You are here: Home / Archives for noise

The Problem with Distracted, Disengaged Workers

February 1, 2012 By

Why Are Workers Distracted?

Workers are distracted.  There’s no denying it.  And we’re not talking about a few minutes here and a few minutes there- rather, studies consistently show that the average worker is distracted more than 2 hours every day.  Read that again- 2 hours every day!!  That really adds up when you multiply it by every worker in your office.  The obvious next question, then, is why are workers so distracted?  What is grabbing their attention for so long, and can you rid yourself of it, thus freeing up their time to work again?

Study after study and worker after worker will tell you that the main problem is office noise.  Any mother of a napping-aged child will tell you how devastating unwanted noise is.  We all know that unwanted noise is intrusive and usually interrupts our train of thought, thus proving quite distracting. The problem with distraction is that it leads to stress and mistakes.  Distracted workers feel frustrated because they lose so much time that they often end up either not meeting deadlines or working evenings and/or weekends to make up the time.  In addition, distracted workers make more mistakes than focused workers. Being stressed, error-prone, and weekend warriors leads us back to where we started: frustration.

Distracted Workers are Disengaged Workers

All of this contributes to what is called a disengaged worker, or a worker who has lost connection with his job.  The problem with disengaged workers is that they cost businesses billions of dollars a year due to

  • loss of productivity
  • errors
  • work-related stress/injuries
  • more sick days
  • frequent turn-over
And that is why disengaged workers are frustrated- they are stressed, losing time, and experiencing more illness and turn-over.  Unfortunately, even a new job doesn’t tune out distractions, so the same problems just keep repeating themselves.  The only real solution is sound masking, the use of white noise to provide a low-level background noise to cover ambient noise that causes so much distraction.  Sound masking is highly effective against office noise.
If distracted workers are problem for you, check out sound masking for more productive employees.
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,

Why Call Centers Need Sound Masking

January 25, 2012 By

Noise Problems for Call Centers

As a stay at home, work from home mother who plans all day how to get dinner on the table with all 4 members of my family present, there is little I like less than some sort of sales call.  As I am seating kids and dishing up and hoping the baby stays asleep, I’m not exactly hoping that someone calls to ask me to donate money either.  As good as the cause might be, it’s just a hard time of day.  I’m not a jerk about it, I’m just not that open to giving away money or my personal information at that time.  Now, throw in background noise that makes me strain to hear whoever is talking to me, as I am measuring if this is a legit call or not, and I’m pretty much going to hang up.  I don’t know of anyone who wants to volunteer credit card information or other personal details in such an unprofessional context.

I can only imagine this is not what the manager of a call center wants to hear.  However, it’s the very thing he or she needs to hear!  If your product if worth buying or your cause worth investing in, take the time to make me feel safe and comfortable.  It is my opinion that the call center is responsible for providing a professional and personal call experience for their customers.  Unfortunately, as seen above, call centers suffer from many sound problems that do not allow for successful business practices:

  • Background sound, even other callers, can make a customer feel like a number instead of a person.
  • The same background noise can be quite distracting for both customer and caller.
  • When a potential customer hears all this, it only adds to the feeling that their personal information is up for grabs.

Noise Solutions for Call Centers

As a result, as you plan a call center or seek to resolve the common noise problems therein, here a few things you should consider:

  • Keep callers separated if possible so that they are not shoulder to shoulder as they make calls.
  • Partitions or sound-absorbing panels can lessen ambient sound.
  • Some companies offer headsets that help the callers focus on the customers and not the noise around them.
  • Finally, consider sound masking, which aides both the caller and the customer because both can hear the other person and not the craziness in the call center itself.

The goal of a call center is to get current or potential customers or donors to stay on the line, listen attentively, and be heard themselves.  This kind of interaction is only possible if the customer feels like an individual and that their personal and financial information can be given without fear of it being spread beyond the intended hearer.  If you consider these factors as you plan your call center, your chances for success are exponentially higher.

Thus, if background noise is a problem for your call center, consider sound masking for a reduction of distractions and increased speech privacy if you’d like to have a successful conversation with potential customers or donors.

