Most distractions at work are annoying...and they all cost something.

Regardless of the time of year or the weather outside or the deadlines looming, most workers find themselves distracted more than 2 hours every day.  A 2-hour loss of productivity is quite a hit in this economy where every minute counts.  It’s essential that we keep our minds on task and our heads out of the clouds.

If you ask the average worker what distracts him or her, you’d get a variety of answers, most of which are external distractions (meaning not their own fault).  In fact, surveyed workers say that all they want is a chance to do distraction-free solo work, work that doesn’t get constantly interrupted by seemingly unnecessary meetings or office chatter.

Sound Machine (aka white noise machine)

A simple, inexpensive solution for distraction is use of a sound machine.  Sound machines have many advantages and few disadvantages.  Sound machines come in a variety of shapes and sizes and offer a host of features that are usually adjustable for individual users.

How does white noise work?

Sound machines use white noise to help the brain tune out unwanted noises.  The result is two-fold: The brain is literally tricked into not perceiving various noises.  By not hearing or processing distracting sounds, the worker stays on track and disciplines his or her mind not to wander.

The cool thing is that while they help you get past intrusive noises, the white noise machine itself isn’t so loud that it issues a equally disturbing noise.  In fact, the worker in the cubicle next door is usually fairly oblivious to it even being turned on.  Plus, the user can choose what type of white noise to use from a myriad of nature sounds or a gentle hum like that of an HVAC system.

Why Go with Individual Machines?

White noise machines are much more efficient than headphones for covering office noise.  White noise usually keeps the mind focuses, whereas listening to music may end up becoming way more of a distraction that the office noise.  On the other extreme, while many businesses opt for office-wide sound masking, sometimes they find it prudent to treat small offices or individual cubicles with white noise machines instead.  This way, only some areas are treated, which might be all that is needed.

Do your employees struggle to stay focused or to meet deadlines?  Most workers are distracted more than 2 hours every day.  It could be co-worker chatter, phone calls, constant computer correspondence, and the list goes on forever.  Regardless of the cause, most workers feel frustrated by the end of the day, having accomplished little on their to-do list, knowing that tomorrow will likely be no better.  For some, it’s a monotonous cycle of chasing a seemingly elusive goal or deadline, while for others, it means extra nights and weekends and less time with family and friends.  You can see the problem.

2 Tips for Increasing Focus and Productivity

Part of increasing productivity is making the office more work-friendly.  Here are 2 easy ways to do just that.

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  It's important for workers to feel like they have time to work and not to be distracted.

  Time Blocking.  Some go-getter, self-motivated employees will do this for themselves, but most will simply get caught in the rut of feeling unproductive and therefore living a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You should encourage time blocking for your staff.  Whether it’s an office-wide plan or open to individualization, allow your employees the opportunity to set certain boundaries on when they’re going to work on what.  For instance, it may be that the first hour of the day is spent checking and prioritizing emails and messages.  Then, the next 2 hours are spent isolated in a conference room for a specific project.  Or, it could be that certain teams need to meet at a mutually agreed upon time and they set up in a private room.  Whatever the routine is, every employee needs to know that he or she will have time to get to their actual work.

• Sound Masking.  It’s one of those counter-intuitive things, kind of like children sleeping well at night often makes them more likely to sleep well during the day. Similarly, adding noise to a noisy office actually helps your brain focus.  By adding soft unstructured noise to the office, the brain is able to focus on that consistent noise instead of the millions of diverse, and therefore distracting, sounds surrounding them.  The result is more engaged, productive workers.

Regardless of the economy, workers are distracted.  So, in these tough times, loss of productivity hurts even more. Enable your workers to get focused by allowing them freedom to schedule out blocks of time and by decreasing office noise.

What lengths would you go to to deal with office noise?

