Auditory, visual, and physical distractions in the workplace.  Retrieved August 17, 2009 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/13038258/Auditory-visual-and-physical-distractions-in-the-workplace

Whether intentionally or not, the average employee spends more than two hours of her work day distracted.  She starts a task and hears a phone ring.  She wonders who it is and whether it is a personal call.  She refocuses, only to hear the elevator ding.  She tries again and hears the copier start, so she leaves her desk to chat with her co-worker making copies.  Regardless of good intentions, this employee doesn’t stand a chance of being productive for more than a few minutes at a time.

Business must go on

We are in the worst recession in decades, yet deadlines and quotas must be met- all with less resources than you’ve ever had.  Getting work done with fewer staff in the same eight-hour day seems impossible.  Fortunately it isn’t.  Many companies like yours have turned to sound masking as a solution for office distractions.  Similar to the concept of white noise, treated areas are immune to the noisy interruptions that every open office inevitably has.  And, with direct-field technology, our system is precise and uniform, resulting in a quieter and more productive work environment for your employees. 

When resources are scarce, turn to a solution that is precise and no-maintenance.

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