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,

Sound Masking Suggestion for Hotels

November 14, 2011 By

Dear Hotel Managers-

As a frequent patron of your facilities, I have a simple request.  I understand that you can not control how loud other patrons are or who sleeps when, but as a paying customer myself, I would truly appreciate any help you can offer in aiding my family’s ability to sleep and generally enjoy our stay with you.  From partying futbolistas in Mexico City to drunk party-goers everywhere to businessmen and women who simply keep different hours than our children, we have been plagued for the past 5 years with an inability to actually rest in your establishments.  Now, I’ll admit we don’t always choose the poshest hotels since they’re not usually in our budget, but at the same time, the whole point of any hotel is to give any person a place to stay overnight and get rest.

In sum, people are people and they make noise.  Throw in slamming doors, loud footsteps, dripping faucets, blaring televisions, and it’s a nightmare for you, too, because people like me complain about it.  Actually, I don’t complain, I just don’t go back to that establishment, nor do I recommend it to my friends.  Thus, my noise issue becomes your noise issue because you lose business over it.

It may seem that my problem is unavoidable- you win some, you lose some.  However, I have a simple suggestion/request: sound masking.  There are several forms of effective sound masking, none of which require aesthetic or structural changes to your hotel.  There are 2 options, both of which utilize white noise:

  1. A Sound Masking System: this system emits white noise through in-ceiling speakers to cover noise.  It adds low-level background noise to mask unwanted noise in a larger area, such as a conference room or a block of rooms.
  2. A Sound Machine: sound machines are individual solutions for one room at a time.  since some patrons don’t care about noise, this is a nice option for those of us who do.  Simply keep some sound machines at the front desk and have them ready for distribution upon request or when someone like me comes down and complains.
It’s not just businesses that lose money over noise problems; hotels lose patrons as a result of unwanted sound.  A simple, effective solution is sound masking.
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

Sound Masking for Coffee Shops

March 17, 2011 By

Why Do You Go to a Coffee Shop?

Have you ever gone to your favorite coffee shop just to sip a cuppa and enjoy being relaxed?

  • Or what about escaping from work so you can actually work?
  • Maybe you went to meet up with friends and have a good chat.
  • Or you ended a great dater there for an easy conversation and sweet bite after dinner.
  • Possibly, you needed a quiet place to study.

No matter why you went, you had a purpose: to relax, to chat with friends, to work, to get to know someone, or to find a quiet place to study.  Diverse as they are, all those reasons take you to the same spot: the local coffee shop.

What’s interesting about that shop is that each person can get frustrated because they feel thwarted in their mission.  The guy who needs quiet glares at the chatty girls.  The couple on a date feel like every word is overheard by the girl just trying to work {who can’t help but eavesdrop on this seeming painful date!}.  It’s a tricky one because each patron is welcomed, yet infringes on other’s needs or preferences.

Fighting Noise with Noise

A common solution is music.  A good option in theory, music can have a calming effect on the diners and coffee drinkers, but it can also irritate many who do not care for that style {or even volume} of music.  Music can be very distracting for those who wish to work or study and find themselves typing lyrics rather than figures.

Where does this leave us?  A somewhat revolutionary idea, I present to you…sound masking.  It works in offices around the world as a distraction reducer and speech privacy booster.  Why not in a coffee shop, too?  You may not link white noise and cafe naturally, but if you use the right kind of white noise, nature sounds for example, you can achieve a pretty tranquil place that protects conversations and provides a safe haven for those who need a break from voices.  Plus, many sound masking systems can function with music, which could be used during high traffic times.

While sound masking is traditionally used as a deterrent for noisy distractions and increased productivity, it can also help create a relaxing environment and boost speech privacy even in a coffee shop.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,

Sound Masking for Call Centers

December 22, 2010 By

Sound Masking for Call Centers

Call centers are by nature quite loud.  Dozens, if not hundreds, of call reps are making calls at all hours of the day at the same time, practically shoulder to shoulder.  When people call into a call center, or receive a call from one, and notice background noise and chatter, they are likely to regard the center as a waste of time a6 the very least, or a fraud risk at worst. If your call center deals with any kind of customer service, you will be open to issues of call sensitivity, as well.