I work in an open-plan office which is shared by several disparate teams. What the team on the other side of my partition actually do[es] I know not, other than that it appears to be something hilarious as their conversations are frequently punctuated by loud laughter that reverberates around the entire floorplace. I’ve tried looking daggers at them whenever a particularly noisy guffaw interrupts my train of concentration, but I am tempted to ask of them: “If there’s a joke, let’s all share it!” Can you suggest an alternative approach?
Louisa Radice, Exeter

Stunning Stentor! Lord of the loud-mouths. Red ear-plugs, as worn by tractor drivers? Wax from the chemist? To work in open-plan one has to cultivate an invisible carapace that cuts out extraneous noise. It is the job of the manager to cut out stentorian uproar that distracts others from their work. For Puck’s sake do not look daggers. You will make your neighbours laugh louder, and get yourself a reputation as a spoilsport and a prude.

I have to agree.  While the complaint is noteworthy, the response is dead-on: It is the job of the manager to cut out stentorian uproar that distracts others from their work.

Attention, all managers!

Did you know that your employees look to you to solve office noise issues?  The average employee loses more than 2 hours every day because of distractions like the one described above.  Interestingly, most employees do not appreciate this loss.  Your job is to keep your workers focused- not by micro-managing, but through reasonable means, such as sound masking.  Sound masking is the use of white noise to help your employees tune out irritating distracting noises so they can focus on their work.  Many sound masking systems can be installed directly in the ceiling tiles themselves, so while highly effective, they are practically invisible.

Distractions cost businesses over $500 billion every year, possibly as much as $700 billion.  What do you want to bet your company has a piece of that?

If you answered no, then you are in a small minority indeed.  The fact of the matter is that national averages show that between $500 and $700 billion are lost each year as a result of office distractions, such as a noisy environment.  Office noise may be as simple as whirring machines or as complicated as intermittent conversations and sales calls.  And while much office noise can be contributed to the employees themselves, most employees do complain about it because it keeps them from completing their tasks quickly or effectively.  In fact, many employees lose their evenings and weekends due to unfinished work.

What can you do about office noise?  You can’t exactly ban sales calls or unplug crucial machinery to provide a silent office.  Actually, most workers find that silence is even deadlier than too much noise.  (Can you imagine what the loss to productivity would be if it’s even worse than the $500-$700 billion problem of distraction??)  It may seem as if it’s a catch 22 and nothing will work.  That’s where you are (happily) wrong!

White Noise and Sound Masking

Rather than silence noisy distractions, why not cover them?  That way workers are focused on their tasks without feeling nervous about a sterile environment.  I offer you 2 simple solutions.

1. Sound Masking.  Sound masking is the emission of white noise through speakers mounted within the ceiling tiles.  This white noise (like all white noise) is loud enough to cover distractions and even provide greater privacy levels.  You could treat as many areas as you like with no aesthetic change since the speakers are practically invisible.
2. However, if office-wide coverage is not in your budget (though with billions of dollars of loss, it may need to be), it might be time to consider individual white noise systems, such as the Sonet.  The Sonet System is also highly effective, but on an individualized basis.

To determine what you need, you might want to take a day to spend in the common office area(s).  Check out how much noise there really is, where’s it’s coming from, and how distracting it is.  As you survey your noise problem, you’ll know whether you need a larger or smaller system.

Whether your employees are less engaged and therefore less productive and more prone to making errors or your clients leave feeling harried and less than impressed, office noise is a problem no matter how you look at it.

You can’t control a crowd outside the building or even the crowd inside the building (your work force), but you can be proactive in managing these distractions.  Rather than coming down with an iron fist or moving the entire staff, why don’t you try subtler techniques, such as sound masking.

How does sound masking work?

Essentially, sound masking is the super-version of white noise.  The idea is the same- white noise (employed by sound masking) is a combination of sound from all different frequencies.  The result is that your brain can’t focus on one specific (unwanted, distracting) noise and is able to be more engaged on work.