This is where sound masking comes in.  Sound masking makes it tougher to identify speech by filling in spaces in the sound spectrum without changing the frequency of sound waves. Furthermore, when properly installed, sound masking greatly improves the enivronment and actually reduce costs.  Conversations held in the center are more secure, and the equipment that guarantees this security is quite subtle. Masking will also make it less likely that clients and customers will overhear personal and sensitive information that is spoken aloud.  In addition to more private conversations, sound masking improves worker health in that background noise is a stressor. Providing a workplace that is protected from extraneous noise is very important for employees.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,

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?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

More stress, fewer solutions…that’s not good

December 27, 2009 By

More stress, less problem-solving, and fewer ergonomic adjustments does not inspire creative, efficient work.

A Cornell study found the following to be true (emphasis mine):

The environmental psychologists found that the workers in the noisy office experienced significantly higher levels of stress (as measured by urinary epinephrine), made 40 percent fewer attempts to solve an unsolvable puzzle and made only half as many ergonomic adjustments to their workstations as did their colleagues in quiet offices. Typing performance, however, was not affected.

With a cut-throat economy and the need for creative solutions, now is not the time to increase stress, while simultaneously decreasing the ability to problem-solve and make needed adjustments to one’s workspace.  If you need your employees just to type, then you don’t need to worry about acoustic treatments, so that’s good news.  Otherwise, you might want to consider making acoustic adjustments so your employees can make the adjustments necessary to get their work done.  Interestingly, the same study reported (emphasis mine):

“In terms of practice, our findings are potentially important, because if worker motivation is lower under open-office noise because of its uncontrollability, various design options could be adopted. For example, when concentration is required, workers might use a quiet, enclosed room or sound-making devices that they would control. These kinds of measures might help alleviate the harmful effects of open-office noise on workers.”

There are a variety of sound masking units and systems currently available on the market.  Some can be installed office-wide and others can be installed for individual use and adjustment.  Either way, sound masking is a relatively simple and cost effective measure to take for you and your employees to get the most out of each work day.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

Free association with noise

November 16, 2009 By

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. 

Sound masking

Your company doesn’t have to lose productivity to distractions in the work place.  A simple and easy solution is sound masking.  You can’t rid your office of distracting noise, but you can cover it with a low-level background sound similar to white noise.  By camoflaging irritating and distracting noise, you and your employees can reclaim those lost hours of unprodictivity. 

Filed Under: Blog, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: , , ,
October 21, 2009 By

Speech is Silver, Silence is Golden

If the average worker is distracted, it usually takes almost half an hour to get back to his work or task.  At least there aren’t that many distractions, right?  Wrong.  Today’s employees feel frazzled by how often they are interrupted by co-workers’ conversations, phone calls, machinery noise, and slamming doors.  In fact, the average worker loses more than two hours of his work day as a result of such unwanted distractions. 

Sound masking is the new “silence” 

It’s not that your employees actually need silence even.  Rather it’s that they need a work environment conducive to concentration and cohesive thought.   Sound masking provides that by cancelling unwelcome distractions with a uniform, not to mention pleasant, sound.  Plus, our pre-tuned technology is designed for easy installation and no maintenance.   

You simply can’t afford to have your employees distracted by everyday occurrences such as these.  Contact us to find out more about what you can afford for your employees’ productivity.

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

Co-mingling leads to co-ringing

October 12, 2009 By

Co-mingling and co-ringing

There’s a reason dating a co-worker is frowned upon in most work places- it’s not that you don’t want your employees to experience a great relationship with someone in your office, it’s that you don’t want them constantly distracted when they should be working. 

Along the same lines, modern technology in open offices presents similar distractions.  Rather than concentrating on their work and meeting their deadlines, most employees find it challenging to keep their mind on the task at hand.  As soon as they do begin to focus, someone’s phone rings or the workers three cubicles down congregate to share a laugh about the weekend’s antics.  Who could ignore that?

Tuning it out

You’ve probably figured out that you can hardly ask, much less force, your employees to tune out noisy distractions.  But you can help them not become distracted by them in the first place by implementing a sound masking system.  Instead of random and sharp distractions, a sound masking system delivers a uniform and peaceful background hum that enables workers to…well, work.  And who could pass that up?

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