The happy results

It may sound too good to be true, but as the following improvements show, sound masking works.  With the addition of low-level background noise, employees had the following positive results:

• Focus: the ability of office workers to focus on their tasks improved by 48%
• Distractions: “conversational distractions” decreased by 51%
• Error-rates: performance of standard “information-worker” tasks (measured in terms of accuracy [error-rates] and short-term memory) improved by 10%
• Stress: when measured in terms of the actual physical symptoms of stress, stress was reduced by 27%

It’s hard to argue with better focus, fewer distractions and mistakes, as well as lower stress.

Office Noise- it's a love/hate relationship for most.

Have you ever really listened to all the noise that takes place in your office?

Some of your employees can work through that no problem, like your sales guys, for instance- they were born to multitask, God love ‘em. However, your writers and editors cannot- each clickety-clack, ring, and new conversation distracts them from their detailed work. It’s not their fault- certain types of work require intense concentration.

The above example was actually pretty low-level background noise- you and I both know that most offices can and do escalate more than that. The problem here was that it was inconsistent- it lacked uniformity. Each different, distinct noise presented a new distraction. Surprisingly, though, low-level background noise is not such a bad thing if used correctly. In fact, many workers use white noise to provide a consistent, uniform hum to cover all the little inconsistent, irritating sounds so prevalent in an open office (like above). Similarly, a good number of companies and entities have employed sound masking units to provide uniform coverage for entire offices. The result has been increased productivity and less distracted (read that happier and less stressed) workers.

Note that work does not trump anything.

If you google  distracted at work, you might be surprised at what you find.  While you hope your employees are committed to their jobs and focused on their tasks, one glance at this site will set you straight.  Based on the number of websites and blogs devoted to passing time during your work day, it’s a fair guess that many workers choose to be distracted by email, iPhones, texting, messaging, coworkers, etc.  On the other hand, many of your workers do want to concentrate on their work, only to find themselves held hostage by office noise or the target of the distracted coworker previously described.

Regardless of how many of each kind of worker you have, office distractions are a given.  In fact, the average worker loses more than 2 hours every day to them.  Don’t be alarmed- there are many courses of action you can take to prevent office noise from killing productivity.

According to Associated Content, here are few active steps you can take to minimize distractions:

• Know yourself and what distracts you
• Change your atmosphere if necessary (turn down music, for instance)
• Limit computer distractions to certain times of day or a certain number of times (such as checking your email 3 xs/day)
• Don’t take calls unless convenient for you; you can call back
• Shorten conversations with coworkers, and if that doesn’t work,
• Nicely confront distracting coworkers

Unfortunately, these steps are only effective for the self-motivated, and self-aware worker.  If the worker does not care about the time frittered away to distraction, neither will he care to implement time-saving steps.  In that case, it might be wise to install a sound masking system office-wide.  These units are particularly helpful for open offices.

Whatever route you choose, know that you are working in the best interests of not only your workers, but also your company.

It is believed that El Nino may have contributed to the 1993 Mississippi and 1995 California floods, drought conditions in South America, Africa and Australia. It is also believed that El Nino contributed to the lack of serious storms such as hurricanes in the North Atlantic which spared states like Florida from serious storm related damage.

Akin to every storm attributed to El Nino, every loss in the business world is lamented as the latest prey of the wretched economy.

Ebb & Flow

It’s easy to blame the economy for less than ideal profits.  And, similar to weather patterns, the economy does seem to have a sort of natural (and inevitable) ebb and flow.  It is futile to resist it.  However, that does not mean that your business has to ebb and flow accordingly.  Desperate times call for creative measures.  You may not have as many resources as you’d ideally like, but every company has the same amount of one invaluable resource: time.  No one has figured out how to get more than 24 hours from a day. Unfortunately, most employees have figured out a way to get even less time on the job: distractions.  Whether it was technology (emails, phones, cells, texts, messaging services) conversations, or good old fashioned interruptions, in 2008 an estimated $600 billion were lost to distractions.

Make a change

If you’re not okay with that number or your business’s contribution to it, consider cutting back on company-wide distractions.  Whether it’s restructuring the office (saying farewell to cubicles) or alternative solutions such as sound masking, it’s time to be productive again.   Don’t be another victim- be proactive.

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.

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.